DC Jazz Festival and Howard University recently celebrated the rich legacy Professor Fred Irby established at Howard University. On the cusp of his retirement after 50 years directing the Howard University Jazz Ensemble and the jazz program first established by NEA Jazz Master Donald Byrd and Dr. Arthur Dawkins, bassist-educator Carroll Dashiell,Jr. has been appointed the Chairman of the Howard University Music Department, tasked with the next step in the exceptional legacy of jazz at HU. Serendipity is rich with this appointment of a NW DC native, HU jazz alum, touring and recording jazz artist, decades-long university jazz educator, and proud father of two very talented emerging jazz artists. If you’re seeking to know who’s next in the jazz vocal pantheon, look no further than daughter Christie Dashiell, and son Carroll Dashiell lll (aka C.V.) is one of the busiest drummers in the DMV. Both will be on the world stage with a quickness. I caught up with dad Carroll recently for some Independent Ear questions.

I first heard you as a member of Bobby Watson’s band Horizon. From that point in the late 1980s you’ve evolved your career to music education. Talk about your evolution in this music.

Bobby contacted me in 1987 or 88 and asked me to join the band.  I was introduced to Bobby by [tenor saxophonist] Willie Williams and TS Monk.  Willie and I were on tour with Maurice Hines and Willie told Bobby about me.  The first hit I did with Bobby was somewhere in Philly and the band was Bobby, Roy Hargrove, John Hicks, (whom I had played with previously), Victor Lewis and myself.  I remember Christian McBride came to the show just to check us out and hang.

Fred Irby came over to McKinley Tech HS to recruit me coming out of high school.  We sat in those tiny practice modules and just talked for hours.  I had played at the Kennedy Center in several shows with Irby and Dr.  Arthur Dawkins while in high school and met Irby at the KC.  I had also performed with HU Faculty and played union performances at the HU Chapel and various other theaters in and around DC.  Prior to being at Tech with Peter Ford, I was at Rabaut Junior High with Arthur Capehart and was principal bassist in the DC Youth Orchestra under Lyn McClain’s direction. I studied string bass with Carolyn Kellock, in the DCYO Program.  Carolyn Kellock was also the bass teacher at Duke Ellington and bass teacher of Ben Williams, Corcoran Holt, Ameen Saleem, Eric Wheeler, and Kris Funn. 

I attended Meyer Elementary School where Gus Sims switched me from viola to string bass in the 4^th grade.  His reasoning was that I was the only one large enough to bring the bass to rehearsal from the 3^rd floor storeroom.  I always wanted to tell that story.  Said all of that because I wanted to share that I’m a proud product of the DC Public School System and the DCYO. I studied some and played with Calvin Jones and Bobby Felder back when they were in the downtown building of University of the District of Columbia, (I think it was still named Federal City College) at that time.  Met them both when I won the Joseph Feder Memorial String Competition.  I won a full-ride scholarship to Tanglewood Institute for three consecutive years and also played with the Boston Pops.  I was one of three blacks in a full symphony orchestra and full festival chorus while at Tanglewood. 

While I was in undergrad at HU, I was the Strings Professor and Bass Instructor at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, Calvin Jones hired me as the Bass Instructor at UDC while I was a Music Consultant and member of the Ambassadors Band, DC Department of Recreation, Mayor Marion Barry’s Band led by Dr. Gilbert Prior all while I was playing with the Moonlighters Band, led by Dr. Bill Clark, my surrogate dad.

Following coming off the road with Maurice Hines and now a member of Bobby Watson and Horizon, I accepted a position at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina as the first Black Professor of Music in the ECU School of Music in 1989 where I was named the Director of Jazz Studies and served for 33-plus years until HU called in April 2023.  Greenville, NC was also the birthplace of Dr.  Billy Taylor who was also one of my mentors.  I grew up on Fairmont Street, NW DC, next door to his mom.  Dr.  Taylor always shared with me and he got me and my family tickets, passes etc., to shows whenever he was in town;…shows that I would never have been able to afford or attend.

During the recent HUJE programs honoring Fred Irby’s pending retirement, at one point you referred to your new HU position as a home coming of sorts.  Talk about that aspect of your consideration for this HU job?

I always said:  “I wanted to give back what little I know to the music community.”  30 years ago while at ECU I said:  “I have been blessed and my music has saved my life.  The neighborhood that I grew up in…there were bullets always flying around and I know that one or some of those bullets had my name on them, but I was at a rehearsal somewhere and the bullet(s) missed. I want to give back to an institution, organization and Black and Brown people who have invested in me.” Fast forward 33-plus years later, as [wife] Rhonda and I were planning an exit strategy, retirement from ECU, HU calls.  Forty years ago, I didn’t know it was going to be HU.  But all of the people that I mentioned in an earlier question are connected to Washington, DC, HU, Family and HOME…They have all invested in me so I hope I can make a difference and help shape some of our youth and musical community; give back.  I feel that I sit at a unique vantage point having attended HU, having 2 of our children [vocalist Christie Dashiell and drummer C.V. (Carroll lll) Dashiell attend HU, having performed with, worked with HU Music Faculty and even having a father attend HU on a baseball scholarship in the 1950s.

Please detail your responsibilities – and specific title – with this new Howard University appointment.

I accepted the position of Chairman, HU Music Department.  I serve the students and faculty as the executive officer of the Howard University Music Department in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.

What would you say are the essential elements in a successful jazz education?

I like to say: “99.9 percent of it all is listening.  We only hope to add that additional percent….but if we don’t listen, we will never hear and learn.”  I feel that HU has one of the most incredible faculties anywhere.  We just really need to publicize it more and let everyone know.  Having faculty members that are all practitioners of the highest caliber, practitioners that are all in, committed, and can not only explain but demonstrate what happened on the hit last night, practitioners that are open and willing to share the history and information, practitioners who are the history of this music… INCREDIBLE!

What are some of your primary goals at HU?

I’d like to address some curricular and course offerings, modernize some of the infrastructure, really honor and pay homage to the great legacy and lineage of the department including the offerings and faculty, yet address the present while focusing on the future.  I’m just naive and motivated enough to wholeheartedly believe that we can do this all without forsaking one for another.  But…it has to be done strategically and as I say all the time: “Baby Steps”

Are you still actively performing, and if so what aspirations do you have in that regard here in DC?

I’m still actively performing and recording. I’m in pre-production and discussions with artists for multiple recording projects. I hope to contribute to the music scene in the DC area and involve HU Music more into not only the music/arts community but also the societal/neighborhood community.

As a media person and a presenter in this DMV community I’ve long seen musicians who’ve evolved from the Howard University Jazz Ensemble as the beating heart of the community of musicians here. How do you see the jazz program at HU contributing to the overall DMV music scene?

Community outreach initiatives, being more actively present and interacting with the already established festivals, concerts and programs, not only jazz oriented but classical and world music orientations.

Ultimately, what is HU’s jazz legacy?

Quality in all endeavors, honoring and paying homage to the history while being in the present with efforts focusing on the future, with emphasis on the lineage and legacy of the African Diaspora. FAMILY.

The alluring city of Perugia is the capital of the central Italian region of Umbria. Located approximately equidistance between Rome and Florence, Perugia covers a high hilltop with magnificent views of the verdant valleys below from numerous vantage points. In 1973 a group of intrepid jazz fans founded Umbria Jazz, much in the manner of grassroots jazz enthusiast formations and volunteerism-generated efforts down through the history of jazz music’s inherent fan base. Now 50 years later Umbria Jazz has established a rich tradition as one of the signature events in the jazz festival firmament, the tall, distinctive presence of founding member Carlo Pagnotta still at the helm.

The scene at the Galleria Nazionale daily matinee concerts

This year’s 50th anniversary Umbria Jazz ran July 7-16, with ticketed programs primarily taking place at noontime and 3:00pm at the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria for the Jazz goes to the Museum daily series, 5:00pm at the classic opera house Teatro Morlacchi, which dates back to 1781, and at 9:00pm down the hill (accessible by escalator, which jazz romanticism suggests may or may not have been the inspiration behind Carla Bley’s opus “Escalator Over the Hill”) at Arena Santa Giuliana, an open air facility and soccer stadium.

The Arena facility is quite comfortably configured for Umbria Jazz, with a patio restaurant and bar just outside the admission gates, and Jumbotron performance viewing options that are particularly inviting for those in the back rows of the venue’s 5K seating capacity. In between times there are free public performance spaces at each end of the teeming Corso Vannucci, Perugia’s bustling main promenade with it’s steady stream of festival revelers. With the huge free Piazza IV Novembre stage at one end, and the bustling nightime scene at Giardini Santa Giuliana at the top end of Corso Vannucci, and the main festival hotels, plaza restaurants, inviting retail, and numerous gelato shops in between, the Corso is the main festival artery linking all of the performances. This festival geography lends itself to a splendidly inviting scene, quite encouraging to those who may wish to simply ease into one of the cafes or ristorantes that line Corso Vannucci, have a gelato, a pizza, or perhaps a Campari spritzer and gaze at the passing crowds.

The Umbria Jazz scene on a typical evening on teeming Corso Vanucci

The series of escalators which wind down the hillside to Arena Santa Giuliana through the brightly-lit cave interior also provide a glimpse of Perugia’s Etruscan-era past with its distinct brick work and ancient architecture, interrupted by a few tasteful shops along the way. All contribute to the unmistakable charm of hilly Perugia, with it’s magnificent vistas on each side. This is a walking town par excellence; across the ten days mercifully the only times we encountered vehicular traffic was the roundtrip to the airport in Rome (approx. 2 hour drive), easefully crossing the street to the Arena, or the occasionally gripping sight of a car gingerly navigating Etruscan-era pavement, often at seemingly impossible angles; it was actually a quizzical treat witnessing a few cars daring those moves, even more so the occasional small tour bus!

A major attraction to visiting Perugia is the array of culinary delights. From basic pizzas (order it in Perugia at any one of dozens of options and you’ll never go near or call a Pizza Hut or Dominoes again!) to incredible plates of an array of pastas; and any trip (in season of course) you gottta have the pastas with truffle sauce at least a half dozen times before you leave! Recommended place for that: La Taverna. Perugia is a gourmand’s delight of great variety. Musicians, crew and assembled media eagerly dined twice daily at La Rosetta, the central festival hotel. And the nightly scene at the lovely bar and terrace cafe at Hotel Brufani, adjacent to the happenings at Giardini Carducci was an opportune site for catching up for a chat with festival musicians.

The late night sets at Giardini Carducci (last hit at 12:30am) featured a rotating cast of Italian artists and visiting U.S. bands, including a contingent from New Orleans. At this year’s Umbria Jazz the nightly band at Giardini Carducci that made many friends was the big fun assemblage known as Mwenso & The Shakes, led by the magnetic, excitable singer-bandleader Michael Mwenso. Many of the artists who play the big stages at either end of the Corso are esentially in residence throughout the festival, playing a carefully curated rotation of slots between the two platforms. That band rotation also included the highly entertaining South Carolina-based unit known as Ranky Tanky, which specializes in jazz-influenced arrangements of traditional Gullah music. After midnight intrepid nightowls were treated to nightly jam sessions anchored by the “Dear Dexter” Quintet of Italian musicians inspired by tenor titan Dexter Gordon. The Plaza IV Novembre stage often hosted high school and college student ensembles in town for Umbria Jazz’s robust jazz education intensive anchored for years by Berklee College of Music. Late nights at the Arena Santa Giuliana free “after shows” featured many of the bands from the rotation of bands playing up top on the Corso.

The historic Teatro Morlacchi provided many Umbria Jazz 50 highlights

Teatro Morlacchi hosted one of the festival’s peak performances, delivered by one half of Wayne Shorter’s longtime quartet, pianist Danilo Perez and bassist John Patitucci, joined by drummer Adam Cruz. And you know their setlist had some sweet nods to the grandmaster Wayne! Morlacchi proved to be likewise a marvelous platform for Spanish pianist Chano Dominguez‘s tribute to Michel Petrucciani. Speaking of piano trio music, none is more resplendent than the masterful Kenny Barron Trio, with Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass, and the very-promising young Savannah Harris on drums. Our Teatro Morlacchi experience topped off with the uncanny guitar master Bill Frisell‘s “Four” project with Gerald Clayton on piano, Greg Tardy on clarinet and tenor sax, and Jonathan Blake on drums. Sunday evening’s Teatro Morlacchi treat was another of the 3 festival love-ins we heard this summer from the young wunderkind voice of Samara Joy. I had previously been impressed with her luxurious lower register. This time she thrilled with her resplendent upper register as well, not to mention her easeful sense of command. And to think she’s literally just getting started! Don’t allow yourself to get bamboozled by some sense of “flavor of the month” with this young comet; she is the absolute truth!

Our first day in Perugia delivered the rangy edge of South African pianist and Blue Note recording artist Nduduzo Makhathini. He was followed at 3:00pm by one of Italy’s essential jazz musicians, the bop-informed , ever swinging Dado Maroni, a master of the blues aesthetic. Other Galleria treats were delivered by the “Dialogues Delight” duo of vocalist Olivia Trummer and drummer Nicola Angelucci, delightfully edgy Cubano pianist David Virelles solo.

Sunday evening brought Herbie Hancock‘s summer tour to the Arena for an evening that opened with the charming Afro-centricity of vocalist Somi. Herbie’s performance delivered a set list with a distinctly retrospective aspect, per reports of other sightings along his 2023 tour trail, including such gems as trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s – who blew an electronically-enhanced trumpet throughout – kinetically-charged arrangement of Wayne Shorter‘s “Footprints” as a tribute to Herbie’s “best friend”, “Cantaloupe Island”, “Actual Proof”, and the seemingly obligatory keytar-processed Hancock vocal on “Come Running to Me,” an exercise that has frankly grown quite tired. Herbie, if you need a vocal element there are all manner of qualified “guest singers” you might call upon… perhaps even show opener Somi! New drummer Jaylen Petinaud was a fresh revelation. Bassist James Genus and the endlessly inventive guitarist Lionel Loueke rounded out Herbie’s top shelf cast.

Two of the highlights of the nightly Arena Santa Giuliana shows were provided by the brilliant double-billing of the Branford Marsalis Quartet and the Brad Mehldau trio Tuesday evening, and the amazing Rhiannon Giddens, whose vocal and banjo prowess are a true force of nature. She truly embodies the Duke Ellington adage of being “beyond category”. Branford’s longtime quartet of pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Justin Faulkner deliver on the time-honored benefits of having a long-term, stable band. And it was great seeing them hang out together at the Brufani before and after their performance. These four musicians have worked out uncanny lines of communication that they navigate comfortably with great gusto. Ditto Brad Mehldau’s trio with Larry Grenadier on bass and the facile Jeff Ballard on drums.

Drummer Stewart Copeland made many in the audience yearn for the decidedly missing element of Sting‘s voice (some of us fondly recalling in our hearts & heads that great evening at the same venue (though different configuration) years ago when the Police mastermind fronted the Gil Evans Orchestra (with Branford in the band). Copeland’s charge was leading a program billed as “Police Deranged for Orchestra,” the “deranged” part perhaps alluding to Copeland’s manic presence on traps and leading the orchestra, members of which appeared properly bemused by Copeland’s excited mania.

Umbria Jazz 50th anniversary certainly flew its banner high as one of the real highlights of the European summer jazz festival circuit.

Bassist-saxophonist-composer Luke Stewart has firmly established his artistic pursuits on the world stage. As one of DC’s best & brightest musicians, Luke collaborated with many of the DMV’s finest, particularly if they exhibited the kind of forward motion and progressive attitude by which he himself addresses the precincts of his jazz & beyond musical pursuits. His stint as a vital component of rising tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis‘ rangy trio has propelled Luke forward on the world stage as a leader himself. More recently Luke has joined NEA Jazz Master tenor saxophonist David Murray‘s new band.

In addition to his musical aspirations, Luke has actively engaged in activities bent on expanding the DMV musical universe, including co-founding the exceptional music news, presenting and preservation organization known as CapitalBop (www.capitalbop.com), and hosting programs on the DMV’s “Jazz & Justice” radio station WPFW. Let’s catch up with Luke Stewart…

How do you balance all of your different projects and affiliations?

That’s an interesting question, that I get all the time. I’ve always had many interests and musical/artistic pursuits, from starting off musically as a saxophonist, then as a bass guitarist, then a DJ/producer, then a Jazz musician, then a Creative Musician. There’s a lot of inspiration and ideas that I’ve always had, that have been put off delayed or otherwise impossible until they have been allowed to manifest naturally. I believe in the way things have happened in an organic fashion. The balance comes from the passion and dedication I give to each project. With each, I am 110% present and involved, as if none other exist at the moment. For better or worse, this is the case for me. It is also a statement of what i’ve learned from so many of the elders, that it is important to “fire on all cylinders” and to create as much as you can. It is an expression and practice in Freedom, as well as Tolerance, to be involved in so many different projects. I’ve worked very hard, and still a long way to go, to practice Freedom in my work. That is, not to limit myself due to what society or the community or circumstance tells me. Rather, it is through the example of the elders, that you have to chart your own path in the world of Creativity, not being tied down to any dogma. That’s to say also about Tolerance, that I have to have tolerance for myself and allow myself the room to interact with respect and dedication in the community. 

With your solo bass record “Works For Upright Bass And Amplifier Vol. 2” why did you choose to place emphasis on your amplifier, and how might that have been a different experience had you chosen to record that record sans amplifier?

As I’ve stated in other interviews, and in other performances and explanations, the title and the works are Literal. I am treating both as instruments, the Upright Bass AND the Amplifier. The amplifier in this case is an electronic instrument. Without the Amplifier, it would be just another solo bass record. I’ve made acoustic solo bass recordings, but I prefer to work through this setup for now.

Would it be fair to say that “Black’s Myths” is a project based in thematic principles of social justice?  Talk about your collaborators on that record.

[Blacks’ Myths] is indeed a thematic project, dealing with referential history of Black Americans, in particular. The song names and the vibe are meant to invoke and to stoke these memories, for those who can understand the references. Otherwise, it is a project that continues parts of my background in rock/punk-based music. This one is a duo of Warren Crudup, III and I. We’ve been performing together almost since the beginning of my time in the DC jazz community. We’ve gone through many formative experiences in the Music and otherwise. We’ve played as a duo also for many years, the first one put on by artist Nate Lewis after he saw us perform with Ernest Dawkins/Joe Bowie/Flip Barnes/Adam Rudolph. At this particular performance, the band left the stage and left us to create together. It was a musical rite of passage that spawned the duo that would later become Blacks’ Myths.

What’s the guiding force behind your “Irreversible Entanglements” project?

Interesting question. There have been many things written and said about this project. We are first and foremost a Band, something that has increasingly become rare in what is recognized as mainstream jazz. It doesn’t have the focus of an individual leader, even though there is a “front person” in the form of Moor Mother. Rather, it is a true collective that is clearly making vital music at the moment that speaks to many people. We are able to tour quite a bit around the world for large audiences consistently, which is sometimes rare for jazz, let alone “Liberation-oriented Free Jazz” as we’ve been called. Our guiding force is thus each other in Irreversible Entanglements. Each of us come from very different backgrounds, with varying levels of experience in the world of Creative Music. We also give each other the room for the aforementioned Freedom and Tolerance. In the “IE Universe” we encompass all of our individual and collective projects, much like the examples of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, New York Art Quartet, World Saxophone Quartet, and others. It is in these examples where each individual members were Free to their own musical and creative pursuits. When we come together, the experience gained from those pursuits combine into a truly amazing flow of energy and creation. It is palpable and important in this current moment and for the future.

Including “Bi Ba Doom” recording, how do you see each of these projects intersecting?

Bi Ba Doom was the result of getting together with musical friends Chris Pitsiokos and Jason Nazary while in New York. Being also a “New York Musician” it was an opportunity to explore with other Creative Musicians who also use electronics. This project was specific to this mindset. We were able to tour in EU and Canada upon the release of this album, and added trumpeter and electronic musician Chris Williams to the fold. Hopefully the proper Quartet version of this band will be able to perform again soon.

Talk about your still fairly new affiliation with David Murray and what that means for your solo and bandleading efforts.

David and I first played in 2018, soon after he returned to New York. The first time we actually met properly was during the concert after the inauguration of Donald Trump in January of 2017. It was a Transparent Productions concert that featured Murray in rare solo format, telling stories only he can tell, displaying a unique mastery of his instruments. I had seen David play a number of times before then, but it was here where I noticed truly his virtuosity. For instance, he almost constantly circular breathes in the horn, yet employs solo phrasing as if he were breathing normally. I hear in this question, will I still be able to play solo and lead bands? Interesting perspective in this question. 

As in the example of Irreversible Entanglements, as well as so many of David’s bands over the years, there is always creative Freedom to do whatever we want to do, as long as I show up dedicated, focused, and ready to play, which I do at all times with all projects. The brand new Quartet featuring Marta Sanchez and Kassa Overall is a great example of this. He purposely chose band members who are also leaders in their own right. In this he encourages that we pursue our own projects, though of course demands showing up for him, which I am very proud to do. —

Luke Stewart

Musician, Cultural Organizer

thelukestewart.com

“Free Your Mind…”

In 1972, while living in Tangier, Morocco and operating his African Rhythms Club, Randy Weston determined to present a festival that would span multiple styles of music from Africa and the African diaspora around the world. A tremendous undertaking, the festival presented a vast range of music ranging from Dexter Gordon and Max Roach to Afro pop by the likes of Osibisa, with a multitude of traditional rhythms and forms in between. The festival was a big success, but in its under-capitalized form it left Randy deeply in debt… a condition later alleviated by what Randy always referred to as “divine intervention” – his lone CTI release. Read the saga of how that record date uplifted Randy and his global profile – despite a few trepidations detailed below (excerpted here from Chapter 13 of Randy’s autobiography, AFRICAN RHYTHMS (2010, Duke University Press):

But back to that divine intervention from the Creator: My dear friend Mary Jo
Johnson had worked particularly hard to make this festival possible from the stateside
perspective. At that time she was serving in a kind of managerial capacity for me and
besides her festival duties she was trying to arrange a record date for me. This resulted in
the Blue Moses album. She said she went to 15 record companies and nobody wanted to
record me. Finally she met with Creed Taylor whose very successful record company in the
70s was CTI. He recorded people like Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, George Benson,
Grover Washington Jr., Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, Bob James and others. He made
all his records at Rudy Van Gelder’s famous studio using a stable of studio musicians which
also included the leaders he was recording.

My idea was to record a program of music focusing on Morocco, and I wrote four
pieces for the date: “Ifrane”, named for a small town in the mountains near Fes, was about
my first trip through the northern part of Morocco. We had arranged to do some concerts
at some hotels in Morocco and I had this little automobile. I drove this car through the
Atlas Mountains with my son Azzedin and Ed Blackwell. When we passed through this town
called Ifran there was actual snow! Ifran is a skiing village and I didn’t know they had snow
in Morocco! I was so moved that I wrote a piece about it.

“Blue Moses” was simply the translation of Sidi Musa. Musa was Moses for the
Gnawa people; for them the color representing Moses is the color of the sea, the blue of
the sky. When I attended a Gnawa ceremony in 1969 in Tangier it was my first of several
Lilas with the powerful Gnawa elders. As I said earlier I was in a trance for a couple of
weeks after this ceremony, it was so powerful, and this one particular melody stayed with
me. So instead of Sidi Musa I called it “Blue Moses,” based on traditional Gnawa music that
I adapted and re-arranged. When I first wrote this piece the Gnawa elders forbad me
from playing it in public; but after about a year they finally relented after I pleaded with
them that people needed to hear this melody.

“Night in Medina” was about an experience I had when I was living in Rabat, the
capitol of Morocco. I stayed at the Hotel Rex, right in front of the old city; the Medina is
the old city where the traditional marketplace sells all kinds of Moroccan goods, spices,
kaftans and other Moroccan goods. During the day there are hundreds of people on the
streets of the Medina, but at night it gets real quiet. One particular night I couldn’t sleep
and something urged me to go into the Medina, so I went there at 3:00 in the morning! The
streets were deserted and it was very mysterious, sorta spooky. I walked around these
deserted streets and this melody came to me. Fortunately nothing happened to me but it
was a very powerful experience of having frequented the Medina during the day when it’s
crawling with people, then at night when there’s nothing but shadows. I also wrote
“Marrakech Blues” in honor of the city of Marrakech, a city that is really magical. The
buildings have a wonderful reddish hue. So that rounded out my program for this proposed
“Blue Moses” date.

Creed Taylor insisted that the only way he would agree to do the date was if I
played it on Fender Rhodes electric piano, which was popular back then. I can’t stand the
electric piano but I really wanted to make this record. Creed also insisted on using his
regular musicians, which was OK with me because they included Ron Carter and Freddie
Hubbard, who had played with me on the Uhuru Afrika date; Hubert Laws, who ironically
played the festival in Tangier; plus Grover Washington, Jr., Billy Cobham, and the Brazilian
percussionist Airto. I brought my regular bass player Bill Wood and Azzedin to make the
date on congas as well. We recorded “Blue Moses” in March 1972. Despite my lack of
control over some of these important elements, incredibly “Blue Moses” became my biggest
selling record!

Besides his regular crew of excellent musicians, Creed Taylor was known for a
certain sound on CTI and his house arranger was Don Sebesky. We recorded the date using
Melba’s arrangements of my compositions. I wasn’t happy with having to use that electric
piano but the recording session came out much to my satisfaction. So following the session
I went back to Morocco and got busy with the African Rhythms club and festival planning.
“Blue Moses” was released just before the festival and I remember being in the club when
one afternoon a dub of the record arrived in the mail. I immediately put it on the turntable
and out burst all this added orchestration from Don Sebesky. I couldn’t believe it! But the
true success of “Blue Moses” happened after the festival.

Vocalist and arts educator-activist-radio host Andromeda Turre couldn’t help but start life in deep musical immersion… her parents are music masters, cellist Akua Dixon and trombonist Steve Turre. Currently a program host of Growing Up Jazz at Sirius/XM’s Real Jazz channel, working her singing career ongoing (she has a forthcoming new album), and pursuing her work as an educator via her Growing Up Jazz program (which is also the title of her radio shows), we recently caught up with this busy woman, who is also the lone woman champion on Jazzology, my bi-weekly jazz trivia show aired on the Savage Content platform at www.savagecontent.com.

• Being raised by two first-class progressional musicians, at what point in your life did you determine that you wanted to pursue music on your own terms?

I don’t think there was ever a time in my life where I thought I wouldn’t be a musician. Some of the earliest memories that I can recall are sitting and listening to my parents’ rehearsals, which often happened in our living room. I wanted so badly to join them. On my own terms, I feel like I’ve only started growing into that in the last few years, although I have been supporting myself as a professional musician since 2003. It took a lot of living, performing, writing my own music… and failing… to be able to discover my own voice and my own philosophy on the genre.

• Once you had made that determination to pursue music, how did your parents encourage that pursuit?

Andromeda Turre & her Mom, master cellist Akua Dixon

Neither my Mom or Dad were surprised that both myself and my brother Orion [Turre], who is a Jazz drummer, pursued careers in Jazz. I think they are both proud and have been encouraging and supportive in a multitude of ways. As a kid they were both great at giving me music to listen to and study, as well as laying foundations for things like ear training and harmony.  I remember one year when I was in high school, my Dad gave me a boxed set with 16 CD’s of Ella Fitzgerald recordings from Verve Records. He suggested I transcribe it, haha. But I loved it so much, over the course of the time I was in High School, I ended up transcribing probably close to the whole thing. It shaped my understanding of scat vocabulary and vocal improvisation. My Mom helped me establish good pitch by teaching me violin as a child and we would also sing fun intervals and harmonies as we cooked together in the kitchen.

• What was your subsequent music training?

Mom has a cassette tape of me singing a song I wrote when I was 2 years old, I’ve always been a songwriter and creator. I’m grateful that she knew a more formal education would not be the right fit for me. 

I started on piano as a young child, studying with Sonelius Smith. She selected him for me because, while she knew he would make sure I would learn proper hand position and technique, he let me be creative with the repertoire and include my own compositions and improvisations. There’s actually a video that my Dad took of my first piano recital on youtube. I studied dance extensively both at the Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey which was a different kind of music training. Being able to examine tempos and dynamics from a perspective outside of being the one creating the music, and especially from the perspective of a dancer, taught me how music gets internalized in a different way. It also taught me to consider audience experience in a much more engaging way. In high school I was obsessed with choral singing and had an incredible teacher, Ms. Axton. I sang in the madrigals choir, the honors choir and the Jazz choir, all of which she directed. I would get frustrated with her sometimes as she would take the score and give me the most difficult intervals to sing, regardless of whether they were soprano, alto or tenor. I was constantly jumping staves. But it stretched my control over my vocal range, sight reading and pitch. I appreciate now what she saw in me and pushed me to do, I’ll never forget her. Another teacher I’ll never forget is Patrick Dearborn, my high school musical theater teacher. He pulled me from the choir out into the spotlight. I learn so much about stage presence, carrying a show and connecting to the story of the lyrics from him. After that I attended Boston Conservatory for Theater but I ended up hanging with all the Berklee cats so I transferred there after a year. I made some incredible friendships there, musicians I still work with today. But a formal college education wasn’t really for me, I left Berklee after a year and a half and went on tour as the last Raelette hired to sing backup for Ray Charles.

• When did you develop your Growing Up Jazz program/project and what’s been your mission?

I started developing Growing Up Jazz in 2017 as I was trying to figure out my own voice within the industry. I always had musical instincts that didn’t necessarily align with what I thought Jazz was, so I suppressed them or tried to mold them into sounding more like “Jazz” which never made me happy with the end product, because it wasn’t authentic. At this time, I’d just gotten married and moved into a house and finally took back some of the boxes I had left with my parents. In the boxes were a lot of memories – pictures of me with Dizzy Gillespie and Lester Bowie, a book I got from Max Roach, a program from the Blue Note Tokyo that I had played tic tac toe on the back of with Mulgrew Miller. I started trying to piece together my experiences with all of these incredible musicians I was blessed to grow up with and connect the dots with what they had taught me.

What I discerned is that Jazz is the oral history of the African experience in America. And that each generation of its artists has incorporated the sounds and the struggles of their era into the music as a reflection of the times. Jazz is a living history, not a museum piece. I also explored Jazz through the lens of the many incredible Latin Jazz artists I got to glean from, like Andy and Jerry Gonzalez, both of whom I adored. Latin Jazz is a beautiful example of what we now call inclusion. When Latin music fused with Jazz, it didn’t gentrify it and take it over, excluding its tenets and the people who created it. And Jazz didn’t dig in its heels and reject the sounds and culture that the Latin musicians brought to the table. It became a musical conversation on the world stage that was always beautiful, welcoming and heartfelt from my experience. So my mission with Growing Up Jazz is to teach these sides of the history and to have conversations surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion through the lens of Jazz, which I find makes it more palatable for a lot of people. Since I started developing the program with this impetus, I became certified through Cornell University as a diversity and inclusion practitioner to help facilitate this work. Jazz and social justice have always gone hand in hand.

• Talk about some of Growing Up Jazz’s current activities.

Currently I’m offering three versions of my Growing Up Jazz keynote presentation, one for younger kids 5th-8th grade, a slightly more advanced version for high school and a deep dive for adults. I also have an expanded program that builds upon that over several weeks where I get participants, many of whom often have no musical training at all, to write a Jazz song with me. Many of the institutions I have done keynotes for have invited me to continue working with them as a DEI consultant. Everything from creating policy changes to re-examining school curriculums and offering professional development for staff. Probably one of the most exciting things I’m doing under the Growing Up Jazz umbrella, is Artistic Directing cultural events through a DEI lens. I’m most proud of the premier Juneteenth celebration I Artistic Directed for New York City’s Central Park last year, bringing Seneca Village – the Black community that existed there before Central Park – to life. I curated six bespoke performances on a walking tour for visitors, each telling a different story of the former residents there. Of course there was Jazz woven throughout the performances, so it was also a great opportunity to introduce some new ears to the music I love most. I’m thrilled to be Artistic Directing the celebration again this year.

• How do you see Growing Up Jazz intersecting with your Sirius/XM radio work and your singing career?

On SiriusXM, I try to bring my philosophy on air in two ways. First, with my Sunday show which airs from 11am-5pm EST. I try to get as many living artists performing original compositions as I can get away with on the air. I will always look at artists’ websites to see if they’re performing anywhere soon and if so, I share that with my listening audience. PSA to any Jazz musicians reading this – update your website! haha. This initiative of incorporating current music and getting people to go out and support the music in person is important to me in order to keep the music alive. We must continue to listen to the masters, but it’s not possible to go and see John Coltrane anymore. However, you can go see Lakecia Benjamin and other such artists that are out there maintaining this music as a living history. My worst nightmare is that Jazz becomes completely antiquated. The other way that I incorporate the Growing Up Jazz mindset is by sharing the history behind so many of these songs. Many people have heard Wynton Marsalis’ Black Codes, but they don’t know what Black Codes were. They’re familiar with Fables of Faubus, but they’ve never heard of Orval Faubus. Sharing these stories is also important to me as Jazz music has always been an expression of social justice.As a vocalist and composer, Growing Up Jazz informs my artistic practice as I create works that persuade the audience to consider new depths of reality and perspectives and incorporate the sounds and struggles of my generation.

My last project, EMERGING, came about as a response to the pandemic. So many of us were coming out of this ordeal wondering how to get back to normal, I wanted to push them to consider going forward instead. While living in Japan for two years to sing with a big band in 2007 & 2008, I learned about the concept of IKIGAI – the belief that everyone has a reason for being. And that reason is a combination of what you love, what you’re good at, what you can be paid for and what the world needs. I’ve let that guide me since, and created EMERGING to take the audience on a journey through self-discovery to look at their lives and their possibilities in a different way. I collaborated with an incredible motion video designer, Kleidi Eski, to create projections to help facilitate a more imaginative and immersive audience experience during the performance. I had actually started composing the music that ended up being for this show right before the pandemic. And when

 I was 7 months pregnant with my son, I got a call from a friend who was setting up his new recording studio and asked me if I wanted to come in one day that weekend so he could test things out. I had just written this new body of music so I called some musician friends and we went into the studio. It was all recorded in one room, so it was a bit hard to mix and basically impossible to edit. But I documented my ideas and where I was at that time in my life and it became my last album, SHINE. I tried to get some momentum around it, but I was consistently met with suggestions to present standards or a tribute show of some kind instead of original music. I love standards, I know hundreds of them. But when there are so many things to talk about in today’s world, it feels a bit superfluous to me to do a rehash of something I transcribed in high school, especially when I know I’m not gonna do it better than the Queen, Ella. I’ve only ever been good at being myself.

Currently, I am working on a new project, a suite I started composing with four movements entitled “From the Earth”. The project aims to shed light on the disproportionate impact of climate change on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color). The public facing movement of environmental activism often excludes the voices of marginalized activists, so I will be interviewing some of them and incorporating excerpts of their interviews into the music, using Jazz to elevate their voices. Each movement of the four-part suite reflects a different area of environmental decline – From the Earth, From the Ice, From the Sea and From the Sky. If we can all work together as one humanity and include the voices of those most currently affected by climate change, I believe we can problem solve and make necessary change at a much faster rate. I’m also working with an incredible photographer and videographer, Rashida Zagon for this project. We plan to go to these four communities, all of which are here in America, to photograph them and help people see the impact of climate change on BIPOC with their own eyes. I’ll need to source a-typical venues once this is completed that can facilitate the display of the photos and videos during the performance. It’s a huge undertaking to do without any help, currently I do not have a manager, agent, publicist, or any funding for this project outside of myself. But I feel so strongly about its need in the world, I know I’ll find a way to make it happen. Taking on this project is my own way to continue Growing Up Jazz – by expanding the music and using it to reflect the times in a socially relevant way.