Extraordinary how potent cheap music is…
— Noel Coward

No truer words have ever been spoken (and thanks to WBGO deejay Sheila Anderson for that one, taken from her valuable book The Quotable Musician (Allworth Press). If jazz could only speak for itself. Ever wonder what the art form would say for itself in light of current conditions? Jazz writer Ron Scott, a regular contributor to the Amsterdam News and a contributor to our series of dialogues with African American music writers, Ain’t But a Few of Us, recently heard from the voice of jazz and here’s what the elder statesman of American music had to say about this year’s Grammy Awards.

JAZZ SPEAKS ON the GRAMMY AWARDS
By Ron Scott

This year’s 58th Grammy Award song of the year was “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran. The song title is apropos for the following thoughts the voice of “jazz” was pondering during this year’s awards ceremony. As jazz was heard to remark afterwards…

The host was the multi-Grammy winner, actor and rapper LL Cool J. No doubt he deserved to host the show, but what about my shine in primetime media? Why don’t I get no hosting gig ever, no on-stage gig (well, maybe a few times), no Grammy presenting gig, and no Grammy presentation in primetime… except for maybe a few crumbs here and there… (Herbie Hancock comes to mind).

Sure the music world folks often say, “Jazz is America’s national treasure.” Right… then when the Grammys come around I’m treated like the girl who only gets a date on the staircase in the projects!

Yeah, I’m America’s original music alright. Similar to my little brother hip hop, who also came out of the ghetto. Everybody laughed at him at first, said he was just a fad. They said he’s too flamboyant, too disrespectful to ladies, uses profanity and does drugs. He’s too gangster… multiple arrests and even convictions. Regardless, he kept rappin’ and here we are years later… millions of record sales, and movie contracts, and I’m still in the shade!

Make note, I’m not hatin’ or complaining’… just sayin’. They gave big props to “Hamilton” for winning “Best Musical Theater Album.” Okay, cool the first major hip hop Broadway production.

Yeah, I know it’s all about the paper. Little bro hip hop is making millions, getting all that media attention. While little ole’ jazz, by comparison is just making short money and that doesn’t warrant the Grammy stage during primetime.

But dude, you know I was swinging in the first Black Broadway production Shuffle Along, way back in 1921, and that was written by the jazz musician songwriters Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. Their songs from the play “I’m Just Wild About Harry and “Love Will Find A Way” are now a part of the Great American Songbook.”

In 1912 when the jazz bandleader, composer and arranger James Reese Europe formed the Clef Club Orchestra and became the first jazz orchestra to perform at Carnegie Hall, that was me in the house swinging along. Bam! That was 21 years before Benny Goodman’s debut at Carnegie Hall, you dig.

I was there during World War I with Lt. Europe, leading the 369th Infantry Regiment (the Harlem Hellfighters) in France, when they gave those swinging jazz concerts for the British, French and American troops.

Yo, when those cats came home and marched through Harlem, stepping proud, playing some mean tune… that was me, daddio. Just thinking out loud, no complainin, no hatin’ just sayin’.

During those horrendous terrorist days of lynchings, I witnessed that strange fruit hanging from the sycamore tree.

Being in “Alabama” with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was no joke, just ask John Coltrane, he wrote the tune. When Nina Simone sang “Mississippi Goddam” and “Old Jim Crow” I was all up in the mix jamming in the trenches.

We were bebopping with Dizzy Gillespie swinging low in his sweet Cadillac as folks jammed to Lou Donaldson’s “Alligator Boogaloo,” long before you got gangsta and spit hip hop.

Hell, baby we started it all coming from Africa; the drum persisted, call and response resisted, the preacher was sweatin’, and Negro hymns from the gospel choir praised the lawd.

While down the block the devil was dancin to the blues, ragtime and jazz. Yeah it all came through me; doo wop, R&B, soul, funk, and rap via Jocko Henderson, Jack the Rapper and Frankie Crocker “the chief rocker.”

Yes, I am America’s treasure sure sounds good, but all of my family is enjoying primetime, and I’m still being treated like a booty call. What is wrong with this scenario?
Hey no complainin’, no hatin’, just saying.

Did you see Kendrick Lamar layin’ down that rap? He’s a hardcore kid, and that big youngster on the saxophone… damn! Those dancers in their African gear… and the drums!, now that was a statement, a musical journey.

That young 12- year old pianist Joey Alexander held down the jazz front with his dazzling performance of Thelonious Monk’s composition, “I Mean You,” and at least Ruth Brown’s posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award was heart-warming. After all she crossed over from jazz to blues and R&B.

Anything else related to Grammy jazz winners was relegated to online views. Here are a few of the winners; Cecile McLarin Salvant Best Jazz Vocal Album, For One to Love, ”Christian McBride “Best Improvised Jazz Solo,” Eliane Elias “Best Latin Jazz Album “Made in Brazil,” and the Afro Latin Jazz Suite featuring Rudresh Mahanthappa under the category “Instrumental Composition.”

Those special tributes to Maurice White, B.B. King and that spectacular Lady Gaga performance for David Bowie were cool, but what happened to the Natalie Cole tribute? Like her father Nat King Cole, her voice is unforgettable and she deserved a tribute.

After all it was Miles Davis who explained the “Seven Steps to Heaven.” Granted, afterwards he was “On the Corner,” drinking “Bitches Brew,” and got involved with those “Water Babies,” but should that disqualify jazz from having some Grammy prime time status?

No, it shouldn’t. “no complainin’, no hatin’, I’m just saying!,” said an indignant jazz.

No question saxophonist Kamasi Washington is the current “it” man in jazz. Its not often that an unabashed jazz musician like the L.A. based tenor man garners the level of mainstream prints Washington has enjoyed. Certainly we recognize that the measure of ink and digital notice Kamasi has accrued since the release of his aptly-titled, 3-CD debut opus “The Epic” (Brainfeeder), has as much, likely more, to do with his key contributions to hip hop man of the year Kendrick Lamar‘s much-lauded, multiple Grammy winning album “To Pimp a Butterfly” as it does with any sense that “The Epic” is somehow a ground-breaking record; though in some ways it is! After all, when was the last time an artist debuted with that much music on such an expansive canvas: double drums, robust horn section, strings, and voices? I can’t recall a debut of similar depth & breadth.

Just when we thought that perhaps Kamasi Washington had climbed the print media summit with last month’s expansive take-out in the Sunday New York Times Magazine no less, along comes a new piece in Esquire Magazine’s digital realm. See for yourself here: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/news/a42650/kamasi-washington-the-epic-jazz/

Its not surprising that Kamasi Washington has proven to be quite the phenomenon in the social media realm as well. Last week when notice of the Esquire piece hit Facebook, I read with interest the many responses from various posters. And isn’t it marvelous that in this age of instant communications gratification, we no longer need wait for our erstwhile Letter to the Editor in response to some piece or other to be published in next day/week/month/quarter’s issue. Nowadays we can express our approval or displeasure instantly; though hitting SEND too hastily can be a deadly sin. So it was with interest that I scrolled through the various responses to the Kamasi piece, significantly including a cautionary ‘here we go again’ from Revive Music producer Meghan Stabile; as in here they go again, anointing another savior of jazz – as if the music required periodic “saving,” or at least that was my cursory interpretation of Meghan’s quite reasonable admonishments.

Although Ms. Stabile is certainly not in that camp, there were more than a few haters in those response posts; a sense in some corners that here’s another example of an unworthy musician being prematurely anointed by the mainstream press as Mr. Jazz of the day, savior of our great art form. How dare they!

Having been around for a minute, this observer has witnessed more than a few such anointments from the mainstream. Consider the overheated press notices that arrived in the early ’80s in response to a bespectacled, impeccably dressed, deeply opinionated, erudite young trumpet player named Wynton Marsalis (including a Time Magazine cover no less!); then emerging from the cooking school cauldron of Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers. In Wynton’s case there was an equally talented, even more deeply opinionated older brother Branford Marsalis operating as Messengers sidekick and essential member of the youngster’s first band; a deep-rooted jazz family tree stemming from his father, and his father’s teachings, which yielded still more promising young “saviors of jazz.” Throw in the romantic New Orleans as birthplace-of-jazz background and the mainstream press had more than enough hooks to attract reader interest in a mere jazz musician. And then suddenly there was a legion, an entire generation of academy buffed, shirt & tie sporting “neo-boppers” that inspired a contagious moniker; and viola! the Young Lions generation dominated the jazz prints and began crossing over into the mainstream.

Let’s backtrack a few years and we find a gritty, harder core coterie of adventurers garnering more than the usual press for their restless explorations; attention that had almost as much to do with then-neglected/now gilded New York real estate as their musical contributions. Remember the Loft Jazz scene? A growing generation of urban artists-as-homesteaders, lacking mainline jazz venue gigs, determined to plot their own course, either in their personal living spaces (ala Studio Rivbea) or other rustic Lower Manhattan dens that had somehow escaped the gentrification greed of the city’s real estate speculators. Thus the press’ momentary fascination with a generation of forward motion jazz explorers, stoked by feverish reports in the Village Voice.

Eventually that Loft Jazz scene (often posed as if that was some style of music or other, when historic examination reveals musicians operating from a variety of expressions) provided some measure of impetus to an unprecedented raft of Columbia Records signings of uncompromising artists, including an alto saxophonist straight out of the L.A. camp of Horace Tapscott (whose influence continues ironically through Kamasi Washington and his West Coast Get Down crew), charismatically known as Black Arthur Blythe. Another ex-Messenger, trumpeter Woody Shaw, rode that CBS Records wave, expressing arguably the most original trumpet approach since Don Cherry arrived in New York in ’59. Further examples of Bruce Lundvall’s high talent scouting acumen came with the resurrection of the recording career of yet another true original on his instrument, Bobby Hutcherson, providing his mastery its most stable platform since pre-Lundvall Blue Note Records had unaccountably given him the axe. Elsewhere, the prolific tenor saxophonist David Murray was expanding his rich discography on the heels of the Loft wave.

But in reality, as much as the atmosphere engendered by the press reaction to the whole Loft Jazz scene and the steady climb out of jazz music’s 1970s stasis, the underlying force behind those hopeful CBS signings was – God bless him – the enormous fiscal success of Michael Jackson‘s recordings, which gave Lundvall unprecedented access to sign such uncompromising artists pretty much as veritable loss leaders. ‘The coffers are full, so let’s give old Bruce over there in the Jazz Corner what he wants,’ and Lundvall took full advantage, much to the benefit of the jazz music of those times. In this case Michael Jackson lifted the jazz boats. Others have aptly chronicled how that entire roster of jazz mastery was summarily dumped by CBS once the bean counters took full measure of what all that great artistry meant at the cash register.

So the mainstream attention Kamasi Washington is enjoying is far from without modern precedence. And the haters should look beyond their noses and bald assertions of ‘who’s this guy Kamasi Washington think he is… savior of jazz… hogwash, I/we’ve been laboring in the trenches for all these years and how’s this unproven guy gonna come in and steal all the attention I/we so richly deserve?’ Let’s take this for what it is, ride the waves of this small measure of mainstream attention to the art form, and view it exactly for what it is – a very pleasant, essential, but alas temporary, lifting of the jazz boats. You go Kamasi!

While we’re on the subject, perhaps a deeper examination of Kamasi Washington’s whole West Coast Get Down crew is in order, looking beyond the tenor man’s obvious artistry. In some quarters there’s been a kind of ‘how dare he’ attitude towards Washington having the perceived ‘audacity’ to release a 3-CD debut recording. A closer examination of Kamasi Washington’s background (look no further than the NYT Sunday magazine piece; thus far the definitive examination of his rise) reveals the kind of collective effort that has assisted more than a few non-compromisers (AACM anyone?) to make exceptional music of their own choosing, sans market reality restrictions. Kamasi and his crew pooled their resources, holed up in a recording studio for an extended period, and laid down mountains of original tracks; the first result is “The Epic,” with a promise of more coming, both from he and his cohorts. Proving once again that the collective approach can work both musically and in terms of identity, leading to the kind of increased attention the lonely, isolated artiste can only dream of. This is not the only current example of productive collectivity in today’s jazz firmament. Let’s focus purely on New York for a moment and consider Revive Music and its coterie of youngish musicians with stylistic feet in multiple genres, striving mightily to refresh the jazz audience; then there’s the collective of women who’ve worked with the stylish, commanding saxophonist Tia Fuller, notably the bassist Mimi Jones and her Hot Tone Records platform for several worthy women players; uptown there’s the scene pianist-keyboardist Marc Cary is building as he revives shades of the Loft Scene with his weekly series of presentations; cross the East River and we find the Brooklyn Jazz Underground. I’d say its high time more musicians need to take cues and invest collectively.

Full disclosure: Kamasi Washington, the Igmar Thomas-led Revive Big Band, drummer E.J. Strickland‘s Transient Beings, and saxman Fred Foss‘ Jackie McLean Tribute band will play the DC Jazz Festival June 19

Producer LeRoy Downs interviewing Terence Blanchard for the premier edition of “The Jazz Creative” on the Aspire network

Over the last few years a fixture at Dizzy’s Den on the grounds of the Monterey Jazz Festival, has been the hip, aware, and informative voice of venue MC LeRoy Downs. The Cali-based jazz broadcaster has developed a promising 21st century jazz television format that recently launched on Magic Johnson’s Aspire network. Having worked intimately with the most recent jazz-on-television hopeful to emanate from an African-American network myself, BET Jazz, news of LeRoy’s project is quite hopeful, so we sought him out for a few questions. But first, exactly who is LeRoy Downs?

LeRoy Downs is a person deeply entrenched in the music and driven by passion! Currently he is a jazz broadcaster in Los Angeles on several stations including KJazz 88.1 FM, KPFK 90.7 FM, KCRW 89.9 FM. He has also broadcasted on KXLU 88.9 FM and 94.7 FM & 1410 AM KRML in Carmel located in the Monterey area. He has been the host of the Monterey Jazz Festival for 15 years as well as The Jazz Cruise, The Playboy Jazz Cruise, KPFK’s Hero Awards Tribute to Billy Higgins, The Angel City Jazz Festival, Terranea Resorts Jazz Through the Generations, The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz West Coast competitions, Producer of The World Stage 25th Anniversary Concert, Curator for Jazz for the Holidays series with Arts Brooksfield, Jazz Curator of the Steven James Buchanan Jazz Collection at the Mayme Clayton Jazz Library and Museum, owner and journalist for the website TheJazzcat.net, producer of the made for television pilot “Hangin’ with the Jazzcats” and The Brand New Show on airing on the Aspire TV Network called “The Jazz Creative”

Independent Ear: How and why did you make the leap from radio to this new television show?

Well, not a leap but more like an addition! I have always believed for many years that jazz needs more that one sensibility for your average layman to pay attention to the music. Those of us who get it, have it in our blood! For the others, I thought that if we could enter their homes through the common platform of television they could listen, learn and experience the human behind the music. Once that human became their friend, so would the music!

Talk about the overall design of the show. When viewers tune in what exactly will they experience?

“The Jazz Creative” is a conversation and performance platform. We will have the opportunity to speak with the contemporaries of our time in different relaxed environments, listen to their interesting life in the music and see some live performance. On our Premier segment of “The Jazz Creative”, viewers will have the opportunity to hear from Grammy Winning/ Nominated Jazz Artists Terence Blanchard, Christian McBride and Jason Moran as well as live performance by DVRK Funk trumpeter Theo Croker and the Planetary Prince, Cameron Graves.

Terence will talk about scoring some of the 46 films that he has scored as well as how real life and life in the music “Breathe” together. Jason Moran speaks about his experience scoring “Selma” and show how life and inspirational thought spark language through music. Christian McBride talks about growing up in Philly, his influence of Gamble and Huff and how “Grease” is a major ingredient in his sound! Theo Croker shows how the “New Millennials” get down and let’s everyone know that, “It’s Gonna Be Alright” and “West Coast Get Down” pianist Cameron Graves, “the Planetary Prince” offers some new dimensions in sound!

Downs with pianist-composer Jason Moran from the premier edition of “The Jazz Creative”

How will “The Jazz Creative” differ from past efforts at jazz television?

Well, when you say the word “Jazz”, people immediately go to whatever the first reference is in their minds. There is usually not any common ground until there is further conversation or clarification of what exactly is being talked about. We just want to offer some fresh perspectives in the present tense. Let folks know how well the music is “LIVING”, where they can see, hear and feel what is happening right now in the music.

Having been a host, producer, and writer at the former BET Jazz for over 10 years, and witnessing that once-promising entity dissolve slowly down the drain of corporate disinterest and neglect, what gives you confidence that this is a new day and you have a new jazz/television concept, and that Aspire is a welcoming host for The Jazz Creative?

Well, we live in a new day! Music in general is a struggle but, is a viable part of everyone’s life. This concept of “free and instant gratification” is not in the best interest of the artists and musicians who dedicate their lives to creating music and content for all to enjoy. There is not much in terms of original music on television. If you hear it, chances are you are hearing something popular that you have been hearing for most of your life and it has become a routine sound wave. We think that there are people out there who want more than they are generally offered: something new, something original, something different. Knowledge is king and although you don’t get a chance to learn too many new things when you flip through hundreds of channels of reality tv, it is our hope that music, presented in an appealing environment, from artists who speak the truth through their sound will captivate and encourage people to be delighted and seek more through the sounds of JAZZ!

Give us a sense of the first couple of episodes of The Jazz Creative.

Hopefully I have given you a great sense of our first episode. We have lots in the can. Interviews with Russell Malone, Tierney Sutton, Ashley Khan, David Gilmore, Luis Perdomo, Peter Erskine, Joe Sanders, Ben Williams and a few others. We would like to do something really special for our next show which airs on Friday March 25, 2016. We are connecting with some of the folks who have another brand new film coming out in April and if we can swing it, I think “The Jazz Creative” will be miles ahead of its time!

Joe Lovano is a true renaissance man of jazz, one of the music’s most diverse and most restless explorers, never content with one format over another, never prone to repeating ensembles for more than a tour, two at most. Scanning his robust discography one finds symphonic encounters, little big band explorations, sundry trios, quartets and quintets; duos (notably with Hank Jones), the borders of contemporary chamber music, celebrations of two signature Italian tenors: Enrico Caruso and Frank Sinatra; bebop reflections, including a notably bristling romance with the music of Charlie Parker, two-drummer bands, and various encounters with younger musicians, just for starters. Its been a pleasure observing his constantly evolving arc, from the time we were both growing up on the East side of Cleveland and encounters at the old Smiling Dog Saloon.

On one memorable occasion while sitting at the Dog’s bar awaiting the night’s hit, Joe strolled in and the featured bandleader Elvin Jones (with whom Joe would later tour and record), seated on a nearby stool in his inimitable growl the great drummer inquired about the whereabouts of the man everyone in the music referred to as Big T, Joe’s tenor playing dad Tony Lovano, clear evidence of the elder Lovano’s jazz world stature. Befitting his name, Big T had a robust sound and was often featured in B-3 combos around town.

Joe working with men like Elvin Jones, an early stint in the Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Vanguard upon shifting from Cleveland to New York, his more recent ongoing dialogues in several band incarnations with Lewis Nash, and more recently the two-drummer band with Francisco Mela and Otis Brown lll, clearly mark Joe Lovano as a tenor man deeply invested in the rhythmic universe; a fact further substantiated by Lovano being a closet drummer himself.

Last weekend at the KC Jazz Club Lovano further substantiated his rhythm man bonafides, landing on the Kennedy Center’s penthouse, or Terrace, level for two superb nights with his Village Rhythm Band. Clearly this is not only another chapter in Joe’s fascination with the hues of the rhythmic universe, its also his most African-centric viewpoint to date. At its core the band boasts two African expats, Nigerian bassist Michael Olatuja and Senegalese percussionist Abdou Mboup. Keys to the mix also are trap drummer Otis Brown lll, a refugee from Lovano’s two-drummer exploration of Bird, and the thoughtful, inventive guitarist Liberty Ellman. Two special guests, trumpeter Tim Hagans – a longtime Lovano intimate – and Joe’s vocalist-wife Judi Silvano, further broadened both the rhythm (particularly via Silvano’s wordless explorations) and melodic parameters of this unique Village Rhythms Band. The program ranged from heated originals all the way to that classic beauty spot, the Ellington lovely “Single Petal of a Rose.” A particularly arresting interlude came when Mboup plied his kora, the distinctively African stringed instrument with string board attached to a resonating gourd, guitarist Ellman gazing on in deep concentration. One certainly hopes the Village Rhythm Band will be chronicled on record, given the broad base of Joe Lovano’s ever-expanding Blue Note Records discography.

Here’s a taste of Joe Lovano’s Village Rhythm Band:

Pianist-composer-bandleader and Kennedy Center Jazz curator Jason Moran became one of the true lead voices in the music largely on the combination of his restless artistry and a strong recording relationship with Blue Note Records. His wife, the striking contralto Alicia Hall Moran – whose cameos in the exceptional Charles Lloyd documentary film “Arrows Into Infinity” were so powerful – has entered the recording arena as well. Jason and Alicia are the parents of twin sons (who once memorably joined their Dad onstage at the Kennedy Center Jazz Club in a hilarious dance bit to cap off a killin’ set by the old man’s Bandwagon trio), and proud Harlemites. Together they are collaborating on a true family affair, the launch of their own recordings imprint Yes Records. Jason has been featured in the Independent Ear on several previous occasions, so obviously some questions about this new venture were in order, only this time for both he and Alicia.

Photo by Dawood Bey

There are countless artists out here who would kill to record for Blue Note; yet despite his successful run there you and Jason have chosen to embark on the brave world of independent recording labels. What was behind your decision to launch this new venture Yes Records?

Alicia Hall Moran:I believe that Jason’s tremendous ride with Blue Note Records was due entirely to the brilliance and muscle of the legendary visionary, the late Bruce Lundvall. Bruce passed away in 2015 and with that, so did the era of beautiful, raging music that represented Jason so well. It’s not a sad time, it’s a time to celebrate all these outrageously artistic accomplishments Bruce single-handedly helped make possible for Jason, and continue on in that tradition. Bruce was a direct link to the jazz greats Jason cut his teeth transcribing, yet he gave Jason all the freedom in the world. The question was always, “What are we going to do next?” He adored Jason. It was a singular sort of love and respect. And he extended that grace to my entire family. He was a King of sorts and so importantly, he had style: handwritten notes and pinstripe suits. His respect for the music Jason loves was so immense, you felt it and saw it when he walked into any room. He had what I call backbone. It was beautiful to behold. But he left us so now Jason just has to rise to the occasion. YES RECORDS is our response to Life, in celebration of The Good Life. You got to say YES to opportunities like this and go with it and have fun!

Will you both record projects for Yes Records, and do you feel a greater sense of freedom to explore various projects on your own imprint?

A.M.: We’ll both do projects on YES. I have a classical background and Jason’s firmly rooted in the jazz tradition so the discipline is there but to me, the chord is only as interesting as the thought behind it. Singing is Thinking to me. I’ve been singing my entire life. But the act of recording my music is relatively new to me. It’s such a privilege to make a sound and then capture it in that way, if you think about it. In human history that’s been impossible to do for almost the entire life of our species. It’s only relatively recently that technology even allows us to do this. It’s amazing, really. The fact we can hear someone’s voice from last week, or last year, or now even 100 years ago. That is amazing! I feel like we shouldn’t forget that. So to me it’s magical. Yes, that I feel so strongly about some sound I’m making that I feel you should want to hear it even after the moment, those sound waves, have passed and that breath is spent. To me, or maybe I’m spoiled, but I just feel like that’s what I want to be dealing with day in and day out. Magic. Nothing less. Otherwise, why bother. Suffice it to say I naturally feel pretty free in my music. It’s the privilege of getting to capture that freedom. It’s an oxymoron, right?

Please tell us about your new recording “Heavy Blue”, in terms of the scope of your project and your goals for this record.

A.M. HEAVY BLUE is an atmosphere. I really wanted HEAVY BLUE to sound like me. And it does! HEAVY BLUE blends the classical music I love with the jazz environment I live inside as the wife of Jason Moran. It embraces Soul music and 80s pop. It has a femininity and a sensuality but also a forthrightness. HEAVY BLUE needed to sound like the past that I am descended from, my ancestry, the wide-open spaces and the pure night sky, while being honest to the ways I feel my culture now as a Harlem, New York resident. The pavement, the sophistication. I love this record, how it turned out. HEAVY BLUE is such an emotionally honest record. It’s my first album and YES gave me complete control so there was no pressure to fit into a niche or even define one. I’m playing every song I love to it’s truest core for me as a singer and that takes my voice through a dozen different colors and lot of range. HEAVY BLUE speaks to my point of view. It’s about the human voice, the trained human singing voice, but with not too many bells and whistles beyond that. Besides Jason on Rhodes and piano, and besides accompanying myself on piano, I chose guitars, cello and bass because those instruments intuitively love my voice in the right ways. They have the soft touch no matter how hard they hit. Mary Halvorson, who has a wildly creative sonic palette, recorded the American folk lullaby “The Little Horses” with me, and I do love that little song but we plow into it because my lullaby, being true to my life, isn’t about a sweet baby that falls asleep lovingly in your arms. It’s about a sweet baby who isn’t falling asleep. My baby is a brilliantly alive, self-determined person demanding the world of me in the middle of the night. That’s reality. So we play into that. Parenting isn’t for the meek and neither is music-making.

“Deep River” was recorded with and arranged by guitarist Brandon Ross. I derive my melody from the classic transcription of the slave song by the legendary composer Hall Johnson, actually my great-great maternal uncle. When voice becomes the water itself, and all the ripples in the water are there, all the bends, all the power, the responsiveness to the terrain. I want to be the water in that song, the muddiness AND the clarity. Nothing static. Nothing for technique’s sake alone. Same for “I Like The Sunrise,” which features Jason on Fender Rhodes, Brandon on guitar, and Tony Scherr on bass. I sing it from the idea of the cosmos, the view of the sun rising up from behind planet earth, as well as the Liberian sunrise on the horizon, as Duke Ellington wrote. But he’s talking about God and his music envelopes everything. So we go there big.

The HEAVY BLUE content–the love songs, lullabies, spirituals, standards–will feel familiar but the point of view is altered. A lot of my inspiration comes from being on the other side of things. YES records is all about orientation. Which way you’re facing.

Will this new Yes Records venue give you more opportunities to collaborate across the genres for which you both are most closely identified, and was that part of the motivation for building your own imprint?

Jason: Definitely. I kind of hint at this in some of my earlier recordings, most notably with Artist in Residence, which included artists Adrian Piper and Joan Jonas. To include their names with some relation to catalog was the goal, but also, I consider them as important to my development as Monk or [Jaki] Byard. I think the larger issue is about the type of scale and timeline we’d like to work in. Meaning, I can make a recording in 2 days, and release it a week later. For us, YES Records is essentially about insuring that Alicia and I document our work as we make it. I’m about 5 recordings behind right now, and i want to get squared up and also make new music as it gets completed. A way to build an archive, because we have shown no signs of slowing down. I’ll record a live solo piano recording in March and release it by April. The Bandwagon will get back into the studio in the Fall, and Alicia will record her Black Wall Street work in the Spring… slowly & quietly, but surely.

To hear Alicia Hall Moran’s new release – and the launch recording of Yes Records go to
www.aliciahallmoran.bandcamp.com/yum
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