{"id":7042,"date":"2020-07-13T17:23:06","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/?p=7042"},"modified":"2020-07-13T17:27:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:27:46","slug":"covid-conversations-volume-7-ambrose-akinmusire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/13\/covid-conversations-volume-7-ambrose-akinmusire\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID CONVERSATIONS, Volume 7: Ambrose Akinmusire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here, Akinmusire is masked only by a shadow; rest assured, he wears one when out in public. (Photo by Ogata\/courtesy of Blue Note Records.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With his latest release, \u201con the tender spot of every calloused moment<\/a>\u201d (Blue Note), trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire<\/strong> wrestles with painful truths from the perspective of his life as a Black man in the United States and mines inheritances from his extended musical family.<\/p>\n

In a liner note, saxophonist Archie Shepp\u2014who worked notably alongside John Coltrane, and who Akinmusire has recently performed with\u2014likens the trumpeter\u2019s commitment to Coltrane\u2019s legendary discipline and rigor. The fruits of such focus are evident in the confident brilliance of the brief trumpet soliloquy that opens the album\u2019s first track, \u201cTide of Hyacinth,\u201d and in the cohesiveness of his quartet (including bassist Harish Raghavan, drummer Justin Brown and pianist Sam Harris).<\/p>\n

As both a player and a bandleader, Akinmusire is by now an essential voice pointing the way forward in jazz\u2019s ongoing story. Another track, \u201cMr. Roscoe (consider the simultaneous),\u201d explores the open-minded, multi-layered aesthetic of multi-reedist and composer Roscoe Mitchell, who Akinmusire has also played alongside.<\/p>\n

His new album<\/a> music relies mostly on the complex webs of harmony and rhythm woven with seeming ease by this quartet. Still, the best moments are the sparest, most often owing to the sound of Akinmusire\u2019s horn\u2014especially the ringing notes on \u201cReset (Quiet Victories & Celebrated Defeats)\u201d that glimmer brightly but dissolve into whispers and pained moans.<\/p>\n

That pain is not abstract. Nor is its context. (\u201cConsidering our history,\u201d he told me, \u201cmy mere existence is resistance.\u201d)<\/p>\n

On \u201cMy Name Is Oscar,\u201d from his 2011 Blue Note debut release, over a drum solo, Akinmusire read aloud accounts of the shooting of a young black man, Oscar Grant III, by a transit officer in his hometown, Oakland, Calif. On \u201cRollcall for Those Absent,\u201d from a later album, a child recited the names of those killed in similar circumstances\u2014Amadou Diallo and Trayvon Martin, and on\u2014with accompaniment on Mellotron, an electro-mechanical keyboard.<\/p>\n

In January, when Akinmusire recorded the new album\u2019s final track, \u201cHooded Procession (Read the Names Outloud),\u201d he had not yet heard the name George Floyd. But he knew that list would grow, and he sensed active participation (his instruction to read the names out loud) might be in order. Alone, forsaking his horn, playing glistening chords on a Fender Rhodes electric piano, he takes his time as in a church processional, moving nearly imperceptibly from minor key to major, finding fleeting resolution.<\/p>\n

I spoke with Akinmusire twice\u2014first, shortly after the Coronavirus lockdown began, and then again, after the protests began following the murder of George Floyd.<\/p>\n

When did the pandemic start affected your life and your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was in Europe at the end of February, in Basel, Switzerland, teaching. We were all anxious, things were changing. It all became real for me after I got back home, when Cecile [McLorin Salvant] was in Oakland and her show got canceled. She went to Angela Davis\u2019s house and did a concert. I was there for that. I\u2019ve known Cecile for a little while now. That experience was surreal. Angela Davis is someone whose work I have studied, so meeting her meant a lot. It was all like a dream. And everyone was already getting nervous. Things were shutting down. Still, had no idea exactly what was to come. Then my project at Lincoln Center got canceled. My tour in May got canceled.<\/p>\n

What was the last gig you played?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the Blue Note with Bill Frisell, the third week of February. Right before I flew to Switzerland. It wasn\u2019t even as much the facts as the uncertainty and the anxiousness that I feel within the artist community that was troubling. I\u2019m a very private person, but I was thinking about how I could help. I did a Q&A on Instagram. People could write in and respond. I\u2019d been getting a lot of emails from students who weren\u2019t in school anymore.<\/p>\n

How does it feel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I really have truly felt it yet. I\u2019m pretty good at being optimistic. But there was a big letdown. I had to write so much for the big-band project. I was also going to play Disney Hall.<\/p>\n

What was the inspiration for that Banyan<\/em>suite?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was basically to have some kind of live mentorship happen. Three older masters\u2014Jack DeJohnette, Gary Bartz and Tom Harrell\u2014with a great band of established artists. Mentorship is something I was thinking a lot about. I want my peers to experience these masters in the ways that I\u2019ve experienced them. The first iteration of that project was commissioned by Hyde Park Jazz Festival, in 2015. I rewrote all the music for this new iteration.<\/p>\n

I know when you talk about mentorship, you\u2019re not just thinking about craft, though it\u2019s that too. Yet I know you\u2019re also getting at a continuity of culture, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, very much so.<\/p>\n

How does that culture you\u2019re talking about speak to this moment we\u2019re stuck in now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not thinking about that yet, but one thing I am thinking about is feeling a sense of universal culture. This is the first time I can remember where everyone is feeling the same thing. Maybe there\u2019s some beauty to that. I\u2019m trying to sit in the middle of that.<\/p>\n

Is it prophetic or ironic that you titled one track of your new album\u2014and one of my favorites\u2014\u201cReset\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, now that you mention it, I guess so. Whenever I create an album in the studio, like this one, I still think about it as if I\u2019m playing to an audience. I divide the album in half, and I imagine two sets, with the same audience. So that track serves literally as a reset.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Another track, \u201cMr. Roscoe,\u201d is obviously for Roscoe Mitchell, a mentor you\u2019ve been working with. What has affected you most about that connection?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s there, in the subtitle\u2014\u201cconsider the simultaneous.\u201d There are some things in improvising that transfer into life. It also points toward solutions. Before you do anything, before you question anything, think. These things that are seemingly opposites, in the act of creating together, they might turn out to be the solution. I had never ever dealt with that. I had never had to articulate it. Roscoe made me understand that in a new way.<\/p>\n

Is that particularly helpful in this moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, yes. All these things I once looked at as obstacles have now turned into positive things. I\u2019ve been out of New York for 8 years. I went to L.A., and now I\u2019m back in a very different Oakland than I left. I\u2019ve had to learn how to be self-sufficient for inspiration and creativity. I\u2019m not as affected as my peers are by this experience. For me, the routine of creating hasn\u2019t changed. I really feel for people who rely on the collaborative. I know at some point this lockdown will be lifted, at some point the virus won\u2019t be here. I\u2019m afraid of the loss and the sacrifices we have to make. But the future is not uncertain. We can shape it.<\/p>\n

When you recorded\u00a0<\/strong>\u201c<\/strong>Hooded procession\u201d what led you to instruct the listener to \u201cread the names out loud)\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I was saying was that there\u2019s a long list of names and it\u2019s only going to grow. My point is twofold. I\u2019m trying to express my exhaustion. I\u2019ve been doing this for 10 years, spanning 3 albums. And I\u2019m telling listener, \u201cIt\u2019s your turn here. Maybe this will be more effective.\u201d The first series of chords are minor chords inversions. And then it\u2019s just V-I. It\u2019s literally saying, resolution<\/em>. I set it up so that it goes resolves to the major.<\/p>\n

And of course that list has grown, notably so. Do you think that your music, our music, art in general, can speak to the issues raised by the deaths of George Floyd and others?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I do.<\/p>\n

I do like to say that even if I didn\u2019t draw that connection, I don\u2019t have a choice as a Black person. Black art created in America can\u2019t help but do that. Considering our history, my mere existence is resistance. I think a lot of my music so far has been built on African American experience, and how it is expressed.<\/p>\n

For me, as Ambrose, born and raised in Oakland to a mother from Drew, Mississippi, and a father from Nigeria, this is no new moment. These have been the same issues since the first day of my life. These protests\u2014this is necessary, but this isn\u2019t anything new. We might be feeling a collectivism that feels more validated, and that\u2019s good, but the issues have been the issues forever. In terms of me creating the music, that has been in there from the start.<\/p>\n

Has that perspective you were born into been deepened or clarified by your connections to Archie Shepp and Roscoe Mithchell and Gary Bartz, among other elders? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, of course, and that process continues. I\u2019ve had conversations recently with Archie Shepp about the blues. It is a story of resilience. That\u2019s what makes the blues the blues. So this is my blues, me working out my own blues in my own time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With his latest release, \u201con the tender spot of every calloused moment\u201d (Blue Note), trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire wrestles with painful truths from the perspective of his life as a Black man in the United States and mines inheritances from his extended musical family. In a liner note, saxophonist Archie Shepp\u2014who worked notably alongside John Coltrane, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “COVID CONVERSATIONS, Volume 7: Ambrose Akinmusire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7042"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7042"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7050,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7042\/revisions\/7050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}