NYC Winter Jazzfest Insights
Memories of Winter Jazz Breezy
By Piotr Orlov
After the late trumpeter jaimie branch moved to New York in 2015, she was a regular at pretty much all Winter Jazzfests that followed. Breezy loved that, over the course of its hectic week, she could get a few different gigs in, at least one that would inevitably feature her own proj- ects — whether the jaimie branch quartet that was soon renamed Fly Or Die, or her electronic improvisation duo Anteloper — but also because it gave her the opportunity to play with others, finding new contexts and adventures, some that would lead to lasting collaborations, some never to be heard from again.
Of the numerous times I saw branch perform at WJF, the after-hours jam session at Nublu in 2019 is the one that stands out most vividly. Not because it was any version of “the best” or “most unique” that she offered — those might have been at a 2018 Fly Or Die gig where the vi- braphonist Joel Ross was added to the group, or her participation in the one-time-only reading of Ornette Coleman’s “Free Jazz” that paired the electric power-trio Harriet Tubman with James Brandon Lewis’ Unruly band, which branch’s trumpet helped make even rowdier. The reason that late-Friday night at Nublu has long loomed in my mind is that it gave me the greatest sense of jaimie branch as an organizer, as a charismatic magnet for other musicians, as someone who understood the creative moment, had the artistic power to both control it and let it flow, and who had the smarts and the will to make it happen. Prior, I’d already known and loved jaimie branch as a fearless player; that night I fell for her as a potential elder and a community bed- rock.
The occasion was the first of a two-night bill called “Chicago Overground,” shows that I co-pro- duced with International Anthem’s Scottie McNiece and which featured some members of the Windy City’s “new” generation of players, many of whom were jaimie’s old friends, compatriots, collaborators. So of course she wanted to be involved—except that she was booked to play elsewhere in the festival, and we were looking to feature folks who had no other gigs, and
were coming in from Chi. That said, Scottie and I had already discussed having open late-night sessions as each evening’s closing programs, and wanted Chicago affiliates to lead: Breezy grabbed the chance, with bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Warren Trae Crudup III (the exper- imental thrashers in Blacks’ Myths who were also the rhythm section for Unruly) as her wing- men. And off they went, starting at around 1 a.m.
It was the tail-end of a loooong WJF marathon night. Nublu on Loisaida Ave is a bit of a haul from the clustered congregation of Village jazz clubs, and the temperature was well below freezing, with East River gusts reaching deep below the layers and into the bones. The cynic in me wasn’t sure just how well-attended the jam was going to be–which made the steady stream of musicians who walked through the door with their various axes (horns, reeds, guitars–a keytar!) that much more surprising. As jaimie, Luke and Trae initiated a joyful noise, the would- be participants began lining Nublu’s stage-left staircase, beneath the painting of Miles, waiting for the cue that would signal their turn at glory. And there was Breezy, her tone a full-force gale, the witching hour driving the sorcery, turning towards the initiates and welcoming them onto the stage. With her eyes and a gesture of her horn, she conducted, coached, and paced them, first feeding them a musical worm, then making way for them to leave the nest. Or, if they were sloppy or unprepared, brutally cutting them off, as she did one drunken saxophonist, uncer- emoniously booting him from the stage. You did not cross her—she meant business. But this business was in the name of a greater truth. The music would take wide turns: originating in the melody-heavy changes of standards, with the central trio always moments away from galloping happily off a cliff. Before going on, the initiates’ faces held expressions somewhere between fear, adulation and eagerness. Afterward, most had the dead-eyed stare of someone disem- barking a rollercoaster a little more thrilling than expected: “Do I go again?” “Will she let me?”
Of course she would let them. As Luke wrote in a wonderful poem after jaimie’s tragic passing on August 22, “Breezy is Love.” And one reason I believe that to be 100% true is that love means a belief in the future, a belief in the people helping create it, which, in jaimie’s case has always meant the community of musicians dreaming up that sonic about-to-be, together in real time. This, then, is what the “Flock Up and Fly” gathering is all about, taking place on that same stage where I saw jaimie branch participate in above-the-line community-building. Her old friends
will be there, her recent ones as well, maybe even some of the initiates, the assholes and the clowns. Breezy will be there too, the angel and the devil on everyone’s shoulder. It’s at Winter Jazzfest, no way she’d miss it.
Remembering Meghan Stabile: An Interview with Igmar Thomas
By Kyla Marshell
Before there was Revive Music Group, its Blue Note Records imprint, or a dedicated stage at Winter Jazzfest, Revive Da Live, the presenter and promoter of progressive jazz artists and events, was Meghan Stabile’s senior project at Berklee. The way she saw it, she couldn’t believe that this wealth of music existed without more fanfare from her own generation. In shows that combined the foundations of jazz with more contemporary elements of hip-hop, Meghan created a new pathway for artists who have since become household names—Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, and Thundercat are a few—to make authentic music unbound by genre. Besides her business acumen, she was also a sweet, kind, caring and funny person. I used to sit across from her in makeshift offices—cafes, bars, and her living room—learning about the busi- ness side of music as a young, new-to-New York person trying to figure things out.
Underneath the day-to-day of this figuring, Meghan was changing my life, in ways both mundane and profound. And this, I’ve learned over these last months of mourning and memorializing her, is a common story. She called herself the Supreme Uniter, and for a reason: she brought togeth- er an untold number of musicians who in turn created something that will live on long beyond her lifetime.
Igmar Thomas, trumpet player and director of the Revive Big Band, bore witness to Meghan’s vision from the very beginning, from their freshman year at Berklee, to now, as he carries on Meghan’s legacy.
What was unique about Meghan’s approach to working with artists?
Her passion and her determination. She was a woman that was getting it done. She was a closer. A lot of people have great ideas, but she took her ideas and many of them came true. And it wasn’t easy. I was with her, and she really put all her time into it. She was doing that more than school. She really hustled and was able to close on notable artists, and get a big enough bud- get to make it happen. A lot of people don’t go that far, and she kept doing that and every time it was bigger and bigger.
What do you think her influence has been on the music and jazz communities?
What I was told was it shaped people’s soundtrack of New York. They’d hear the music, see the videos and want to move there. They’d come to our shows. Revive allowed people to be themselves in the 21st century. Because of the conservatism at that point—there were a lot of people that were afraid, whether you say they’re playing hip-hop, or soul, anything but swing, from a jazz perspective. Meg, with her production, made [this style of music] more normalized and widely accepted, and exposed it to the people who were not in touch. People could be themselves as opposed to getting boxed into the “jazz education system.”
Can you talk about her commitment to wellness? How can the music community incorporate this element of Meghan’s mission into their work and lives?
Music is therapy. We all realize it. She used it for herself and others and that’s what she wanted to continue to do and that’s what she was doing. There’s many different approaches. Hers was more of a world music, East Asian approach. Whether you’re listening to drones or you’re lis- tening to a Faith Evans song, everybody has a certain subjective itch that music can scratch. She was finding another avenue for musicians to easily come in and find awareness, understanding, healing, or just give. She was very fierce about that.
What musicians can do from a creative aspect is highlight [wellness], understand it, be aware
of it as opposed to writing something cool or convenient for the radio. Look at it from a film scoring perspective, almost. What emotions exactly are you trying to emote? And be moral. Be responsible. Sometimes take a song or two and heal somebody. I think that’s what the goal and the mission was.
What do you want people to remember about Meghan?
The determination, the work ethic, the vigor. Even when things weren’t working out. She turned a nickel into a dime and dime into a dollar.
How can we honor her legacy?
Live music. Live live music. Support it in all its forms. Whether it’s attending a show, or the instru- ments are live on the record. Supporting musicians’ creativity. Supporting the analog and the live musician, and their rights. That’s what Revive started for.
A Conversation with Terri Lyne Carrington
By Naomi Extra
On a chilly January afternoon in 2018, WJF hosted the “Jazz and Gender: Challenging Inequality and Forging a New Legacy” panel to a room jam-packed and buzzing with energy. Angela Davis, Lara Pellegrinelli, Arnetta Johnson, Vijay Iyer, and Esperanza Spalding spoke, with Terri Lyne Carrington as moderator. Since 2018, a great deal has happened in the world of “jazz and gender.” I caught up with Carrington to talk about the new book that she edited, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers and the New Standards Live perfor- mance at WJF this year. Here, Carrington shares insights on where we are in the jazz and gen- der conversation in 2023, and why not just equality, but justice is crucial to this movement.
Would you mind sharing a little bit of the backstory of the book?
I had some students that had trouble finding compositions by women artists. And it’s not just the students. Over the years, people have mentioned that it’s hard to find songs written by women in the jazz canon. I hadn’t really thought about it a whole lot because we’re all just out here playing. And those of us that are performers mostly play original music.
For those who might not know, what are jazz standards and why do they matter?
Part of what makes them a standard is the form in some ways, but also that people have made it their business to learn these songs and play them over the years. And so we had the old standards from the Tin Pan Alley days. Then, we had newer standards-–Miles Davis, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane. [But] who made these decisions? Women have been left out of that canon, for the most part. So I thought, let’s put together a collection of songs.
I wanted [the book] to span a long period of time. It’s about 99 years, starting with Lil Hardin Armstrong to some recent Berklee grads.
What are some of your goals for the book?
I want everyone to be invested in the future of the music and take ownership in something that doesn’t necessarily reflect their exact [identity] group. I want for my male colleagues to not just support the book because they know me. I want them to support it because they re- ally feel it’s important, that the voices that have been left out need to be acknowledged, and [because] they think there’s some music in there that would resonate with them.
Tell me about the New Standards Live performance that will be happening at WJF.
What can people expect?
It’s to highlight the music from the book. We have four sets with four different combinations of players. It’ll feature people who are composers in the book and will be rounded off by some other New York musicians. There will also be a set of the Next Jazz Legacy Emerging Artists from the apprenticeship and mentorship program that we’ve done in collaboration with New Music USA.
I remember seeing you moderate the Jazz and Gender panel at WJF back in 2018. Can you share some of your reflections on that moment and where you are with your thinking now? 2018 is the year that our [Jazz and Gender] Institute [at Berklee College of Music] started.
It was all kind of new to me. I wasn’t sure what to even name the Institute. I was thinking “gender equity.” It was pointed out to me by my friends Angela Davis and Gina Dent that I needed to use the word “justice” because you can have equity without having justice, without changing the conditions that created the inequity in the first place. I started to understand more about the importance of words.
Have things progressed, in terms of the widespread call for gender justice and equity in jazz?
I think things have changed since then [and] are in the process of changing. I go back and forth because I’d like to think that eventually one day we’ll be able to check off a box and say, “Okay, we did that in jazz. Now there’s equity, now there’s justice.” But I don’t think it works quite like that. I would be very happy to see jazz and gender get to a place where everybody can pursue their dreams and not have quite as many burdens to deal with. I do see some change and that’s really exciting and inspiring because it makes you want to keep doing the work when you see a groundswell of momentum.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Saluting Pharoah Sanders
By Willard Jenkins
NEA Jazz Master and spiritual beacon, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, who joined the ancestors last September 24, was an honored Winter Jazzfest presence. He headlined a 2017 WJF bill opened by one of his acolytes, Afro-Brit quest-agent Shabaka Hutchings and one of his several assemblages, The Ancestors. Two years later, Pharoah returned to reprise his burning presence on the 50th anniversary performance of Gary Bartz’s classic recording Another Earth.
On this WJF occasion, guitarist, guitar synthesist, and aural architect Nate Mercereau will focus on Sanders’ 1974 Impulse! Records date, Elevation. Mercereau, a committed devotee of free improvisation and spontaneous composition, addresses his core instrument with a sense of twisted adventure that brings to mind the man Rolling Stone once labeled the “Avant-Gui- tar Godfather,” the ancestor Sonny Sharrock. The godfather of improvised guitar skronk, Sharrock made several sessions with the great saxophonist, including on Sanders’ pivotal 1966 Impulse! session Tauhid.
Born Ferrell Lee Sanders on October 13, 1940 in Little Rock, AR, the man who became Pharoah Sanders, he of the extended, multiphonic tenor saxophone technique, was initially introduced to the broader public as a member of John Coltrane’s mid-60s extended, incen- diary spiritual quest unit. In the new book Ain’t But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story, (Duke University Press, 2022; edited by this writer), the Anthology section reprints a 1965 DownBeat Magazine review by A.B. Spellman headed, “Trane + 7 = a Wild Night at the Gate,” where Spellman recalls the visceral contributions of Pharoah to Coltrane’s extended assemblage:
“Sanders followed [Carlos] Ward, and he is the damndest tenor player in the English lan- guage,” Spellman enthused. “He went on for minute after minute in a register that I didn’t know the tenor had. Those special effects that most tenor men use only in moments of high orgiastic excitement are the basic premises of his presentation. His use of overtones, includ- ing a cultivated squeak that parallels his line, is constantly startling. He plays way above the upper register; long slurred lines and squeaky monosyllabic staccatos, and then closes with some kind of Bushman’s nursery rhyme. Pharoah is ready, and you’ll be hearing from him soon.” And indeed we did, starting most broadly with Sanders’ brilliant, and by turns prayerful and incendiary Impulse! recordings Tauhid (1966) and Karma (1969), which introduced Leon Thomas’ vocal hypnosis through the deeply impactful anthem “The Creator Has a Master Plan.”
The ensuing 57 years have hardly dampened author Spellman’s enthusiasm for Pharoah. “When I wrote that Pharoah Sanders is the damndest tenor saxophonist in the English lan- guage,” Spellman expressed recently, “I was thinking of the whole man with his country boy gait and his silent, introspective demeanor. But mostly, I was mentally replaying some sounds that he had made on his horn that wouldn’t leave me. Sounds that were exclusively his, sounds that seemed thrown out of the bell with a jet force and a shrapnel edge. If you were open to this music, these sounds could reorder your sensibilities. He always had new ones or new ways of placing them within the progressions of the band. Like Coltrane, his leader, and Albert Ayler, his peer, he was sui generis.”
Such is the sensibility Mercereau and friends will strive mightily to bring to Winter Jazzfest. Theirs will be a quest for the often ecstatic truth and intrepid furiosity Pharoah Sanders delivered on his 1973 Impulse! date Elevation. That record included the contributions of Joe Bonner on piano, harmonium, wood flute and percussion; bassist Calvin Hill, who also con- tributed tambura; drummer-percussionists Michael Carvin, Lawrence Killian, John Blue, and Kenneth Nash; and vocalist Sedatrius Brown. Doubtless Elevation’s extended explorations, in- cluding the opening title track, which clocks in at 18:02, and the rapturous piece “The Gather- ing” (13:52 on record) with Sanders emoting at Herculean levels, will be points of Mercereau’s performance given the leader’s spontaneous composition sense of sound architecture.
The influence of Pharoah Sanders remains indelible, whether on key observers like A.B. Spellman and the legion of writers who encountered the saxophonist-conceptualist beyond his Coltrane entry point, or on subsequent generations of musicians, like Mercereau and his cohorts. Such is certainly the case with newly minted NEA Jazz Master, alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett. Pharoah joined Kenny on the bandstand at The Iridium for the altoist’s 2008 Mack Avenue record Sketches of MD. A mentor of sorts for Garrett, Kenny today says, “The lasting impact of Pharoah Sanders was his quest for the truth, speaking his truth through his saxo- phone, and allowing the listener to take part in his journey. The lasting impact of Pharoah was the sermons he spoke every time he breathed air into his saxophone. His courage to allow the listener to share his everyday ups and downs of life. His quest for the truth at whatever the cost.”
Honoring Marshall Allen
By Gilles Peterson
As a broadcaster, DJ and record collector, Sun Ra’s LPs have always been enticing, rare, pre-discogs–limited edition works of art. I can definitely recall the buzz we experienced when Ra, complete with wolfskin fur hat, arrived at Jazz FM in the early 90s to be interviewed by Jez Nelson. We were young and Ra was out there—mysterious, like no one else we’d ever met.
Jumping across time to 2015, it was the arrival of the Arkestra, under the direction of Marshall Allen, for a residency at Cafe Oto in Dalston that set the scene for a creative connection with the new jazz generation in London. Shabaka Hutchings was invited to join the Ark- estra. He went on tour with them. He loved that they all had tasks. Marshall was in control of the sheet music. They were wild. You had the beautiful Danny Thomson on baritone, “Flying Knoel” Scott singing and dancing-–and you had Marshall. Nobody in this universe plays alto like Marshall Allen.
Over time I’ve been lucky to present the Arkes- tra live at my festivals—Worldwide in Sete and We Out Here in the UK this summer coming– and just to complete this vignette, I have to recall a recent conversation with Ahmet Ulug of Omni Sound. We were chatting about the new LP and he dropped a little bomb saying, “You know what, the best track isn’t even on the album!” It turns out there’s a track with that deep Lanquidity vibe—so I’m definitely hyped. I need to hear it. Basically, Marshall felt there was something not quite right about it so it’s still in the can and, for me, that’s Marshall. He’s 98 and he still gives a fuck! He’s amazing.
Honoring Marshall Allen
By Ahmet Ulug
“Marshall Allen is a giant. There is no alto saxophonist I know today, or generally, hipper than Marshall. That this is not common knowledge is depressing.” Proclaimed in the early 90s by Amiri Baraka, these words still ring true in 2023, and Marshall deserves all the recognition he can get, especially during his lifetime.
Marshall Allen is a living cultural heritage icon. At 98 years old, 75 years with Sun Ra Arkestra, and the last 28 years as the director, he still lives in the now-historic Sun Ra house in Philadelphia, recording and performing. Considering Sun Ra’s beginnings with Fletcher Henderson, it is fair to claim that Marshall’s reach goes back through the last 100 years of jazz history.
I am one of those people whose life has been altered by Sun Ra, and it became my karmic duty to show my gratitude by recording the Arkestra under Marshall Allen’s leadership. First, let’s take a look back. Marshall joined the proto-Black Power movement of Sun Ra in 1958, and lived, rehearsed, recorded, and toured with Sun Ra almost exclusively.
After Sun Ra’s retreat from planet earth in 1993, Marshall became the musical director of the Arkestra. By writing new arrangements of Sun Ra’s music and composing new music, Marshall has launched the Arkestra into a dimension beyond that of a mere “ghost” band while preserving the aesthetic and distinct sound of Sun Ra.
Today, the Arkestra continues to spread Sun Ra’s philosophy of utilizing music to influence and enlighten. It is electrifying to witness the increasing popularity of the Arkestra among young generations of fans, artists, and schol- ars.
In 2020, at the height of Covid, I realized the urgency of needing to record the Arkestra, and make it as much about Marshall as it was about Sun Ra. I proceeded to contact Elson, the manager of the band, with the idea for an instrumental album.
With Covid restrictions easing in June 2021, the chance to record the album became
more tangible, and we set the date. The day before the session, I wrote a letter to Marshall. Knowing the capacity of the Arkestra, I defined our commission with some keywords: healing, accessible, spiritual, and hypnotic. With no further discussions and no questions asked, Marshall decided on the music to record.
On June 15, 2021, the day started with a prayer. There were 20 musicians in the studio along with the spirit of Sun Ra. Marshall led the Arkestra with endless enthusiasm and energy. All musicians were in total synergy as if certain motifs were intrinsically formatted in them. At the end of the day, Marshall was happy, and everyone felt enlightened one more time.
This recording became the album Living Sky. It is an homage to the legacy of Marshall Allen as well as the living heritage of Sun Ra.
The Pandemic: Moving Forward with Common Purpose
By Natalie Weiner
During jazz’s century, the music has seen so much peril as to be perceived as perpetually on life support. That perception is most frequently associated with aesthetic and commercial threats: the imagined harm wrought by shocking innovation, the dilution that comes with popularity, the struggle that comes without it.
But the genre, vast as it is, has survived massive external challenges as well. Wars dragged talented musicians away from their art and into the service, and limited the availability of recording materials. Natural disasters have often threatened its commonly accepted birthplace, New Orleans, and the people and places there that are both so intrinsic to it even today. And yes, pandemics have come and gone.
The 1918 influenza pandemic, the “most severe in recent history” according to the CDC, arrived a year after one of the first “jass” recordings was made in 1917. It posed an enormous threat to the burgeoning musical revolution for the same reasons we’re now familiar with: being in close proximity to others, as one would have been in an intimate New Orleans club, became dangerous. Louis Armstrong was 17 years old when the pandemic hit, and according to his autobiography, never got sick — but club closures around the city did “force [him] to take any odd jobs [he] could get,” as he wrote later.
Given the hurdles musicians have already overcome to make this music, it’s no surprise that many in the jazz world have greeted the coronavirus pandemic with some defiance. “How has the pandemic changed jazz? The short answer is, it hasn’t,” says Rio Sakairi, artistic director at New York’s Jazz Gallery. “What’s really at the core of who we are is not going to change over something like this.”
Yet there have been obvious challenges posed by the pandemic that included every aspect of music-making. Clubs could not safely open. Musicians could not gather to record, or travel to perform or collaborate, or teach their students. Festivals like Winter Jazzfest were not tenable, and even the 2022 edition had to be postponed. Organizations that support jazz artists and programming suddenly faced unprecedented demand for their services.
“[The need for assistance] was all consistent with the mission of the foundation, but when COVID-19 started, we were facing it on this heretofore unimagined scale,” says Joseph Petruccelli, executive director of the Jazz Foundation of America, a non-profit dedicated to supporting musicians since 1989.
What is surprising about the response to these massive problems isn’t all the ways people in the jazz community found to address them. Instead, it was the collaboration — the fact that jazzers of all stripes came together to find solutions — that was shocking. “I only like to use the word unprecedented now when it’s describing good things,” says Petruccelli, “and there was an unprecedented sense of cooperation throughout the [jazz] ecosystem.” He was able to form a consortium of label heads to brainstorm ways to help musicians, and eventually that group facilitated a JFA benefit album, Relief, released on Mack Avenue but featuring artists from six different labels.
One important collective action came with the formation of the Jazz Coalition, which Brice Rosenbloom (founder of Winter Jazzfest), Gail Boyd and Danny Melnick formed soon after the pandemic began. The Coalition includes dozens of musicians, each of whom donated personal funds in order to commission new work from their colleagues during the period when in-person performance was impossible. “We realize the need to selflessly pivot and unite the jazz community in an immediate effort to commission musicians and nurture their creativity,” Rosenbloom said at the time. Community and unity — two ideas that were rarely priorities in the jazz world prior to the beginning of the pandemic.
Of course, live-streaming and outdoor performance initiatives were crucial. The Jazz Gallery started almost immediately hosting informal online meetings with musicians, as well as online shows featuring musicians’ videotaped performances from their homes. Live-streaming from the venue itself began in June, and fans from around the world tuned in to watch artists like Vijay Iyer, Joel Ross, Ravi Coltrane and Becca Stevens. Though she cautions against thinking about silver linings of such a vast tragedy, Sakairi says, “the restrictions and the hurdles sort of gave us a direction.”
Individual artists like Cécile McLorin-Salvant and Brandee Younger devised their own modes of streaming performances from home, some paid, some free, some benefiting COVID-19 relief funds. Orrin Evans streamed a series of shows from his front yard in Philadelphia, performed in front of an intimate audience, on Facebook; stoop shows and park jams became ubiquitous in New York during the summer months.
Thanks to the vaccine, we enjoyed a period when venues slowly reopened and artists returned to the road. But the postponement of WJF 2022 and the rude emergence of Omicron as yet another unexpected roadblock to recovery have heightened the pandemic’s emotional and spiritual toll even more. Still, the jazz community found in physical isolation something that it often had been easy to feel alienated from: solidarity.
Afro-Town Topics: A Conversation with Angel Bat Dawid
By Shannon J. Effinger
For Angel Bat Dawid, fearlessness comes naturally. She survived a brain tumor diagnosis while in college. Last year, she was hospitalized for several weeks battling COVID-19. And just hours after her own COVID diagnosis, Dawid’s younger sister, who suffered from chronic asthma, died from complications due to COVID-19. What keeps her going? Her faith and a promise she made to her sister to keep going.
“My sister was my biggest cheerleader. She was so proud of me and all the music,” says Dawid during our recent phone conversation. “She wouldn't want me to be sad right now; she wants me to keep doing music and not stop because she knows it makes me happy.”
None of this has seemed to slow Dawid down. As Artist-In-Residence of this year’s Winter Jazzfest, she says that this opportunity lends her the support needed to stretch herself creatively and compose new music. The following are excerpts from our conversation, in which we discuss her career to date, the larger discourse around racism in America and some of what she has in store for this year’s installment, featuring Marshall Allen, the longtime leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra.
SJE: It's hard to fathom that nearly eight years ago, you decided to leave your job behind in pursuit of your true calling and passion for music. Has this unprecedented time allowed you any moments for reflection?
ABD: Absolutely! I slowed down my life tremendously since the pandemic. It’s just safer to quarantine as much as possible. I take care of myself a lot more. I’ll opt to sit and watch a movie with my parents instead of answering an email. Alphabetizing my record collection and listening to my extensive music collection is just as important as practicing. And I feel so much stronger and at peace with this kind of life. It just keeps getting better and better. I also decided I was not ever gonna stress about anything anymore. Stress is a bad habit, and I don’t allow it to enter into anything I do. I don’t meet DEADlines anymore, only LIFElines. I turn my phone off at night and read books in the morning and the evening, do [my] The Five Tibetan Rites [exercises], and do my work with ease — I love what I do. It’s fun. And I stay in a grateful mood. Three words keep me going: “RIGHT MENTAL ATTITUDE.” That is how one will always be rich and wealthy. I learned that from a great book, Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice by Dennis Kimbro.
“Afrofuturism,” a term first coined by writer Mark Dery, attempts to encapsulate the total breadth of the Black experience —past, present & future. Arguably, Chicago has been a haven for Afrofuturist artists, thinkers, and storytellers. If you can express it in words, how have ChiTown and the tenets of Afrofuturism shaped you and your artistic expression?
I have the same reservations about “Afrofuturism” that I have with the word “jazz.” Afrofuturism is what they are calling this surge of Black expressionism. With that being said, if a term is going to be used to describe what I do, I want to be the person in charge of defining it and not some white person’s twisted idea of what Blackness is, especially in regard to the arts.
This time has finally allowed honest conversations on racial injustice in this country and worldwide. I feel, in many ways, your LIVE album — and the ordeal you experienced in Berlin — has helped significantly to move us forward in actually discussing race/racism. More needs to be done. What does “change” in this regard look like for you?
Change means that this whole system must be destroyed, not understood or accepted anymore, but completely eradicated. Racism is like a beautiful, delicious, gorgeous chocolate cake that someone made for you, but they put a molecule or more of shit in it. I don’t care how tasty and delicious that cake is; it’s still a shit cake. And that’s what we live in. Racism is in everything. During the pandemic, I did this virtual performance video explaining how racism is in everything. It’s based on the work and research of Neely Fuller Jr., who said, “If you don't understand white supremacy/racism, everything that you do understand will only confuse you.”
Marshall Allen is one of the most underrated living giants of this music. It feels very much like he’s passing the baton along to you. Describe what it has been like to record, perform and collaborate with Allen in the last few years.
Dreams come true! All I can say is that I’m humbled and utterly grateful and have wept tears of joy to not only meet my sonic heroes but to actually perform with them. Marshall Allen has contributed to my next album coming out this fall, Cry of Jazz. I mixed the whole project, so when I was sent the Marshall Allen stems, I was in my home studio just amazed to have these recordings of him, hearing his breath and the chills of his powerful tone in my headphones. I just couldn’t believe that this was happening and still happening. I’m just amazed, humbled, and hope to continue the legacy of preserving this Black music so well like Sun Ra and all the other spiritual musicians who left us with such important works!
“AFRO-TOWN TOPICS: A MYTHOLOGICAL AFROFUTURIST REVUE” — can you break down what this will entail? Will it combine performance and discussion?
So here’s the scoop on “Afro-Town.” A few months ago, I was in my studio, and “Sunny Side of The Street” popped into my head. I was humming it all day. I went to look it up, and this is what I found: “On the Sunny Side of the Street” is a 1930 song composed by Jimmy McHugh with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Some authors say that Fats Waller was the composer, but he sold the rights to the song.
Red fucking flag—white people are stealing [Black] peoples’ things and claiming it as their own AGAIN. This led me down a road researching Tin Pan Alley and its racist ways. Fast forward into this millennium, there’s still this messed up music industry doing the same thing.
I started researching more about these great composers (Fats Waller, Andy Razaf, and James P. Johnson). They were highly accomplished composers, lyricists, poets with operas and symphonies, etc., but never taken seriously, and where their work was mostly stolen or sold.
People sold their music because they got families and mouths to feed. I had to know more, so I ordered this piano roll LP of Fats Waller's music, and mysteriously, a few paragraphs were circled in red on the back of the record.
One was addressed to Johnson (being Fats Waller's mentor). I looked up the address on Airbnb and found that there was a space in the same building. I also saw that Johnson’s scores were under lock and key at Rutgers. So I began making plans to go to New York to stay at JPS, study his work, and compose something from the research.
I emailed Rutgers and said I was vaxxed and would wear 100 masks and social distance, and could I come through and look at the scores. I got a response of denial because they were only open to students due to COVID, etc. Now I didn’t want to shoot the messenger. Still, I was outraged because here I am, a Black composer wanting to study the works of the Black composers. This institution that is so proud of having his collections is denying a young Black composer access to something that I should have access to.
I told the librarian that it was unacceptable and even emailed the president about how frustrating this was and to make an exception. A few days later, the librarian hit me up, and he just so happened to be Black. He said his hands were tied, but he completely understood and agreed with me.
He even went so far as to send me copies from the over $200 rare book about Johnson, written of course by a white male. It was a nice gesture, and I was very appreciative, but I'm still furious with these white-led institutions and schools. Are they accommodating, or are they doing the right thing?
Anyway, this squashed my hopeful journey, but a few days later, Winter Jazzfest hit me up about being Artist-in-Residence this year. And then I knew… ahhhh, that's why I felt the need to go to NYC.
So I did more research about Fats Waller and his wonderful handsome cohort from Madagascar, Andy Razaf. This duo was responsible for “Ain't Misbehavin’,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” etc. These songs came from a big hit musical revue called Connie’s Hot Chocolates.
So for the residency, I decided I was gonna write a musical revue like my heroes. Connie’s Hot Chocolates was originally called Tan Town Topics, Tan being white folks they thought that title would get them on Broadway. So I decided to do Afro-Town Topics. And the rest has been a magical journey.
Afro-Town Topics is a musical news broadcast. The news reports come from Ebonys, Jets, books in my library and are broken up into the important topics of Afro-Town. I adore Sun Ra because he called himself a Myth Scientist, and mythology has stories that point to important truths. Fables and parables hold rich and beautiful information that can never be stolen or sold.
“Sing me your folks songs, and I’ll tell you about the character customs and history of your people,” a quote from the great Paul Robeson, so Afro-Town is a mythological space with a lot of truths and mystery. Musical revues mix music and dance, skits, and comedy, and I knew I wanted to work on something like this for my residency.
Now that WJF has been postponed once again due to COVID-19, what else can we expect from you in this largely virtual format of the program?
Well, the slice of delicious pie is because I am in Chicago, my home, so I can actually do more because the expenses of traveling and putting folks up in hotels took up most of my budget. Being here in Chicago made it so I could actually have more musicians and pay them all more money. And everyone in this ensemble has the best Chicago has to offer, all Black and all my good friends I love dearly. And with Afro-Town being a news show, having it done virtually makes sense. I still have all the plans of doing Afro-Town live in front of an audience. I can’t wait for that day!
The Tally: Jazz Carries On in the Midst of Terrible Losses
By Michael J. West
The spirit of the late Ralph Peterson — drummer, composer, bandleader, educator, all-around bad motherfucker and steadfast friend of Winter Jazzfest — might best be exemplified by his last words to a colleague. “If the Grim Reaper is coming for me,” he said, “he better bring a friend.”
Nobody could doubt it: When Ralph died of cancer on March 1, 2021, he’d given everything he had. But then, he’d done that all his life. He was a force of nature. His boundless energy and devotion to the music touched countless colleagues, protégés and students. Before its postponement on account of Omicron, Winter Jazzfest planned to bring together a healthy cross-section of all of these — saxophonists Bill Pierce, Craig Handy, and Tia Fuller; trumpeter Brian Lynch; bassist Essiet Essiet; and drummer Tyshawn Sorey — at Dizzy’s on January 18. Yet if it was Peterson’s name and memory on the marquee, it tacitly stood in for the scores of tragic losses the jazz community has endured since the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic began.
The piano titan McCoy Tyner passed away on March 6, 2020, a year (almost to the day) before Peterson. At the time, it was a tragic, heartbreaking occasion—but not an unexpected one. Tyner had been in ill health for quite some time; two years prior, at a gig at Washington DC’s Blues Alley, he had only been able to participate in half his own set. It was hard at that time to see Tyner’s death as the harbinger of a jazz-casualty avalanche.
The same day Tyner died, 21 passengers on a California cruise ship tested positive for COVID. A week later a national emergency and a worldwide pandemic had been declared, and it had claimed the life of saxophonist Marcelo Peralta in Spain. Then saxophonist Manu Dibango in Cameroon. A few days later it reached New York jazz via pianist Mike Longo. Then, in the space of two days, Wallace Roney, Ellis Marsalis and Bucky Pizzarelli. At that point it became clear that a catastrophe was unfolding.
I know this chronology well: I am the de facto obituarist for JazzTimes magazine. By the end of 2020, I had written 40 obits. As of this writing I have written 35 more. There are nearly 20 more jazz obituaries that I did not write these past two years. Jazz has likely never had such a sustained period of major losses.
Coronavirus isn’t the sole culprit. Tyner’s death was not COVID-related; neither were the deaths of Tony Allen, Jimmy Cobb, Freddy Cole, Chick Corea, Stanley Cowell, Jimmy Heath, Frank Kimbrough, Jymie Merritt, George Mraz or Ralph Peterson. But it’s hard not to see a sort of collateral damage. What the virus couldn’t kill by direct infection, it sapped by way of the lockdowns that shut performances all over the world. More than a few jazz musicians have described playing live as their “lifeblood”; figurative or not, when that lifeblood is cut off, what’s left?
It wasn’t only musicians that we lost. Broadcasters (Thurston Briscoe, Eulis Cathey, and Bob Porter), journalists (Stanley Crouch, Pamela Espeland, W. Royal Stokes, and Greg Tate), recording engineers (Al Schmitt), club owners (Gino Moratti, Joe Segal), festival producers (Bill Royston, George Wein), and even record store owners (Bob Koester) are all important members of the jazz community. Their losses are keenly felt by their peers and those who knew, loved, or were in any way affected by them.
If you’re reading this, that surely includes you. Any one of us can name great musicians whose work changed our life, whether a headliner like Corea or a sideman like Eugene Wright (who wasn’t seduced by his drum solo on Brubeck’s “Take Five”?). Yet you might also have had your first hearing of a favorite tune on Eulis Cathey’s shows at WBGO or SiriusXM. You might have gotten angry at “Putting the White Man in Charge,” or another one of Stanley Crouch’s provocative columns. You might have bought an old Coltrane or Elmore James album at the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago or had a wild time at New Orleans JazzFest one year, no matter what kind of music you were listening to. In any of those instances, your thanks go to someone who passed away these last two years.
Of course, if this time is mainly defined in our minds by the pandemic, it’s also a question of time itself. Jazz is now over a century old: 105 years just in recordings. Now, more than ever, the spectrum of elders in the jazz community (regardless of occupation) crosses multiple generations. Some of them had already spent multiple generations under stressful conditions: touring, hustling and stretching to make ends meet, at the very least. There are, of course, other and more unsavory aspects. The jazz life has never been easy. There’s no shortage of songs or stories over the last century or so to remind us of that.
Of course, even the elders can seem like superheroes, with a lifetime of staring down and overcoming adversities that would break the backs of us mere mortals. Henry Grimes and Giuseppi Logan come to mind, living lives (and dying deaths) of uncanny parallels. Both were born in 1935 in Philadelphia; both came to New York and staked out niches in the then-burgeoning free jazz movement; both struggled with mental illness that removed them from the scene and sometimes pushed them into homelessness. In the 21st century, both re-emerged and made astonishing, much-fêted comebacks (Grimes in 2003, Logan in 2009), restoring themselves in the jazz firmament. Both, after those turns of events, looked somehow invincible… which somehow increased the tragedy of their final parallel: Grimes and Logan both died in New York, both 84 years old, both from COVID, three days apart.
Or there’s Lee Konitz, whose career spanned an astonishing 75 years: He’d played for so long, and with so many, that when he passed on April 15, 2020 (incidentally the same day as Grimes), the very idea of a jazz world without him was inconceivable. A massive stroke in 2011, followed by another decade of health issues, had barely even slowed him down. How could we lose this indomitable spirit, a mere whippersnapper of 92?
Then there’s Ralph Peterson. He’d fought a long battle with cocaine addiction and lived to tell the tale. (Which he often did, with dignity and fortitude; if you attended WJF in 2020, you may remember him co-hosting a talk on the subject.) In the years that followed, he endured diabetes, morbid obesity, Bell’s palsy, and two bouts of cancer. It is no exaggeration to say that with each affliction, he emerged stronger than ever. When cancer came knocking a third time, it seemed all but certain that he’d notch yet another victory. “Even if the treatment knocks me down to 70 percent, I’m confident that 70 percent of Ralph Peterson is equivalent to 150 percent of most people,” he told me in 2018.
“But I’m not worrying about that,” he added. “The music is my path to immortality.”
If Ralph is a representative of all the jazz world’s recent casualties, let this stand as the epitaph for all of them as well. The music — whether they performed it, enabled it, presented it, marketed it, broadcast it or inspired debate about it — is each of their paths to immortality. No matter how many friends he brings, the Grim Reaper can’t take that.
This Is A Movement
By Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Caroline Davis and Aja Burrell Wood
What’s it like to be a woman in jazz?
This age-old question is often asked of musicians who happen to be female. But is it the right question? What about other questions that point to non-dominant groups of musicians experiencing unequal representation and opportunity in this industry? What about others who are marginalized as a result of race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and/or age?
The inequities that exist in this music are broad-ranging and we believe can be remedied by zooming out and considering the culture of the music as a whole. More helpful questions therefore might be:
Who has been left out of or behind in the dominant narrative of this music and why?
What does a transformation of culture that includes everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, class, race, etc., look like?
Melba Liston once said in an interview, “First you are a jazz musician, then you are black, then you are a female. I mean, it goes down the line like that. We’re like the bottom of the heap.” Melba’s words represent the common sentiments of many women in her generation and still ring true today. From sexism on the bandstand to being shuffled to the side of bookings and networking opportunities, women, non-binary, gender-nonconforming and other marginalized musicians in this industry face similar mistreatments, placing them also at the bottom of the heap.
To confront this reality, we have come together to present This Is A Movement: Towards Liberation, a Jazz & Gender convening.
This Is A Movement did not appear out of thin air. It arose from a feeling of necessity to offer space for listening, learning and exploration via panel discussions, questions, research presentations and smaller group exchanges and deep dives. Those of us responsible for initiating this gathering do not claim to own any initiatives or ideas, nor do we mean for it to be hierarchical in nature. Rather, this initiative has grown out of the work of numerous individuals’ ideas and labor, intellectual and otherwise.
We believe it is important to recognize that this is just as much about acknowledging the tireless work that has been done, as it is about continuing to challenge ourselves to live up to the legacy and labor of those who came before us. We’re standing on the shoulders of Black feminist thought leaders such as Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith and bell hooks; intersectional scholars such as Anna Julia Cooper and Kimberlé Crenshaw; activists and community organizers such as Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer; and a great many under-celebrated and under-represented musicians.
Our initiative aims to create a space in which individuals, institutions and organizations interested in doing equity work can come together and start to build a more effective model for what this industry can be. Within our ever-expanding network the goal is to come together to exchange, imagine and create. Conversation and dialogue are both essential to making This Is A Movement long-lasting and impactful.
However, musicians cannot be solely responsible for this effort. The industry and current power structures include many more than the musicians. Curators, writers, editors, educational institutions, venues, festivals and others desiring equity have a stake in this endeavor as well. Our This Is A Movement gathering will therefore include and invite all of these individuals into one conversation space in an effort to level the playing field and have meaningful discussion.
We encourage our collective community to join us in co-creating what has the potential to be a fully realized, equitable present and future in service of this rich art form; a future in which the music can thrive and progress more than we ever thought was possible for generations to come.