Sources
As a composer I've often been defined as someone who hasn't "decided" on a direction, because I have some projects that sound like a barbeque party of greasy blues, funky beats and swinging sounds and then I'll turn around and create horrifying free jazz operas that make people's hair stand on end, like Xenogenesis Suite and Intergalactic Beings. Then I might present a project with my Black Earth Strings, insisting that string players can swing and do free improv and it IS jazz.
Someone might come to hear me because last time they saw me presenting modal melodic meditations for Alice Coltrane, or because they were dancing to Black Earth's Afrobeat project, but then they find me on stage playing atonal abstract explorations with musicians I've just met moments before, or presenting a baroque string project featuring bass clarinet...None of this is accidental...
Black Earth Ensemble (BEE), which I founded in 1998, celebrates the African American cultural legacy and embraces swing, blues, avant garde, jazz, bebop, African rhythms, Eastern modes and Western classical sounds. As a woman-directed, co-ed, multi-generational group, we touch a range of emotional spaces rarely expressed in a "jazz" setting.
My acoustic ensemble of five members, Black Earth Strings (BES) brings African rhythms, contemporary sounds and swinging improvisation to a chamber music setting. BES experiments with new musical concepts for flute and strings and operates at the core of improvisation.
My identity is shaped around an idea of spherical expansion, where I am reaching out in all directions and each experience brings valuable learning and connections with new people and ideas...I am so excited that people are now defining me based on my curiosity and not on, "Oh she does that." ...I dive into [many] boxes finding miraculous things but I resist being boxed in.
"I tend to be visually oriented when I'm writing music...I'm seeing different things, or feeling out some type of story...I see a lot of especially African American artists or Black artists whose work is inspired by history and reality...I also reflect on history and reality in my work, but what I really want to do is get you to think about some other possibility."
"Instead of trying to imitate Alice Coltrane's work, I went directly to her sources of inspiration and her personal story. Alice Coltrane celebrated the pentatonic scale, a universal scale used in many traditional world musics. I explored these sounds, the sounds of avant garde jazz and also investigated eastern modes... She tried to find the common denominator of all music..."
From "An Improvised Life" by Peter Margasak in Chicago Reader, August 2, 2007.
One of my earliest impressions in improvisation was meeting and hearing flute luminary James Newton play. Hearing him make all the amazing sounds made me wonder if there was anything else possible to discover on the instrument. Shortly after that, I studied privately with him while he was teaching at CalArts. The best part of each lesson was at the end when we improvised together for ten minutes each week. That experience stayed with me and had a lasting impact on the development of my own language with the instrument.
Sun Ra's idea of creating imaginary worlds through sound had a great impact on me. He was truly a visionary artist and his work inspired me with the idea of unlimited possibility. I'm fascinated with the idea of creating new ideas through sound.
George Lewis has been a great example to me of a developed artist/scholar, a person of relentless integrity who always brings a perspective beyond what I could imagine and manifests brilliant ideas that most wouldn't consider possible. From him I've learned to embrace my own uniqueness, to investigate and to reach for the stars.
The AACM, as a community of artists in Chicago, is where I found my grounding and support and this was crucial to my development as an artist and conceptualist. I was impacted greatly by the examples and support of mentors and the inspiration of other AACM artists (those present in Chicago and those that moved to other places).
I always viewed the tradition of the AACM as a philosophy rather than a specific musical aesthetic. It's a concept that focuses on developing and asserting your own original voice as a composer and improviser, and there's definitely a focus on innovation and breaking boundaries. That's why there is so much contrast between AACM musicians. I admire Roscoe Mitchell, Ed Wilkerson, Hamid Drake, Anthony Braxton, Renee Baker, Dee Alexander, George Lewis, Amina Claudine Meyers, Fred Anderson, Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, Ernest Dawkins, Matana Roberts and Maia. You will find a unique perspective in each of them, and yet there's a thread that connects us all--an appreciation for experimentation and a spirit of independence.
As an artist I have embraced Chicago's music legacy and have been committed to contributing my own voice to that legacy.
I'm not sure if there's a way to expand a concept as open as "Do your own thing: investigate, challenge yourself, experiment, create."
Truly independent thinkers Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell are artists who create new worlds with their music. Working with them has been a mind-blowing experience, motivating me to move towards my own vision without fear. Both Fred Anderson and Muhal Richard Abrams, through their sense of community, leadership and sacrifice opened the doors for so many other artists to claim their paths in original creative music; they exemplified the importance of mentorship and commitment to one's art. These are a just a few of the many in the AACM that have mentored and inspired me!