The annual August weekend jazz festival presented by the Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle, Maine always sounded like a sweet, kind of best-kept-secret event. My friend and colleague Larry Blumenfeld, veteran jazz writer for the likes of Jazziz magazine (where he served as editor), and more recently for the Village Voice and the Wall Street Journal, was the deserved recipient of this year’s JJA Award for Jazz Journalist of the Year. Larry and I spent some rewarding times traveling the World Sacred Music and Gnawa Festival circuit in Morocco and the wistful tone of his conversation when it turned to that weekend of jazz he has produced annually for the Stonington Opera House, for the last dozen years at this point, always sounded enticing.

Roy’s skillful juggling of the seemingly disparate parts of Sotto Voce – including bassist Tim Kiah, violinist Sam Bardfeld, Fowlkes and Maddox (no drums!) – the group sensibility of the band’s shared vocals (you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Curtis Fowlkes’ falsetto the pop classic “Sunny”), Roy’s poetry and self-deprecating humor breathed an uncanny breath of fresh air. Larry Blumenfeld hesitated a bit when contemplating how his audience would react to the band, but their enthusiastic buy-in to Sotto Voce’s ouevre was inspiring. After a lovely post-concert group dinner, clearly some questions were in order for Roy Nathanson.

As the Jazz Passengers evolved the band began incorporating more of a vocal sensibility, including collaborations with folks like Debbie Harry (aka “Blondie”). Talk about that evolution.

Composition for me always felt like a form of storytelling and I kind of think that storytelling is the mother of theatre. At the beginning of the Passengers, Curtis and I put together what appeared to be opposite songs – or more like songs that inhabited two ends of a compositional spectrum. These songs covered a wide range of emotions and attitudes. Like on our first CD Broken Night/Red Light we had Indian Club Bombardment which was a multi meter thing that was a serious group improvisation around specific motifs next to a goofy version of “I’ll be Glad When You’re dead you rascal You.” The tension articulated some kind of story that mattered to us. Little by little I found I tried to work all these dispirit qualities into individual pieces and as my lyric writing got more serious I found the tension between the lyrics and the musical composition allowed for really complex stories to unfold. Also I worked with other great lyricists including Ray Dobbins, David Cale, Debbie Harry and Elvis Costello and the other members of the band, particularly [vibist] Bill Ware, who had such serious writing and orchestration skills, so the individual songs began to go in a lot of different directions.

When I saw you recently in Stonington, Maine you were up there for a residency which culminated in a concert by your most recent project, Sotto Voce. Talk about that residency and how that came about.

Roy Nathanson’s Sotto Voce band

Larry Blumenfeld has always been (thankfully) a big supporter of my work and he did a really nice article about me in the Wall Street Journal for my 60th birthday last year. In the process, he interviewed me and I got to know him a little bit and Larry has a great affection for and some serious history with the Stonington Opera House and the Haystack Mountain School of the Arts which are both wonderful institutions tucked away on a remote Maine Island. They are crazy beautiful institutions that exist solely form the passion of the people involved.

Larry has been the producer of the little jazz festival (The Deer Island Jazz Festival) there for the last 5 or 6 years and one artist that performs generally also does a residency at the two week session that occurs at that time at Haystack. People normally go there for craft/art stuff like sculpture or strange mixed things like 3D drawing and then the musician talks about music, etc. Like Matt Shipp and William Parker [who were past festival artists-in-residence]. But since I’ve been doing a lot of things which really connect communities together – especially with teenagers form different countries and professional musicians like in my Subway Moon project- Larry and the two great women who run the Opera House – Linda Nelson and Judith Jerome thought it would be cool if I put community members and Haystack artists together with my band to make a piece to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Opera House. So I ended up putting stories by lobstermen and women to music. They were these wonderful stories that came from kids interviews on the island and we ended up with this cool concert of “Lobster Songs and Stories.” Then we had the concert you saw with just “Sotto Voce”. It was a wild wonderful weekend

With Sotto Voce you have unusual instrumentation in that you engage a beat boxer, violin, bass, and no drums; every member of the ensemble contributes vocally, plus sampled voices and sounds. What’s the inspiration behind your Sotto Voce project?

Like I said – I guess I’m always involved in trying to hone in on a kind of storytelling that bridges and uses all the sounds we have as people. Somehow I have this urge to make songs that bridge the gap between poetry, regular storytelling, instrumental improvisation and normal songs. Rap does this in some ways and opera of course but I’ve been coming to some kind of homemade way over the years. As I started studying poetry more seriously (I got an MFA in 2007 and put out my first poetry book in 2009) I started looking at ways to combine words and music with Tim Kiah, the Sotto Voce bassist, and Sam Bardfeld the Sotto Voce violinist. Because Tim is such a wonderful singer and the violin has both melodic and chordal possibilities we started to develop a palette that was working for me. By adding Curtis Fowlkes, my closest friend and a wonderful singer besides my favorite trombonist on earth I was able to use the language we have established as a sax/bone duo for years in the Passengers. The final piece was meeting Napoleon Maddox. His amazing mouth percussion sounds and his beautiful singing voice allow for a true bridge between the human voice and words that constitute accepted meanings in language.

So we had ourselves a killing band that’s like a ship on the water of language. Since I teach now and I’m older I haven’t had the wherewithal to get out there and work in America that much with the band but we play in Europe a lot and when I’m up there doing it I just can’t believe how good it feels.

Sotto Voce not only includes some of your poetry, but also various recollections from your life and work, some through samples. What was your thinking in engaging those particular elements in your presentation?

As I say, these are all aspects of storytelling and you can’t tell a story without having one. I can only tell about what I know so that generally comes from my own experience and I hope I can make it universal enough to effect people

There are a number of references in your work to your regular mode of transportation on the New York subway system. How did that seemingly mundane (for others perhaps) aspect of your life come to have a place of relative prominence in your verse and music?

I’m an old leftist who believes people’s everyday work and life is where the deepest beauty can be found. Only in struggle, everyday embarrassments and defeats can beauty really be earned. But I guess we all know it when we see it. I just try and celebrate those moments as best as I can. The subway is this amazing roaring metaphor where we push up against each other every morning, generally without speaking, but sharing everything about the night before and everything about that coming day in some tangential way. Also the crazy neon lighting and grinding of the tracks in this underground that feels like a collective brain is pretty cool too. It works for me….

Talk about your work as a schoolteacher, in subjects other than music, and how that affects your music.

I started composing for little kids in the early 90s with grants from Meet the Composer and put stories of mostly new Asian immigrant kids to music in Queens. Somehow that turned into a part time job that gave benefits and I loved being around the little ones. I loved (and still love) the line between music and noise. When Debbie Harry left the Passengers and my kid was still pretty little in 2005 I was given the opportunity to start a music department at this wonderful alternative 6-12 grade public school in New York called Institute for Collaborative Education. The principal was this working class hero named John Petinnato who had done all these amazing things with teenage boys that anyone else would have given up on and mixed that mission with creating an innovative school with kids from all kinds of class and race backgrounds; a really Utopian idea that worked more than it doesn’t. I was charmed and I needed some more steady income so I took it on while keeping my career going. It’s been a lot but the kids are so great and I’ve been teaching them my kind of songwriting and improvisation for 7 years now. The first group I taught since 6th grade graduated last year. They’re all at college now but have a great band called the Luddites and developed a city-wide multi genre improvisation group called Amplified Cactus Collective. I’ve brought groups to jazz festivals in Europe for 4 years now with Sotto Voce to collaborate with teenagers from other countries. It’s a lot of work but quite amazing.

What’s next Roy?

I’ve booked two weeks at the Stone Sept 18-30th coming up. It all revolves around combinations of words and music and I have 5 nights that I’m involved with of new projects. I’m working with a friend Lloyd Miller on a musical film version of a book by Paul Reyes called “Exiles in Eden.” His father trashes out foreclosures in Tampa which is the foreclosure capital and Paul works with his father telling stories from that perspective.

Florida is a particularly American mythological nightmare. I went there in high school when my family exploded and Lloyd grew up there too so we are putting that together and presenting some of the songs with Arturo O’Farrill on piano Sept 28th. Sept 22nd I’m doing a bunch of new Sotto Voce material with some of my favorite poets- Jeff Friedman, Gerald Stern, Judith Vollmer, Ross Gay an Anne Marie Marcari. On Sept. 19th I’m doing a show with Lloyd’s band the Deedle Deedle Dee’s and New York Times Poetry Editor David Orr at 8pm and then a duo with Marc Ribot at 10pm that involves poems I’ve written based on lyrics to standards like “All the Things Your Are”.. I’m hoping to use these two weeks to get these new projects off the ground and then hopefully not get too nuts from teaching everyday!

Shortly after we began this series of dialogues with women jazz writers, in part focusing on the subject of their various challenges towards achieving bylines in the jazz prints, along came JazzTimes magazine’s September 2012 issue – The Women’s Issue. A short survey of the issue revealed eleven pieces of reportage and interview with women artists, which is certainly laudable. The major pieces in the issue are interviews with Anat Cohen, Cassandra Wilson, and Jenny Scheinman – two essentially emerging artists, one well-established. OK, lookin’ good so far JT.

Our series continues with a contribution from Andrea Canter.

Andrea Canter

Please list your writing affiliations and any books or other projects you’re currently working on that you’d like mentioned in the introduction. Please also attach a jpeg photo of yourself, or whatever image you prefer to represent you, when you return your responses.

Writing Affiliations: JazzINK (www.jazzink.com); Jazz Police (www.jazzpolice.com); blog at www.jazzink.blogspot.com

Photography (in addition to above): Twin Cities Jazz Festival

What has been your experience writing about music in general, jazz in particular and how did you get started down this road?

I began writing about music/jazz by accident. A long-term jazz fan, after attending a local gig at the Artists Quarter (Craig Taborn, Anthony Cox and Dave King) in 2003, I found myself writing about it in an email to several friends, including Craig’s mom who passed it on to Craig. Craig told me “you should have your own website” to post my writings. My web and technical skills seemed to preclude that idea. But I started looking at jazz sites on the web and a few months later came across Jazz Police. Coincidentally it was the first day the site went live, and administrator Don Berryman was seeking material to post and writers to contribute. I sent him my review of Taborn et al as an example, and he posted it (three months after the fact). I became the Contributing Editor overnight. I retired from my long-time day job a few months later and this became my second career. So it was sort of spontaneous combustion.

What was it about writing about jazz that attracted you to this pursuit initially?

Initially it was just a way of communicating my feelings about the music to others, as a way of expressing what moved me about jazz in lay terms. Since I was not a musician myself, I wanted to make jazz come alive for others like me—more or less intelligent but untrained consumers. Too many people regard jazz as “ivory tower” music requiring extensive training to understand and appreciate. I wanted to write for a more generic but curious listener – it’s the only way jazz will expand its audience. Actually my motivation has not changed—this is still the audience I most want to reach. Jazz can still be “people’s music” as it was 100 years ago –it brings diverse people and cultures together, and that is the audience I hope will read my writings.

Would you describe your experiences writing about music as overall positive, and if so why or why not?

Because I have a good pension, I am not dependent on my writing or photography for survival, so my experience is different from someone who needs her work to be compensated to make ends meet. I make my own decisions about what I write about, how much I take on, and usually the timeline. Most of my experiences have been positive—I love the people I work with, the musicians I interview and promote, and the audience response that I receive is generally very positive. I only review something I like and want others to enjoy and recognize that we all have specific tastes in music or art generally, and if I don’t like something, it probably will appeal to someone else. My only really negative experience has come from a short stint writing assigned CD reviews for a publication that disregarded writers’ intents and perspectives in their editing process. When I read reviews in that publication now, I wonder whose opinions are actually expressed. It’s made me extra cautious in editing material submitted to my sites.

Women occupy an interesting place in the jazz pantheon; on the one hand women instrumentalists are in the distinct minority, at least as far as prominence, and on the other hand women absolutely dominate the ranks of jazz singers. What’s your sense of that imbalance?

I think it is the same imbalance we see in other professions – women dominate in the ranks of elementary school teachers while men still dominate (in most areas) in university teaching. Men used to dominate in professions that required advanced graduate school training like law and medicine, not so much now but historically men dominated our field of journalism and still do in some areas like sports and…jazz. Historically women have been encouraged to be singers in male dominated bands and discouraged from the “tough life” on the road of touring artists. One could also look at the collateral imbalance—not so many men in the ranks of prominent jazz singers, versus instrumentalists. Maybe singing has been considered womens’ work? Or men had a wider range of options? I think the imbalance is slowly changing as we see more and more women leading their own ensembles, rising in the ranks of composers and arrangers, represented in critics and readers polls in areas outside voice. And that shift is occurring outside jazz, outside music as well. It takes a while for at least some professions to catch up with general changes in society. Women today are not limiting themselves, or being limited by others, to follow professions with family-friendly hours. There are more role models for young women who play piano, horns, bass and drums so over the next generation I expect we will see more and more women instrumentalists in jazz. I doubt that means we will see fewer women vocalists. I think we will just see more women in jazz, period. But I wonder if we will also see more male vocalists?

Would you describe yourself as a music critic or a music journalist and why?

I consider myself a music journalist, but I believe that term encompasses criticism, or at least it could. My first priority is to promote jazz broadly — to inform readers about local and national artists, upcoming performances, material that will enhance their enjoyment of stars and rising stars, and introduce them to new artists and trends. Sometimes that will include my perspective on recent performances and recordings. I am not a musician and my “criticism” is not sophisticated in a technical sense, but I will share my reactions on music in an artistic and emotional sense that hopefully will resonate with listeners and potential listeners who make up the majority of audiences and the general jazz market. And typically I present my reactions as a means of promoting jazz, not knocking it down, so I generally publish about music and musicians I am trying to highlight. That does not mean I like everything, I don’t. I believe I listen and evaluate “critically” but what I choose to spend my time writing about is usually the music that moves me–the music I want to share. I think this precludes labeling myself a “critic” although I will participate in “critics polls.” I like that experience — considering favorites, the “best.” I’m glad we don’t try to come up with the “worst” of the year!

Its been suggested that one of the real keys to solving the critical jazz audience development issue is that those who present the music must find more creative ways to attract more women to their audiences; some wisdom suggesting that where more women go, men will surely follow. Is this an apt characterization of the jazz audience conundrum, and if so are there elements you might suggest to those who present jazz as to better attracting women audience members? Clearly writing about music, and particularly writing about jazz, could well be characterized as “a man’s world.” Do you feel like that’s due more to the nature of the music or to some form(s) of overt exclusion from the “boy’s club”?

Actually I think writing about most anything that is not traditionally viewed as “women’s work” can be described as coming from a “man’s world.” Women do not make up a large share of the writers about sports, science, arts in general, politics, etc. — nonfiction across the board. I don’t think the nature of the music has anything to do with it, but the nature of the music business has everything to do with it. As women become more prevalent as instrumental performers, publicists, producers and broadcasters of music, they will become more prevalent as critics and general writers. And certainly as women become more prevalent consumers of jazz, there will be more women writing about it.

How do your women friends and colleagues view you as a jazz writer?

I don’t see any gender differences in the reactions of friends and colleagues. I don’t think my women friends give the fact that I am a woman writing about jazz any thought at all – not that they mention anyway. They are generally encouraging and seem to find my writing useful, entertaining and credible. (Or else they are extremely tactful!)

Have you ever found it more difficult to pursue writing about music due to gender issues? If so please detail some of your writing challenges that may have been fairly or unfairly colored by gender.

I think print media tends to be a good ol’ boys club but not sure that is limited to jazz or music, it seems to be the general nature of journalism. It’s not easy to find a way into the major print journals as a writer, it seems easier as a photographer, although even at that it’s difficult to be “new”, male or female. I don’t know that I have been impeded directly by gender issues. My online experiences have been pretty gender-free; my main outlet is a site with a male administrator and I otherwise have my own sites. I’ve been invited to participate in other outlets by male and female writers and editors. Still, both writing and photography in jazz are still dominated by men as editors, staff writers, staff photographers. And perhaps there will have to be a big shift toward balance in instrumental musicians before we see more balance in terms of who is writing about them. But that goes two-ways. Maybe more women need to be in positions to promote jazz in order for more women to see jazz as a viable profession.

What can be done to encourage more women to write about music in particular, jazz in general?

My thoughts here are not limited to writing about music, but to writing (broadcasting, communicating) more generally. Women need to feel that their opinions are valued by men. Period. We’ll share our thoughts if we believe there’s an interested audience, an audience that finds us credible, knowledgeable, worth listening to. A lot of girls and young women participate in music in school through high school. A lot continue with music into college. Women generally are interested in music and surely have significant opinions and make up a significant share of the audience –even at jazz events. Women certainly have the language skills to articulate their opinions!

Women need to become more assertive in sharing their interests and opinions about music just as they have needed to be more assertive in other areas. Schools can do more to encourage young women to express themselves by providing role models, both on faculty and as visiting instructors. Are women teaching writing and journalism as well as music classes? Are schools bringing women journalists and musicians (especially jazz musicians) from the community into the schools to work with students—especially the young women? Are college journalism programs addressing arts journalism and encouraging participation from women students? Are music and general publications actively seeking women to participate as writers and reviewers? Are critics polls striving to have a more equitable gender balance of participants? Are print and online sources seeking women in editorial and management positions?

Those of us who are women writers in music and jazz need to actively mentor and encourage young women who show the slightest interest in joining “the club.” That starts with encouraging them to become an active part of the jazz audience. And that starts early. Moms and dads, bring your sons AND daughters to band concerts, jazz concerts. Download music for them to hear throughout the day. And encourage them to share their reactions to music with friends and family. Just talking about it is a great first step.

What have been some of the most personally satisfying music performances you’ve either written about or simply experienced over the last year?

In the past year – Writing about and particularly seeing/hearing live “Speak the Truth” with Angelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright at the 2011 Detroit Jazz Festival; two live performances by newbie New York vocalist Nancy Harms, both in somewhat unusual configurations that truly use voice as a collaborative instrument – Double Bass/Double Voice (with vocalist Emily Braden and bassist Steve Whipple) and Finger Songwriter CD release tour with Jeremy Siskind (piano) and Lucas Pino (sax); Sheila Jordan, observing her master class and then her duo with bassist Cameron Brown at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival; Vijay Iyer’s two-night mini-festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis where he performed two sets solo and sets in collaboration with his two trios (Tirtha and Vijay Iyer Trio) and in duets with Wadada Leo Smith and Mike Ladd; the Bad Plus with Joshua Redman at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival—the collaboration seemed to push both Redman and TBP to a new zone of music, even more interesting than what they have done on their own. Beyond those events, performances by students musicians, in their own ensembles and as guests with professional bands.

The city of Baltimore certainly has its share of a rich jazz legacy. On the contemporary scene there is increasing jazz performance activity in Baltimore, as well as a growing cadre of exceptional young musicians who are striving to contribute. These include such talented players as vibist-multi-instrumentalist Warren Wolf and alto saxophonist Tim Green. Another who fits that mold is bass clarinetist-composer-bandleader Todd Marcus, who is also contributing to the city’s social activism fabric.

Following his performance at the loft series component of the recent DC Jazz Festival, we caught up with Todd Marcus for some questions…

You’ve chosen to specialize in a somewhat unusual instrument, the bass clarinet. Who and what were your inspirations in making that choice?

I started out as a clarinetist for many years – all through elementary and high school. But when I got to college, I made a friend who started turning me on to modern jazz and gave me an Eric Dolphy record and when I heard Dolphy play bass clarinet I felt that the horn offered a lot more options than soprano clarinet. So in 1997 I got my hands on a bass clarinet and made the switch. And it was many years before I picked up my soprano clarinet again and started reincorporating it into my work.

There aren’t a lot of examples of bass clarinet being used exclusively in modern jazz though. It’s sort of like you have the older New Orleans style players, Dolphy, and then a lot of free avant-garde style players. But the other big inspiration for me was Don Byron because he was one of the only musicians focusing just on soprano and bass clarinet in a way that folks hadn’t really been doing.

It hasn’t been easy because of challenges the bass clarinet presents on sonic and mechanicals level and I’ve worked to present the horn as an equal to saxophones in a straight-ahead playing context. With so few examples of people playing bass clarinet in modern jazz though, I think it’s ended up being an opportunity for me to chart some new territory for the instrument.

In addition to your music career you’ve also chosen a sort of spiritual/social activism path through establishment of Newborn Holistic Ministries. How do these two facets of your life – your music and your social activism – intersect and how has your social and spiritual activism influenced your music, and vice versa?

Well I got a late start on jazz. I actually grew up playing band and classical music on clarinet and when I went to college I was studying political science rather than music. So around that time I started exploring jazz on the side and taught myself theory, harmony, to improvise, and composition. But while I was slowly plugging away on that journey, I had begun volunteering with Sandtown Habitat for Humanity on my Saturdays and that exposed me to Sandtown-Winchester, an African-American community in Baltimore City. During this time I also met a pastor named Elder C.W. Harris and got to learn a lot from him about the community. It was a great opportunity for me because I was a young kid passionate about jazz legends like Coltrane and Miles and a lot of the civil rights era African-American history around that time that was so much a part of the music. So the chance to learn from Elder Harris, a 60 year old life-long community resident who had stayed to fight for the neighborhood when so many others had left was a real blessing. It really helped me figure things out for myself and realize I didn’t see a path for myself in political science but did feel strongly about being part of a community where I could really get into ongoing issues related to ongoing race issues. So in 1997 I left college, moved into the Sandtown-Winchester community and began working with Elder Harris on developing Newborn Holistic Ministries which was a community based nonprofit he’d started to address poverty related issues in our community. And now 15 years later, we’ve made some notable progress by starting and running a program called Martha’s Place for our women overcoming drug addiction and homelessness, a program called Jubilee Arts which offers arts classes and cultural opportunities as alternatives to the drugs and violence our community faces, and turned a number of abandoned buildings and vacant lots into beautifully renovated spaces for these programs.

But all the while that we were cultivating Newborn Holistic Ministries I was still going home at the end of the day and dealing with my other full-time job – jazz and the bass clarinet. For many years I kept the two – my music and my community work – separate because I didn’t want people in either of those worlds to think I was just a part-time enthusiast rather than someone seriously dedicated to each. But over time as I’ve established myself in both, I’ve become comfortable merging these two worlds with people. And at this point I couldn’t see myself doing just one without the other. For me my music is my creative voice and an expression of who I am while my community work is a manifestation of my belief that we all have a responsibility to be engaged at some level in service whether it’s on local or global issues. Nowadays I even have opportunities to combine the two as I’ve held a number of concerts in my community which once had a rich history of jazz (on Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Avenue) and so I’m trying to keep that legacy alive.

Talk about your Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra. When and how did you determine that you wanted to develop a larger ensemble, a broader canvas for your expressions?

Todd Marcus Nonet performing at the DC Jazz Festival

For me this came about as I was really getting into jazz when I was 19 or 20 and had the chance to hear a large group in NY at Smalls called the Jason Lindner Big Band. While I can’t say I’m a huge traditional big band aficionado, I was really taken with the Lindner Big Band because it had arrangements with rich modern harmonies and rhythms and would break down to soloing more like in a quartet with longer intense solos. So hearing that kind of writing really inspired me to start exploring my own writing and arranging for a larger ensemble. Also, hearing Joe Henderson’s Big Band album that came out around that time in the late 1990’s was also a group whose writing inspired me and gave me ideas.

What have been some of your recent Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra activities, and do you have plans to record this unit?

The past year has been a good one for this band with a lot of performances. We received the Residency grant from Chamber Music America to do a year of clinics and concerts so that was a fun way to keep the band working while also engaging new audiences and younger musicians in the music through the clinics we did. The project actually just wrapped up in May when we did a concert in Baltimore and brought in Bennie Maupin as a featured guest. It was a really great show and even though he was playing the tenor sax part, he did bring his bass clarinet so for one selection we played one of his tunes and just he and I played bass clarinet along with the rhythm section. He sounded beautiful and it was a special moment for me to be able to play together with him since he is one of the important people to have given the bass clarinet a voice in jazz. I’m actually hoping we can do some more shows with him next year and then record. I’m looking into some grants now to try to make it happen.

On the musical side of things, I still slowly but steadily continue to write new music for the band. I say slowly because my pieces are often fairly complex with different movements and multiple themes and feels so I find it takes me more time to nurse a composition to fruition these days. Also, over the past couple years I’ve been doing a lot of incorporating Middle-Eastern influences in my writing. I’m half Egyptian so this has been something that I’ve been interested in and exploring a lot as a way to pull something unique from my culture and fuse it with my music. It’s been challenging because jazz and Middle-Eastern music are so different. While jazz uses a lot of rich harmony, Middle-Eastern music tends to be a lot of unison playing or over drones and if you try to add chords, it sort of takes away the Middle-Eastern feel of the music. So it’s taken a lot of experimenting to find ways to make this fusion of the two musics work and I think that lately it’s really been paying off with how my compositions have been progressing.

Has your Jazz Orchestra been more about your playing, or your composing aspirations?

I think it’s been slightly more about my composing and arranging but the playing is still a huge part. And with so many horn players, I have a lot of soloists to feature and try to get everyone heard during each show. Plus, I really like each soloist to really open up and dig in like we do in small group settings because that’s the kind of intensity that really excites me as a listener. But that said, this group has really been a setting for me to deeply explore my compositions in a way that can’t always be done with my quartet. There’s a fullness and range of options from having six horns that lets me do a lot of creative things with the music. And this really lets me tell a story with music by having different movements and chapters that evolve and grow and make the arrangements very rich.

Talk about your work with Barbara & Carl Grubbs and their Contemporary Arts Inc.

I’ve known the Carl and Barbara Grubbs for many years. Actually when I first started getting serious about jazz I took some lessons with Carl back in 1997. I remember I had been in an art store one day back in 1997 looking at jazz paintings and the owner started telling me about Carl and his connection to Coltrane by being Naima’s cousin. And he called Carl up on the spot and put me on the phone with Carl and we talked and set up a lesson. So that was my first introduction to not just Carl and Barbara but a chance to connect with an elder who had been part of the music as a performer and with many other important musicians.

Years later I got to know about the great jazz education work that the Grubbses do with their organization Contemporary Arts Inc. And it just so happened that we had both independently been trying to get grant support for our work from Chamber Music America which is an arts organization in NY that funds a lot of jazz programs. It was actually the staff at Chamber Music America that felt strongly about each our body of work and suggested that we partner together to apply for their Residency grant project. So we did that and got a major grant to do a year of clinics and concerts designed to engage new audiences in jazz.

The project was a ton of work in addition to the musical aspects because on an administrative level we had to setup about 24 clinics and concerts with multiple partners. But Barbara (who is the Executive Director of Contemporary Arts) and I really worked well together and created a project that reached thousands of people. Our clinics exposed students to jazz and actually got them playing my original music with my band. So it was very much geared towards engaging them directly in my music and having them play alongside professional musicians plus we covered topics like music business. I think it went pretty well overall and was a great model for any clinics I’d do in the future.

Any further thoughts or plans you’d like to talk about?

In addition to my jazz orchestra, I also do a lot with my quartet, trio, and duo and I actually have a new quartet album coming out this fall that I think came out really nice. The recording features my original compositions and arrangements of some jazz standards and uses two different quartets. One includes Xavier Davis on piano, Eric Wheeler on bass, and Eric Kennedy on drums and the other quartet uses George Colligan on piano, Eric Wheeler again on bass, and Warren Wolf. Plus, Don Byron plays clarinet on a few tracks so it is a very special recording for me. It’s on Hipnotic Records which is an indie label based in Washington, DC that has been very supportive of me. It’s looking like the record will be released in September so we’ll have CD release dates all throughout the fall and culminate with a performance at the Mid Atlantic Jazz Festival in February. Really looking forward to it all.

As for other info about me and what I’m up to, I always keep my website (www.toddmarcusjazz.com) up to date so that’s a good way to keep track of me. And for my community work, that website is www.newbornholisticministries.com.

During 2010 and 2011 The Independent Ear fostered a refreshing dialogue with African American jazz writers that we dubbed “Ain’t But a Few of Us.” A few women writers participated in that dialogue and some of their responses were flavored with a sort of double-bind perspective of being not only African American writers but female as well, gender lending a slightly different tint to their sense of pursuit of the music writing craft.

Given the number of women who write about music it seemed another dialogue was in order for The Independent Ear. Apropos our first contributor is a woman who also contributed to “Ain’t But a Few of Us,” Bridget Arnwine. I first met Bridget years ago when the Jazz Journalists Association fostered a one-time mentorship effort for aspiring jazz writers. After the passing of my friend and colleague, the Harlem chief of the jazz prints Clarence Atkins, a Clarence Atkins fund was established that enabled a small coterie of African American writers to attend a journalist conference in California. One member of that crew was Bridget Arnwine, who I had first met when she approached me about writing in Cleveland. She got an opportunity to write program booklet content for the Tri-C JazzFest and has developed her craft from there, with increased opportunities coming her way since her job relocated her to the Washington, DC metro area where Bridget is currently based. Like many a young writer she has been a contributor to All About Jazz. Our conversation began with her current writing affiliations.

Bridget Arnwine

I am currently writing for examiner.com as the Washington, DC Jazz Music Examiner and the National Jazz Artists Examiner. I was recently added as a new contributor for Pure Jazz Magazine.

What has been your experience writing about music in general, jazz in particular and how did you get started down this road?

My experience writing about music has been mostly positive. I really enjoy it and I love the added responsibility of being my own photographer even more.

I started writing about music, because I first wanted to write a book. I wanted to interview jazz musicians about what they loved about the music and what inspired their paths, but I only landed one interview.

I reached out to every jazz musician I found contact info for, but they all turned me down. I eventually contacted Jazz at Lincoln Center to see if I could appeal to the musicians there, but their PR department turned me down too. After a while I was put in touch with someone who suggested that I reach out to Wynton Marsalis‘s right hand woman so that I might plead my case to her. I sent her an email and she responded. She told me in a nutshell that no one would talk to someone they didn’t know, so my task was to become known. She suggested that I join an organization and take on as many writing tasks as possible. That’s what I did. Within a week of that exchange, I found the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) and allaboutjazz.com. Funny enough, my first assignment for the Jazz Journalists Association newsletter turned out to be a book review. It was for W. Royal Stokes’s book, “Growing Up With Jazz”– a book of interviews. I knew as soon as that book arrived in the mail that I was on the right path.

That was a little more than seven years ago. Thanks to Gen for the invaluable advice and thanks to Wynton for being the only musician to say yes.

As for other genres of music, I’ve written about country, R&B, opera and hip hop for as long as I’ve written about jazz, but I’ve never done anything with those reviews/articles. I started writing about heavy metal, because I saw a help wanted ad seeking contributors for an upstart heavy metal publication and I replied. I did that for a year and I loved it. It’s been almost four years since I’ve written non-jazz related articles, but I recently began receiving requests from metal bands and R&B acts. I’m considering trying it again.

What was it about writing about jazz that attracted you to this pursuit initially?

Initially, I was attracted to jazz because of my introduction to the music. To round out the details of my response to the previous question, my first jazz concert was a Wynton Marsalis performance back in 1995. I lived in Atlanta at the time and I was an intern in the office of then Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. One of the summer interns tricked me into riding with her down to Augusta for a three-day weekend. Wynton Marsalis was in Augusta for a set of concert dates, and the plan was to register voters at his shows.

I was not a jazz fan at that time. The only reason I agreed to go was because the intern convinced me that taking the initiative to register voters in Augusta would really make a good impression on Congresswoman McKinney. I aspired to work in politics at the time, so I went along with it. Needless to say, I had a real bad attitude leading up to the first night’s show.

Most everything the intern told me about the trip was a lie. We weren’t invited to stay with one of Congresswoman McKinney’s staffers; we weren’t going to register voters at Wynton’s concerts (we were allowed to register voters at a Black Business Expo that happened to be going on the first day of our visit); heck, she hadn’t even secured permission for us to attend Wynton’s show. We were only allowed to go to the show because we arrived at the venue a few hours ahead of show time and the intern sent a “hello, I’m the girl who…” note backstage. To my surprise, one of the septet members happened to be there to receive the note and he remembered meeting her! We were told to meet the group in the lobby of their hotel and we’d walk to the venue together. It was then that I learned that we didn’t have a place to stay, so I ended up booking the last available room at the same hotel.

What changed for me was meeting the guys–Wycliffe Gordon, Eric Reed, Wess Anderson, Victor Goines, Wynton and a tour manager named John. I remember the first night; I was amazed by what I heard. They were fantastic. The intern was supposed to be the jazz fan, but I was the one excited about attending all of the shows that weekend. There’s no way I could walk away from an experience like that without trying to learn more about the music. I eventually became so enamored with the music that I felt I had to do something jazz related… I couldn’t play an instrument; nobody wants to hear me sing; I don’t like being around people enough to want to become a road manager, so I decided to write. Meeting them, and hearing them play, changed the course of my life forever and they don’t even know it.

Long story, I know, but I think of that weekend whenever I think about why I’m here.

Would you describe your experiences writing about music as overall positive, and if so why or why not?

My experiences have definitely been mostly positive. I love the music and I respect those who care enough to create it. Sometimes the demands of my day job present a few challenges to my life as a writer/photographer, but writing about the music and photographing what I see is what makes me feel most human. I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life.

Women occupy an interesting place in the jazz pantheon; on the one hand women instrumentalists are in the distinct minority, at least as far as prominence, and on the other hand women absolutely dominate the ranks of jazz singers. What’s your sense of that imbalance?

My two cents: audiences and the industry are just getting comfortable seeing women do more than sing.

Women in general have been placed in a box and expected to adhere to certain standards. We’re expected to interact with/engage people a certain way; we’re expected to dress and look a certain way; we’re expected to maintain traditional roles in relationships even if we thrive in non-traditional roles professionally; and we’re not supposed to put our interests ahead of anyone else’s. Now women are living by their own definitions of what it means to be a woman. One of those definitions is capable. Not capable for a woman, or capable compared to men, but capable in the fullest sense of the word.

Getting back to the music, Ingrid Jensen and Anat Cohen are constantly referenced as among the best on their instruments- male or female. Tia Fuller performs in 6 inch stilettos and body-conscious outfits and she manages to blow her face off every time she plays. How’s that for womanhood? Helen Sung, Geri Allen and Amina Figarova can conjure some of the most beautiful sounds out of the piano. Regina Carter is as close to flawless as I’ve ever heard. Esperanza Spalding‘s Grammy win has changed the game for female musicians. Cindy Blackman-Santana is my idol. Terri Lyne Carrington and Shirazette Tinnen… Nicole Mitchell… Claire Daily… Bria Skonberg… Tineke Postma… Mimi Jones… they’re all awesome.

The imbalance is slowly disappearing, because these talents won’t be denied.

Would you describe yourself as a music critic or a music journalist and why?

I use music journalist on my business cards, but in hindsight, I think music journalists are far more polished than I am. I’m definitely not a critic either. I would have described myself as a critic when I first started out, but not now. I think jazz writer sums me up. Jazz writer AND photographer.

It’s been suggested that one of the real keys to solving the critical jazz audience development issue is that those who present the music must find more creative ways to attract more women to their audiences; some wisdom suggesting that where more women go, men will surely follow. Is this an apt characterization of the jazz audience conundrum, and if so are there elements you might suggest to those who present jazz as to better attracting women audience members?

That’s an interesting question. I have noticed that I’m usually the only unattached woman at shows. I’ve seen single guys at shows, I’ve seen groups of guys, but rarely have I seen women without a male date. How do you get more men to “follow” if they’re already well represented in the audiences? I do think it’s possible that even more men would show up if more women were present at shows, but the same can be true in reverse– find a way to attract more men and women would show up.

That said, I have noticed that there’s no shortage of women in the audiences for jazz artists with crossover appeal. Roy Hargrove‘s shows are always crawling with women. Same thing is true for Robert Glasper and Esperanza Spalding. Roy Hargrove and Robert Glasper work with hip-hop and neo-soul artists. Esperanza Spalding was thrust into the spotlight. That’s earned them more media attention than many of their colleagues. I’ve not noticed a shortage of women in the audiences for the more popular genres either, so in my opinion it’s not a“where the ladies at?” issue as much as it’s a lack of media coverage issue.

I think if we find a way to get the major, mainstream publications interested in stories about jazz musicians who play jazz music, then audiences could change. I’m working on being a more active contributor, so I hope to do my part to help improve things.

Clearly writing about music, and particularly writing about jazz, could well be characterized as “a man’s world.” Do you feel like that’s due more to the nature of the music or to some form(s) of overt exclusion from the “boy’s club”?

Honestly speaking, you get out of this work what you put into it– man or woman. I haven’t always put a lot into it, because of the demands of my day job and a few other things, but the world seems to open itself up to me when I’m plugged in.

I have had a few “things that make you say, hmmm” moments as a writer that seem to definitely be “boys club” related, but I’ve learned not to care. One example that I’ve shared before, I’ve approached the same magazine on two separate occasions about contributing articles and I’ve been turned down and told that no new writers were being accepted. I was offered an opportunity to contribute free/unpaid work to their website, but I was told in no uncertain terms that I would not be accepted as a contributor to the magazine. That hurt a little, but it’s hard to be offended by “no new writers,” so I accepted it.

I do buy and read the magazines, so imagine my surprise when I saw new names, of guys I know, added to the list of contributing writers. So much for not accepting new writers. The first time I approached the magazine’s staff about contributing articles was at a JJA Jazz Awards event. I’m sure they’d never heard of me, so maybe my approach was a little too… I don’t know… I acknowledge that I can be a bit aggressive at times, so maybe I was too much. The second time I approached them, maybe they had read my work and decided that they didn’t like it. I have absolutely no idea what their reasons were for not accepting me, but I do know that they didn’t tell me the truth.

I didn’t begin writing about this music because of a publication. I’m here, because I love this music. I’ve found a way to create my own opportunities.

How do your women friends and colleagues view you as a jazz writer?

My friends are happy for me. They know what led me to this music, so they know how excited I am to have access to this world.

I don’t know what my colleagues think of me as a jazz writer or photographer. I’ve never had that conversation with anyone. All I can say is that I’m happy for every writer and/or photographer I’ve ever met. They seem to be accomplishing great things, and I’m pressing forward in hopes of accomplishing great things of my own.

Have you ever found it more difficult to pursue writing about music due to gender issues? If so please detail some of your writing challenges that may have been fairly or unfairly colored by gender.

Aside from what I detailed in one of my previous responses, I’d say not really.

The only real difficulty I have had is trying to maintain relationships with publicists and editors.

If an editor changes my work and I question why, it’s not always been received very well. I’m not opposed to having my work changed. In fact, I welcome input from anyone who can help me get better. But why can’t I ask why something’s been changed and why can’t you explain why your change is better? Now, I have to worry about if I’ve offended someone because I’ve asked questions. If a publicist tells me that he/she is going to arrange an interview and I question them about the status while receiving no response, what’s the publicist going to tell the artist about why the interview doesn’t happen? Is it my fault? If I am blamed, do I need to show the artist the unanswered emails I sent out or do I leave it alone? What about publicists from arts organizations who renege on press requests? Should I reply with a “that’s ok, I’ll try again next year,” or Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?! On the flip side, if I’m long overdue on a promise to deliver a review, do they hate me because of it?

These are definitely woman worries. At least they are some of this woman’s worries.

What can be done to encourage more women to write about music in particular, jazz in general?

I do think there are more women writers than we acknowledge. You know me, because of my involvement with JJA and the Clarence Atkins Fellowship, but, after seven plus years in the game, I’m still introducing and reintroducing myself to the same folks. Nobody knows me. Again, some of that is my fault. I could be doing so much more than I am doing; I’m taking steps to make that happen. I can’t imagine I’m the only woman going through this.

I see the JJA monthly members’ updates. There are a good number of women out there doing awesome things but I rarely hear of those things outside of the JJA. When I look at the number of articles women are contributing to major publications, the numbers are unimpressive but at least there’s a presence. I think just like the musicians, women writers and photographers are beginning to put themselves out there more. It’s only a matter of time before we make our presence felt.

What have been some of the most personally satisfying music performances you’ve either written about or simply experienced over the last year?

I’ve been fortunate enough to see and hear lots of great music during my time as a writer, but last year I realized that there were three artists I’d not yet seen that I really wanted to see: Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter. I can now say that I’ve seen them all!

Aside from those, I’ve attended a few cool festival performances by Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Amina Figarova, Winard Harper, Delfeayo Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Ravi Coltrane and Regina Carter. In DC, the Ertegun Jazz Series [presented at the Turkish Embassy] has featured some really awesome performances by Orrin Evans, Helen Sung, Tia Fuller, Jonathan Batiste, Gretchen Parlato, Warren Wolf, Roy Hargrove and Marcus Strickland. And I can’t forget about that James Farm performance at the University of Maryland. They’re fun.

I have plans to increase my festival attendance next year, and I hope to spend more time traveling to NYC for some of those awesome Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts. Jason Moran just became the Artistic Advisor for Jazz at the Kennedy Center, so I’m beyond excited about 2013. I’m going to be all over the place. I can hardly wait!

Those who’ve been around jazz, African American classical music, American classical music, creative music, BAM or whatever your preferred nomenclature for the art of the improvisors that is based upon the African experience in America and European concepts and instruments, have to know that the radio airways, even what precious little we’ve been able to experience over the last thirty years or so is an endangered species.

First the wolves of commerciality and bland, formulaic radio cleansed the commercial airways of jazz music. New York-area listeners back in the day remember the day former all-jazz radio WRVR went country music overnight. Until a group of brave, hearty souls gave birth to WBGO, that meant the New York metropolitan area, arguably the mecca for this music, was suddenly without a full-time jazz outlet. Like the proverbial domino effect jazz music soon became extinct on the commercial airways, with the Bay Area’s KJAZ’ demise signaling the turn out the lights the party’s over end of the music on the commercial airways as we knew it.

Ah, but then we just knew we had a safe new home on the public and community FM airways on the far left end of the dial in perpetuity, right? Not so fast ma’am, seems no ground is safe from assorted wolves who would rule this music not even commercial enough to ignite significant numbers of listener-supporters (but then try selling that false platitude to WBGO or SoCal’s KJZZ!). Seems the wolves this time come cloaked not in the flimsy garments of commerciality, this time they’ve got a seemingly unquenchable thirst for more, more, more news/talk & information. Forget the fact that 21st century radio is deeply over-sexed with news/talk & information formats, not to mention the fact that even those stations which purport to be music at their core seem compelled to squeeze in as much talking head babble as possible, we have non-commercial radio airways over-wrought with non-stop chatter.

The latest creative music bastion to fall victim to the false notion that music listeners won’t support stations with their membership drive largesse is Boston’s WGBH (check The Independent Ear for a recent editorial and subsequent petition drive on this latest sorry chapter in the erosion of non-commercial music from the public & community airways). To see stalwart creative music broadcasters like Eric Jackson and Steve Schwartz either neutered, kicked to the curb or outright expelled has indeed been a sorry saga. Once again the replacement programming is slated to be more news/talk & information. And this is happening in a great city that boasts perhaps more creative music students per capita than any other American city, including home to the leading contemporary music conservatory in the world, Berklee College of Music.

Likely the next radio station to face a similar fate is WPFW, Pacifica Radio in Washington, DC, at 89.3 FM and streaming live at www.wpfw.org. Founded in 1977 by a stalwart group of largely African Americans (in the days back before gentrification, when DC was truly “Chocolate City”), WPFW’s mission statement has jazz music front and center as a core broadcast element. WPFW has forever been viewed within the Pacifica Radio network as something of a stepchild for two reasons: its African American constituency and majority African American management and programming staff. Another factor that has long been WPFW’s “difference” even in the supposedly progressive ranks of Pacifica Radio (the last bastion of left-wing radio on the American airways) is the in-house Pacifica viewpoint that WPFW is “…that music station…” I’ve been a programmer at WPFW since 1989; first as the long time host of the Friday afternoon Drivetime Jazz slot (for years 4-7pm then cut to 4-6pm by management’s stated need for more news/talk & information), more recently as host of the Thursday Morning Drivetime Jazz slot 5-8am. In addition to jazz WPFW has also long been the DC area’s radio home for blues, old school R&B, Latin music, African music, and assorted Caribbean island music – certainly befitting a metropolitan area that boasts not only a large African American populace, but is also a world city with the largest Ethiopian populace outside of that nation, as well as robust African and Caribbean communities.

For many years the jazz/creative music sector of WPFW’s broadcast day has included M-F 5-8am, 1-3pm, 4-6pm, 8-10pm, and for the most part 11pm-5am. Though there is no jazz programming on Saturdays, when blues, old school R&B, Caribbean, and Haitian music rule, WPFW’s Sunday jazz programming sequence is robust and quite popular with listeners, running from 6am-6pm. Clearly this is one of the most robust jazz/creative music menus in the country. That too is threatened by what I have referred to as the NPR-ization of WPFW, rolling down the pike at a precipitous pace many of us fear. The first inkling of this runaway freight train came several months ago when an associate of station General Manager John Hughes’ gave a presentation at a station retreat that strongly suggested that jazz in the morning is not what listeners want to hear, they want to hear news/talk & information in the morning!

Since then WPFW has become burdened by a lack of creative fundraising that has resulted in a gross over-reliance on what has become a frayed old hat in the public and community radio world: the dreaded on-air listener plea known as the Pledge Drive. Frankly that method of fundraising has become hackneyed in the least; at worst over-reliance on on-air fundraising taxes its listeners and leads inevitably to listener fatigue. Take the pulse of the WPFW listening audience in Washington and a familiar refrain will go something like this: “…I get tired of ya’ll always pitching for pledges…” Where once WPFW listeners endured three seasonal pledge drives (Fall, Winter and Spring – where notably some public and community radio stations only endure two such drives annually) of two sometimes three weeks in duration, now listeners are tagged with intermittent “mini-drives” designed to make up for fundraising shortfalls that have inevitably increased the epidemic of WPFW listener/donor fatigue and subsequent tune-out.

Current WPFW management posture has been to give nice lip service about seeking fundraising alternatives, while the reality includes increased pledge drives as the bandaid towards station financial solvency. (It should be noted here that one of the fundamental precepts of Pacifica Radio is that its stations do not accept underwriting support from any corporations or businesses whatsoever. This is a precept designed to protect Pacifica stations from undue corporate or business influence and meddling. However its my contention that precept has become outmoded, particularly when one considers the fact that there are numerous progressive, socially-responsible entities in the community that would step up to the plate with underwriting support; witness the underwriting support that is the lifeblood of WWOZ in New Orleans and is all local business driven; Exxon, Shell, William & Morris, Haliburton, etc. need not apply.)

Now comes the wisdom lurking in the shadows that the jazz and creative music listening audience simply does not support the station in significant enough numbers to sustain WPFW (which currently touts itself as “Your station for Jazz & Justice”; and for its 30th anniversary gala honored Sonny Rollins and Amy Goodman, pillars of Jazz & Justice). The hungry wolves of more news/talk & information are baying at the door of WPFW and it is suspected that the programming changes hinted in a recent, veiled, typically passive-aggressive email to station programmers from GM John Hughes (with words to the effect that he’s going to bring in new, syndicated programming that will raise greater revenue for the station) will include a significant loss of jazz and creative music programming hours. As we say in radio… stay tuned. And if it is your pleasure to take the preemptive step of lodging a protest on the coming programming changes (September is the due date for these programming shifts) you can do so in several ways: communicate with station management via the website www.wpfw.org; by snail mail at WPFW, 2390 Champlain Street NW, Washington, DC 20009; by fax to 202/588-0561; by calling station GM John Hughes at 202/588-0999 and press 0 for the operator; or by calling in to his weekly General Manager’s Mailbag show on Friday mornings 9-9:30am at 202/588-0893.

Which brings me to another salient point: as jazz radio listener-supporters we are so often late to the party. Dr. Billy Taylor used to decry what a lax lot we are, how we are always too late to protest draconian changes and elimination of jazz formats. We moan & cry loud and long AFTER the axe has fallen – witness the anger and collective teeth gnashing of the Boston area jazz community AFTER WGBH emasculated its jazz programming hours. By then the genie is way out of the bottle and it is far too late; those programming changes have been set in stone. If you hear or see the warning signals on the horizon at your local jazz and creative music outlet, take preemptive protest strikes THEN, before those egregious changes have been instituted.

Four of WPFW’s veteran jazz programming crew: L to R – Willard Jenkins, Askia Muhammad, Rusty Hassan, Larry Appelbaum