Since their emergence from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the 1960s, the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago have created a distinctive multidisciplinary performance practice centered on collective improvisation. In this article, Steinbeck conceptualizes Art Ensemble improvisations as networks of group interactions, and he analyzes an excerpt from a 1972 Art Ensemble concert recording using a phenomenological perspective informed by his conversations with the group about the performance and by my own experience as an improvised-music practitioner. The analysis focuses on the integration of composed material into the improvisatory process, the functions of stylistic diversity and multi-instrumentalism in Art Ensemble performance practice, and the interactive roles played by Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors, and Don Moye.