Ten Freedom Summers: A Folio of Photographs: New York City: May 1, 2, 3, 2013

This folio of photographs was taken over a three day period, May 1, 2 and 3, 2013, when Wadada Leo Smith premiered, on the East Coast at Roulette in Brooklyn, New York, his epic composition Ten Freedom Summers, to which he added one part, "The March on Washington, D.C.: August, 1963." 

The groups Wadada led are his Golden Quartet and Pacifica Red Coral and also, for a special appearance, The Flux Quartet. The Golden Quartet is John Lindberg on bass; Anthony Davis at the piano; and Pheeroan Aklaff on the drums. Pacifica Red Coral  is  Shalini Vijayan and Mona Tian on violin; Andrew MacIntosh on viola; Ashley Walters on cello; and Alison Bjorkedal at the harp; Jesse Gilbert creates the video art accompanying the performance. The Flux Quartet joined these groups on the third night for the premiere of "The March." The Flux Quartet is Tom Chiu and Conrad Harris on violins; Max Mendel on viola; and Felix Fan on cello.

The photographs, where the lighting is whiter than yellow, were taken at an afternoon rehearsal on May 2. The pictures which have a view from the audience of the left of the stage were taken on the first night; the ones that have a view from the right were taken on the second night. The majority of the performance photos were taken on May 3 when the view was center stage.

copyright 2013 Lyn Horton

All photos: Lyn Horton

Wadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers and Me, 2013

A poem by Langston Hughes

As I Grew Older

It was a long time ago. 

I have almost forgotten my dream.

But it was there then, 

In front of me, Bright like a sun-

My dream. 

And then the wall rose,

Rose slowly, 

Slowly,

Between me and my dream. 

Rose until it touched the sky-

The wall.

Shadow.

I am black.

I lie down in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me,

Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow. 

My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness,

To smash this night,

To break this shadow

Into a thousand lights of sun,

Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

The following is a verbal collage of how I have absorbed Ten Freedom Summers by Wadada Leo Smith. Reviewing this composition, having heard both the Roulette performance in May 2013 in New York and the Los Angeles premiere in October of 2011 and a sampling of the entire six hour piece in between is a moot point at this point for me. So much has already been written since it was premiered. I do not need to indulge in commenting on the excellence of the musicians and the excellence of the music they play. I do not need to impose the view on the music that it is not jazz, nor classical, nor “third-stream,” nor contemporary “third stream.”  Ten Freedom Summers defies labeling. Ten Freedom Summers is a work of art that knows no bounds in its meaningfulness and is, therefore, an apotheosis of the articulation of a dedicated purpose lying on the crest of one man’s spiritual and artistic being.

  

The music that is Ten Freedom Summers exists apart from music which is extemporaneous. The music is scored traditionally, multiple black books titled on the front covers in silver pen. The music of Ten Freedom Summers has been literally composed over Wadada’s lifetime: a lifetime that was filled with personal struggles and personal choices about which he remains reticent, but which were experiences that shaped the composer’s fearlessness. 

The bond that Smith has with his music shall never wane.  

Memories of the music measure the sensitivity of our hearts.

Memories of the music paint portraits of themselves.

Memories of the performance paint portraits of determination. 

Dare we appreciate the history that feeds the music and express compassion for the inhabitants of that history? Smith points to the very moments we need to think about; what we do with the thoughts about those moments is up to us. Do we cry? Do we wonder why they happened? Do we take action to follow up on or rectify the actions that were being taken?

Do we become stronger and offer our talents for healing wounds, heightening awareness, creating community, pursuing the change which will degenerate the bad-ness, cruelty, thoughtlessness, lack of initiative.

Or do we remain weak and passive and complain. And only stand on the sides of the oppressed, whom we might not believe really are, but who continue to be treated poorly, impolitely and ignored, as if not even alive.

Poetry lies in the dignified way in which the music is presented multi-dimensionally through live performance and imagery that begs to surround it.

Poetry lies in the image of Rosa Parks, no matter what the contention of the “real-ness” of the photograph.

Poetry lies in the picture of the Little Rock Nine: Black Students being escorted by soldiers to school.

Poetry lies in the near profile Martin Luther King, showing a peacefully audacious face.

Poetry lies in the photo of the signing of the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 by President Johnson, flanked by Martin Luther King.

Poetry lies in our bygone beliefs when all these people did what they did. And said what they said. There was our hope. There was the hope of the breakdown of inequality.

Poetry lies in Wadada’s loud exhalation before the music of “September 11^th, 2001: A Memorial” begins: a heavy sigh denoting the deaths of thousands. No different from the “deep emotion” portrayed in the “The D.C. Wall: A Memorial for All Time.”

Perception of Ten Freedom Summers fulfills its value to us as human beings and raises significant, fundamental questions as if it were a rarefied editorial.

How are we actually equal, even though each is strikingly different: genetically, ethnically, ethically, psychologically, economically, and socially? 

How are we actually driven to render the world a better place, a more peaceful and morally healthy environment?

How do we behave towards one another?

How do we stop taking advantage of one another?

How are we kind to one another? How do we love one another? As lovers or as neighbors?

How do we stop aggravating our anger?

How do we stop creating wars and fighting them?

How do we return to the simplicity of our beginnings?

How do we deal with complexity of our situations? As peoples, as families, as tragic, suffering, beaten-down individuals?

How do we find the Medina of the Contemporary World? Is there already such a society unknown to us?

Poetry lies in the music’s phrasing, its grandeur, its quietness. In the compelling boldness of opposites: its high pitches juxtaposed to low tones; in the integration of strings and percussion in the same measure; in the coincidence of opposing dynamic. And in that single brass horn which masterfully sings above and leads a dozen instruments in three ensembles.

How can the truth be told through the music that has no language other than itself? Wadada's way: "Let's do it this way. Let's see how good we are."

Closure comes not from the point at which Ten Freedom Summers ends. Closure comes when we realize that we do not necessarily cry for freedom when we lack it. We sing about it when we have it. Because that consciousness compels us to take responsibility for our rights and, in their embrace, go where we go.

copyright 2013 Lyn Horton

Photos: Lyn Horton

Nicole Mitchell's Ice Crystals: Aquarius: Delmark, 2013

The sheer silvery glistening sensuality of the cover of Aquarius leads one to lock into the intimate process of flutist Nicole Mitchell's translation of sound from her ear to the air. She has chosen the right musicians to join her because none of them are bravurists. They all seek to blend with the sprightliness, delicacy and distinctive colors of Mitchell's rich melody lines. There is nothing boppish here; each track is an evolution of natural events, where one musician folds into and out of the larger picture with style and grace. The intended atmosphere of this music would be unattainable without the vibrant responsiveness of the members of this group.

Mitchell is one of the most sincere, genuine and disciplined musicians around. Her music exudes her heart. She believes in a formal approach to rhythm. She breathes beautifully and concisely through improvisational offshoots to the main musical subject. Her playing is not concerned with stressing her instrument to reach extremes. Her playing is more concerned with telling stories that have everything to do with her imagination. She has such control over the way the sound emanates from her instrument that it can be heard even when she blows in a hardly audible register.

Bassist Abrams has a soft round tone matching drummer Rosaly's thoroughly sensitive and varying percussive touch, not to mention Adasiewicz' display of clarity as he strikes the resonant vibe bars behind the beat, filling in the breezy spaces.

At the close of this album is a tribute to her mentor, saxophone player and Chicago musician Fred Anderson. Mitchell is one of the many musicians to reap the benefits which Anderson offered, opening the doors to his famed Velvet Lounge, to allow them to explore their art. Mitchell's husband Calvin Gantt recites a poem, ending with the words: We Love You, Fred Anderson...We Love You, Fred Anderson. And the music dissipates a bit frantically to land in a place of peace.



copyright 2013 Lyn Horton

Wadada Leo Smith: The Future of Ten Freedom Summers

The Life of the Music

At present, Three Collections of music constitute Wadada Leo Smith’s masterpiece, Ten Freedom Summers. The First Collection is called “Defining Moments in America;” the Second Collection, “What Is Democracy?” and the Third Collection, “Ten Freedom Summers.”  Each collection is comprised of various pieces, which he has composed for close to forty years and is still composing.

The East Coast premiere of the full three-night performance of Ten Freedom Summers occurs at Roulette in Brooklyn on May 1, 2, and 3 of 2013, for which The Fromm Foundation commissioned  Smith to add one work in the last collection, “The March on Washington, DC: August, 1963.” He plans to seek another commission to write one more piece. This one will be called “The Voting Rights Act of 2012;” he wants to bring attention to the voter suppression in 2012, followed by the Supreme Court’s questioning of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act as it was signed by Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1965.

The next steps in this “celebration,” as he calls it, of the Civil Rights Movement will be to compose a group of eight to ten pieces of music, two of which he wrote in 1985 with compositions about singer/songwriter Bob Marley and poet, vocalist, actor and activist, Paul Robeson. 

In 1977, when he wrote “Medgar Evers: A Love-Voice of a Thousand Years’ Journey For Liberty and Justice” (in the Second Collection of Ten Freedom Summers), he set a course whose purpose was to translate into music the psychology of “brave men and women… who are and were activists.” Smith concedes that writing these works indicates a plan larger than writing only the Three Collections of Ten Freedom Summers.  Once he has finished a final group of pieces including one about Jackie Robinson, the first African-American baseball player, and President Barack Obama, the first African-American leader of the United States, Smith intends to record them as its Fourth Collection, but with "...a beautiful name” other than Ten Freedom Summers. In total, when he has stopped composing for the project, thirty or so pieces will constitute Ten Freedom Summers.

Photo by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson

The premiere of twenty-one pieces over three nights of Ten Freedom Summers occurred in Los Angeles, CA, in May, 2011 with the Golden Quartet (Susie Ibarra, drums; Anthony Davis, piano; and John Lindberg, bass) and the nine instrument ensemble, Southwest Chamber Music. Since then, Smith has performed all three nights of his composition only once, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but with the Golden Quartet (Pheeroan Aklaff, drums) and a small string and harp ensemble. 

After the Sao Paulo performance, Smith decided to create his own string quartet plus harp, which will travel with him when the necessity arises. This particular group adds to the four for which he is already the leader. The new string group, called Pacifica Red Coral, is comprised of two of artists who played the premiere: harp player, Alison Bjorkedal, and violinist, Shalini Vijayan. The remaining three string players are second violinist CalArts graduate Mona Tian; violist Andrew McIntosh, also a graduate from CalArts; and the cellist, Ashley Walters, a Doctoral Candidate at University of CA at San Diego. The fact that Smith has continual access to both the Golden Quartet (Aklaff, Davis, Lindberg) and Pacifica Red Coral has rendered the composer autonomous. He says: “This is the best of all possibilities.” The music, the players and the concept of his composition have become indivisible. 

Because the full performance of Ten Freedom Summers cannot occur every time, Smith has devised a means to pare down the larger work into smaller units or suites.  He fashions a sampling of pieces within each of the Three Collections and plays them with either both or one of his two quartets; for a one-night performance, six pieces can be played and for a two-night concert, twelve. In May, 2012, one night was performed at the Victoriaville Jazz Festival in Canada; in November, 2012, two nights were played in Ann Arbor, MI at Edgefest 16.

Background of New Work

His new work, “The March on Washington, DC: August, 1963,” will be inserted in the performance just before the closing of Collection Three, “Martin Luther King, Jr: Memphis, The Prophecy.” Whereas the latter is based on the overall power of King’s delivery in the speech identified generally as “I Have Been to The Mountaintop,” spoken on April 3, 1968, the day before King was brutally gunned down, the former is based on the vocal evolution within the delivery of the historic  “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd of mixed race and socio-economic status, numbering 250,000[i].    

Photo by Lyn Horton

About the new composition, Smith describes that he had a vision in “a moment of reflection,” where “he mentally saw that that piece was finished and what it would contain…It’s difficult to balance what is going to happen…It follows the same kind of format as Martin Luther King’s speeches. All of them have the same kind of curve…He would start and build the speech and interject different kinds of information and, finally, when it reaches its climax, he immediately stops the speech and falls away. When he falls away, he has already been transformed... You see this happening in the March on Washington speech and in his last speech the day before he was assassinated. And what I am trying to capture in this piece [The March on Washington, DC: August, 1963], which is most unusual, is that whole arc that his speech demonstrates.”

Pondering Impact

Never referring to it as the pinnacle of his career [the interview that took place in preparation for this article occurred prior to the announcement that Smith is a 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist], Smith believes that Ten Freedom Summers marks “an achievement that I had hoped and dreamed would be possible to do. Now that it has happened both in major performance as well as a collective product, whenever I reflect on it, that reflection is usually about the historical aspects concerning the events inside of it, like Emmett Till.

“…I think about what would have happened if Emmett Till had never been assassinated in that way…And what comes up is pure speculation…But I think that if that had not happened, Mississippi would be worse than it was then.

Photo by Lyn Horton

“…I think about what would have happened with Fannie Lou Hamer, if, in fact, she was allowed to pursue her activist career and, at the same time, develop the Freedom Democratic Party…What would the political terrain be like now?  Nobody can answer those questions except in terms of speculation. If the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was part of the landscape today, Congress would look very different and so would the politics in Mississippi and, for that matter, of the South.

“...Or, for example, Brown vs. Board of Education…What would really and truly have been the state of America if, in fact, desegregation had been put immediately into action…What would America look like? I know one thing…it wouldn't be like it is now. I do believe such entities like the Tea Party and other kinds of social and hateful groups wouldn't exist on the same level. They may still be present, but they would not have the kind of power or the media attention which they get now.

“So those are the things I think about…

“…In terms of the music?  What do I think about? All those pieces are finished. I don’t have to re-compose them so I think about the next pieces I am writing [within the context of Ten Freedom Summers] and what kind of musical exploring I will go into…What kind of ideas would I attach to building those pieces...like how to integrate various parts of the ensembles just as I did in the main collections of Ten Freedom Summers and I am working on that.

“For example, ‘The March on Washington: August, 1963,’ looks at and answers at least one aspect of those problems…of how the music can be different than it was before. By following the dynamic curve of Martin Luther King’s speeches, all kinds of problems are solved. There are problems of continuity; there are problems of diversity, the differences in material, and there are problems of balancing the composed portion with the improvised portion…How these two aspects can expand themselves dynamically, collectively, as I intended, based on those speeches.

“That’s my reflection, my contemplation…

“‘Ten Freedom Summers’ will be over. There is enough music there for people to reflect on for a long, long time. I will complete the music on artists and activists including the Jackie Robinson and Barack Obama pieces, and whomever else I need to look at, to create eight to ten pieces which will all fit on two CDs. And that project will be done.”

The Cycle Comes Round

At the performance in Los Angeles, two or three of the Freedom Riders, one person from the Little Rock Nine, and ten more people active in the Civil Rights Movement traveled to hear Smith’s composition: “Those people came up to me to talk about how it was and how excited they were that someone had decided to look at that movement and how it made them feel. Most of them expressed deep emotion about what they heard. Some people talked about crying during a particular piece…one of the Freedom Riders, in particular. There was a lady who lived in back of where I lived [Leland, Mississippi] when I was a kid…she was completely overwhelmed by the pieces. This shows me that the music was done at the right time and touched people who were actually involved in the movement as activists. It shows me that by giving people something with this kind of meaning in it, it may be possible that [that meaning] will find its true course. And I think this work is doing that.”

As for the recording, Smith says, “Everybody…everybody responds to the recording. It has impacted a lot of people. It’s hard to measure how it changes people. But to listen to four and a half hours of music in one sitting takes commitment. The choice to do that is already something powerful. [It is] how art can become what people are thinking about, rather than what they are thinking about normally.”

In an interview for a 2012 edition of Critical Studies in Improvisation, Smith said: “Ten Freedom Summers is a musical frame based on key people and the events of the struggle for the civil and human rights. It’s important that people understand this about what I've done in Ten Freedom Summers.” Given this statement, one only need to listen to the way in which he plays his trumpet alone or in collaboration with other instruments to know that he, himself, has participated heavily in that struggle both to free himself and to support those still struggling, embracing them with his compassion and his deep commitment to the design of the music which represents the epic story of the Civil Rights movement.


Going Forward

Smith’s music is so well-formed and so close to his heart that in no way can it fail to express what he wants to express. “I don’t leave it until I achieve that. I don’t move forward until I hit the ball…squarely and solidly. When composing my pieces, I walk through the music many times – it is spread out on the floor. If I see something out of balance, I place a blank page there and keep moving. And I’ll compose that page… that one that is missing. And if a page needs to be taken out, I’ll take that page out. So, actually, when it’s finished and presented and recorded, that music is written. I don’t need to rewrite it.”

Wadada Leo Smith has always been confident that his music will disturb and rejoin the universal energy. “Whatever a person does that is completely connected to them and serious, it’s going to make an impact, no matter on what level…whether it is large or small or in between. That impact happened because of that person’s dream of creating it or doing this ‘something.’ As in my own development, I have always been sure I was moving in the right direction, no matter whether or not people were buying my CDs or were interested in what I was doing. I knew I had a good idea because of what it meant to me and that it would mean something to someone else someday.”

And so, even though Smith will leave Ten Freedom Summers behind to pursue other “backburner projects,” as he portrays them, this genuinely well-founded, earnest and magnificent composition will resonate throughout time. That resonance will be its perpetual future.

---

[i] http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/king-speaks-to-march-on-washington

Header Photo of Wadada Leo Smith by Arika

Copyright 2013 Lyn Horton

The Year 2013: In It

When this blog began, it was intended to illuminate the subject matter I thought was worth exposing.

The funny thing is that writing about recordings seemed to be all that mattered to anyone; my essays dealing with more personal situations have not attracted much attention. Because I am philosophizing about what motivates me? Believe me, I am writing about the same questions that enter the minds of the musicians with whose music I have been concerned.

Pianist Matthew Shipp was interviewed by, as he described it, "a guy who came up to his crib" a while back. The interviewer, Jason Gross, made public Matt's eleven-minute monologue offering advice to musicians.

In this video, Shipp articulates that musicians have to prepare themselves for the spareness of their lives, not to discount the commitment and discipline which they have to maintain to command their art.

Shipp strikes a note that runs parallel to what I have to do. My life as an artist has been lived in a backwards direction. Instead of stereotypically starting out in the city and attracting attention to myself by attending openings, visiting galleries and literally being on the scene with a studio, I chose to live, by chance, in the country and raise my son and be an at-home Mom...at home for my son, my (then) husband and my art.

The chances for me to live in the country and be found in the art world actually existed. I simply, like a fool, did not seize the opportunity. Instead, I made mistakes, career-wise, but stuck with the daily routine of working in my studio, fitting that occupation to the schedule which suited family life. One time, when having lunch with the wife of an internationally known artist in a nearby town and a friend of hers, the three of us started a conversation on the theme of living outside of art centers and creating a career for ourselves. The friend of my friend declared in the conversation that: "You can never be a success and be married and have children..." Her statement floored me and simultaneously redoubled my desire to press on and do the necessary work.

Years passed. I was still making visual art but, looking back on it, the art was not good. I have thrown away a bulk of it except for the drawings, which is my forte. My lack of acceptance in the larger art world depressed, yet, drove me. I was miserable in the art-making and alive with my son. Balancing the two confounded me. Once I gained some recognition in the region in which I live, I was a little happier. Then the unavoidable mistakes came knocking on my door and I let them in.

And after years of slamming into one debacle after another, my continuing determination helped me to preserve my sanity. The work accumulated. I associated myself with an accepting echelon of people at the Williams College Museum of Art, where I worked for five years. At the very least, I was not dismissed as 'unsuccessful.' The story goes that at one point, the acting director was eyeing a 100-piece sculpture, which took me two years to execute, for exhibition. That exhibition never happened. I left and so did, in unrelated circumstances, the acting director. Great changes in the post-Tom Krens era at the museum were occurring.

When my ex-husband departed, my work gave me the incentive to get out of bed everyday. A steadfast dedication to it never waned. Perhaps, discovering all the means to network via the Internet helped. The isolation factor was certainly mollified. And I learned to follow the yellow brick road for exposure and swallow my pride every time my work was rejected. (Although I was accustomed to rejection by that time; it had been habitual since I left California in 1974.)

My situation was not unique. I have been alone for the last thirteen years and it has been as if my finger were holding the water in the dike, bulging with imminent breakage, deluge, and, for me, freedom.

There is nothing better than the satisfaction of doing this:

Lyn Horton, Single Loopy Line #3, 2013;

or this:

Lyn Horton, White Pigmented Pen Installation, 2013.

Why on earth, and how on earth (the more likely question), would I or could go backwards? The dynamics of these works supersede their predecessors of years ago pre-the turn of the millennium. These works tell the story of my happiness, my trust in my abilities and my willingness to take the risk to say something without knowing what it will look like when I stop drawing.

The mastery of this language is the currency for my vision. "Vision," as Matthew Shipp states in the interview cited above, "will generate its own space... When you are true to yourself...that is the key to success"...a means to manifest "the top of your strength." The business end of things has nothing to do with who the artist is.

copyright 2013 Lyn Horton

18 Words & 2 Pictures

 In my Life, now, I hope.

 That I am beginning to know.

 

All that I think I missed.

copyright 2013 Lyn Horton