Part 2

Tell me about your instrument and/or tools, please. How would you describe the relationship with it? What are its most important qualities and how do they influence the musical results and your own performance?

I primarily play 3 instruments: a straight alto saxophone (sometimes referred to as a stritch), a saxello, which is a slightly curved soprano saxophone with a more cylindrical shape than a typical soprano and an alto flute. The stritch is my main instrument.

Someone at a performance (recorded for an upcoming Dopolarians record called Blues for Alvin Fielder) asked me why I play the stritch, pointing out that it was probably ergonomically inconvenient. The easy answer is that the sound is different, and I like the sound. But honestly I love the horn because it’s strange. Taking it out of the case puts me in a different frame of mind than a traditional curved alto does.

The straight horn doesn’t evoke Charlie Parker or Cannonball Adderly for me. It’s a unique instrument (there will likely only ever be one straight alto made by the craftsman who created it for me) and I viscerally want to play suitably unique music with it as a result.

How do you feel your sense of identity influences your collaborations? Do you feel as though you are able to express yourself more fully in solo mode or, conversely, through the interaction with other musicians? Are you “gaining” or “sacrificing” something in a collaboration?

I’m constantly looking to collaborate with people who will put me in new contexts. My sense of identity is further strengthened by every new collaboration, because as I discover who I am, I’m tested to remain me while adapting enough to make beautiful music with my collaborators who may be coming from an absolutely different perspective.

For example, the band Dopolarians is very much in my comfort zone, primarily made up of southern US musicians with an R&B, blues, or folk background. With them, my soul side is at complete peace. An important part of my foundation is soul music, so with Dopolarians that is naturally amplified.

Then, we have a new group that has played a few times in New York called Some People, with some amazing New York based improvisers including gabby fluke-mogul, Mara Rosenbloom, Dave Sewelson, and (Minnesota-based) Steve Hirsh. The approach each of those musicians takes is on a different plane than Dopolarians. There’s a lot more texture, playing with sound, parts that are “noisy”.

How do I, as someone very blues-rooted, play like me but not sound silly in a group like this? It’s a delightful experience to play with these wonderful musicians, and the few times we’ve collaborated have already given me tangible lessons in how to be myself.

Derek Bailey defined improvising as the search for material which is endlessly transformable. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his perspective, what kind of materials have turned to be particularly transformable and stimulating for you?

I haven’t heard this assertion before, but I like it. I don’t know about “endlessly transformable” but I definitely look for raw materials that I can bring to new settings. The sorts of materials I tend to seek are melodic and harmonic.

A new habit I have is to listen to my own music (even informal gig recordings) to learn my own language. I’ve found that certain melodic or harmonic cues can set a direction for a group or just for myself. The more I listen to the music I make with others, the more I can recognize and develop these ideas.

I don’t take my horn out and try to transcribe and memorise these ideas. I just listen enough that my own language gets stuck in my head, and the inspiring bits get amplified, remixed, and recycled naturally.

When you're improvising, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

Ideally a little of each, though I absolutely never play something I’ve practised when I improvise.

To you, are there rules in improvisation? If so, what kind of rules are these?

I’ve been heavily influenced by William Parker’s “there is no ‘suppose to’” approach to music. The fact that there are no rules is sort of a rule itself. I’d be tempted to say something ridiculous like a rule of improvisation is to improvise … to not play an existing piece of music in what is supposed to be a free improvisational setting. But then I’m reminded that on The Deep at one point William played the bass line from “My Girl” by The Temptations. On purpose.

And I’m also reminded of a conversation I had with the late great drummer Alvin Fielder. He had played a double quartet set with Roscoe Mitchell at the most recent Chicago Jazz Festival. I heard a clip of it and asked him what he was thinking about as he played in this cacophonous ensemble. To me it was dense and difficult to parse. His response? “I was playing Take the A Train”.

During the pandemic, I broke what I thought was another rule of free improvisation. I released 3 duo records that were recorded asynchronously from our respective homes, one track and instrument at a time. We couldn’t hear each other in real time. Heresy! But it worked.

It turns out part of what I hear when I’m “listening” in a free improvisation is what I anticipate the other player will do in a given context. So while only one player can hear the other in an asynchronously recorded duo (one person sends a track that the other person plays to … we typically would take turns being the starter), the effect of the music is indistinguishable from a live in person spontaneous composition.

You can hear the results on Lacrimosa with WC Anderson, Two Five None with Steve Hirsh, and Timeless Moments with Joel Futterman all on the Mahakala Music label.



In a live situation, decisions between creatives often work without words. How does this process work – and how does it change your performance compared to a solo performance?

More and more, all musical decisions I make with groups I play with happen nonverbally. I don’t know if it’s a process, but I know empathy is a big part of that communication.

Who in the band looks tired? Who probably has something to say that hasn’t come out yet? Who should start the next piece? Am I leading too much and therefore silencing someone else’s voice? Or not enough? Does the audience look bored? Are the band members bored?

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? In which way is it different between your solo work and collaborations?

Full engagement. That’s how I’d describe the ideal state of mind. Whatever it takes to be fully engaged with the music is what we need to do.

Fortunately in my experience, the music and process of making the music always pulls me into the right state of mind even if I start out distracted, distressed, tired, hungry, or sick.

I think if I were to play solo more, this would be a much bigger challenge.

In a way, improvisations remind us of the transitory nature of life. What, do you feel, can music and improvisation express and reveal about life and death?

Freely composed pieces are like Tibetan buddhist sand mandalas. They’re created and then they’re gone. The pieces don’t carry the baggage of pride. Nobody will recognize them. They won’t become standards. Nobody else will ever learn to play them. And if not recorded, only those present for the performance will ever get to hear them.

There’s a freedom in impermanence. And the pain that comes from wanting to cling. Improvisation expresses this in the same way the sand mandala does. Tibetan monks immediately destroy their sand mandalas after painstakingly creating them as a symbol of impermanence and a reminder that everything is transitory.