This happened....rocking with Togetherness Ensemble at Gray Area Mission SF
My plan was to have had this post up before this happened, but it was a crazy week. So it’s in past tense. On 10-26 I performed with the Togetherness Ensemble as part of an emergent composition in four movements. the first three movements featured eight different musicians and we all got together for the fourth. You had to be there. I met a lot of really wonderful people, most of whom for the very first time. It feels good to be part of a musical community again.
The Togetherness Ensemble is convened on occasion by Zekarias Musele Thompson to hold space for communal resonance through collective improvisation. Prompted by the historical and contemporary creative sensibilities of African and African diasporic peoples, and the possibilities of emergent composition as the scaffolding for recognizing ourselves as free.
The Togetherness Ensemble made its debut interpreting James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Every Voice and Sing, during closing performance of Possible Dialogues: Vol 1 in July 2023 at the BAMPFA.
For this fifth iteration we will explore Togetherness in three parts with a new composition titled RE-EDUCATION. Inspired by the current moment, the ecstatic motions of Alice Coltrane’s 1972 epic Lord of Lords, as well as Floating Points' and Pharoah Sanders' 2021 collaboration, Promises.
RE-EDUCATION
Movement 1: A Curiosity
Movement 2: A Recognition
Movement 3: A Promise
with: Salimatu Amabebe, Matt Brownell, Gabriele Christian, Roco Córdova, B Dukes, Christopher Robin Duncan, Mary Graham, Cat Lauigan, Phillip Laurent, Amina Malika, Micah Morris, Maya Nixon, Jasmine Nyende, Martin Perna, Justin (Hongry) Robinson, Benjamin Rodgers, Joel St. Julien, Zekarias Musele Thompson, David Wilson, Josh Wismans, and Gaia WXYZ.
Song collaboration: DJ Platurn : "Give a Damn"
I was honored to get loose with the flutes on this song by DJ Platurn from his latest album “Through Storm and Grief.” also available on Bandcamp.
Strangers Guide: Complicating Colonialism Playlist
It was an honor to contribute research and curate the playlist for the latest issue of Strangers Guide: Complicating Colonialism issue in partnership with Coda Story. This selection could be centuries long, but I condensed it to just under three hours.
NYC Performances 11/15-16 with Antibalas at Brooklyn Bowl
Back to Brooklyn this week for two shows at the Brooklyn Bowl with Antibalas. It is always strange going back to this neighborhood. I started the band there 26 years ago, over a generation ago, and the landscape has changed so much such that certain blocks are completely unrecognizable and looking at a street sign on the corner is only more disorienting.
We will be performing music from a forthcoming new album on Daptone Records, and some songs from way back in our catalog.
TICKETS HERE>> https://www.brooklynbowl.com/brooklyn/events/detail/antibalas-k7vgfb3eni7iy
Night Words: Oakland Arts Collective Event 8/27/24 at Bar Shiru
A night of words and poetry: the jump off of a new arts and literature collective in Oakland at Bar Shiru, the SF Bay area’s best and only hi-fi listening bar. Readers will read. The host Dr Mama Feelgood will dazzle and delight. I will be bringing gems from my vinyl archive to spin.
Los Angeles: The Golden Thread
Playing multiple woodwinds in this really fun concert with a few of my oldest musical friends and some brand new ones, at one of my favorite venues in Los Angeles.
Collab:: Sulah Jordan "The Sweetest Gift"
The second installation of some collaborations with my friend Sulah Jordan and company. This song is a rendition of Sade’s “The Sweetest Gift" I was invited to perform tenor saxophone solos. If you haven’t checked her first EP “Lady Bug”, you can find it on Spotify or at Bandcamp. Enjoy.
New album: Martez “Goodbyes”
“Goodbyes” is the sixth album in my series of grieving rituals called LAMENTOS. This year I lost my father, an aunt and an uncle, all while bearing witness to the intensifying barbarity around the world. Take time to grieve.
Interview with Jesse Rifkin
Jesse Rifkin, author of “This Must Be the Place,” interviews me about my experiences in mid-90s Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the bands and scenes I was a part of creating.
Last year, I came across the writing of Jesse Rifkin, an astute chronicler of the music scenes of New York at the end of the last century into this one, and author of the book “This Must Be the Place.” I was curious to see if he had done his homework, as many other music writers have really fallen short of chronicling the music scene since the demise of print. Jesse is the real deal.
After a few months of phone/text tag we finally met up in person at a little bar on Avenue A in the late summer of 2023 during one of my swings back to NYC. As buckets of rain poured down, we sipped our pints, and I looked across the window to the Pyramid Club, where I had done some of my first gigs ever in the mid-90s, including one of the first with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings (we were still the Soul Providers at the time: you can tell because there is a piece of me on the cover of the album where I’m wearing a gray suit. A few months later, Gabe had us all fitted for the first round of matching green sharkskin jackets and skinny black ties.
Jesse and I could have talked forever, but we ran out of time and made a promise to get up sometime for a proper interview. Read it here.