SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2017
VOLUME FIVE NUMBER ONE
ORNETTE COLEMAN
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
TYSHAWN SOREY
(November 4-10)
JALEEL SHAW
(November 11-17)
COUNT BASIE
(November 18-24)
NICHOLAS PAYTON
(November 25-December 1)
JONATHAN FINLAYSON
(December 2-8)
JIMMY HEATH
(December 9-15)
BRIAN BLADE
(December 16-22)
RAVI COLTRANE
(December 23-29)
CHRISTIAN SCOTT
(December 30-January 5)
GIL SCOTT-HERON
(January 6-12)
MARK TURNER
(January 13-19)
CRAIG TABORN
(January 20-26)
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/christian-scott-mn
0000123195/biography
Christian Scott
(b. March 31, 1983)
Artist Biography by Marisa Brown
Forward-thinking trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Christian Scott, aka Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, is a lauded performer known for his genre-bending approach to jazz. Born in New Orleans in 1983, Scott received his first trumpet at age 12 as a gift from his mother and grandmother. As Scott's uncle was modern jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison, it was no surprise that Scott soon became very proficient on the trumpet -- so good, in fact, that Harrison began having him play at his gigs.
Following in his uncle's footsteps, Scott enrolled at the prestigious New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and then at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, where he received a full scholarship. There, he was selected to be part of the Berklee Monterey Quartet in 2004, chosen from four of the school's finest musicians, and played at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Though Scott had already appeared on record with his uncle, he made his major-label solo debut at age 22 on Concord Jazz, with 2006's Rewind That. The record combined rock and R&B motifs with modern jazz, featured Harrison as a guest performer, and was nominated for a Grammy later that year.
Scott returned in 2007 with Anthem, a passionate response to the suffering of his fellow New Orleanians post-Hurricane Katrina. In 2010, Scott released his third studio album, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow. His musical ambition manifested itself expansively in 2012 with the release of his fifth album, the double-disc Christian a Tunde Adjuah. In 2015, Scott returned with Stretch Music, an even more experimental, genre-bending album with heavy electronic influences. Featured on the album were guest appearances from saxophonist Braxton Cook and flutist Elena Pinderhughes.
At the end of March 2017, Scott released Ruler Rebel, a politically charged set that he announced was the first in a series he dubbed The Centennial Trilogy. The second and third volumes in the trilogy, Diaspora and The Emancipation Procrastination, followed in June and October, respectively. The series was intended to honor the 100th birthday of recorded jazz, while contemplating the political and social ills that still tear at the fabric of America.
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/christianscott
Christian Scott
Christian Scott, also known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah (born March 31, 1983, in New Orleans, Louisiana) is a two-time Edison Award winning (2010 and 2012) and Grammy Award nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and music executive. Christian’s Grammy nominated international recording debut, Rewind That was called “arguably the most remarkable premiere the genre has seen in the last decade” by Billboard Magazine, earning Christian two prominent features on their cover and inclusion in their list of “Ones to Watch in 2006.” In June 2015, Christian established a partnership between his newly formed Stretch Music label and the lauded Ropeadope Music family. In the Fall of 2015, Christian's debut release on Stretch Music/Ropeadope, titled Stretch Music, will be released along with the first interactive Stretch Music App offering for this generation of young improvisors. The recording and the app are set to be deeply impactful statements of the new genre.
Christian is the nephew of jazz innovator and legendary sax man, Donald Harrison, Jr. He began his musical tutelage under the direction of his uncle at the age of thirteen. After graduating from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) in 2001, Christian received a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where he earned a degree thirty months later.
Since 2002 Christian has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and two live albums. According to NPR, “Christian Scott ushers in new era of jazz”. He has been heralded by JazzTimes magazine as “the Architect of a new commercially viable fusion” and “Jazz's young style God.” Christian is known for developing the harmonic convention known as the “forecasting cell” and for his use of an un-voiced tone in his playing, emphasizing breath over vibration at the mouthpiece, widely referred to as his “whisper technique.” Christian is also widely recognized as one of the progenitors of “Stretch Music,” a jazz rooted, genre blind musical form that attempts to “stretch” jazz’s rhythmic, melodic and harmonic conventions to encompass as many other musical forms, languages and cultures as possible.
Through his partnership with Adam’s Instruments Christian’s signature line of horns, the Siren Trumpet, Sirenette and Reverse Flugelhorn, are revolutionizing brass instrument design all over the world.
Oscar winning director, Jonathan Demme, included one of Christian's tunes in his June 2015 release, starring Merril Streep, Ricki and the Flash. One of Christian’s next projects includes scoring award winning writer-director and Spike Lee protégé, Kiel Adrian Scott’s, feature film debut, Epilogue. Christian also scored Kiel’s award- winning film, The Roe Effect and the 2015 Student Academy Award Finalist film, Samaria. Kiel Adrian is Christian’s identical twin brother and is the muse for songs in his name on two recordings, Rewind That and Christian aTunde Adjuah. Christian also scored the recently released an Unexpected History - The Story of Hennessy and African Americans by highly acclaimed documentarian, Llew Smith.
Since 2006, Christian has worked with McCoy Tyner, Prince, Marcus Miller, Eddie Palmieri, Mos Def (Yasin Bey), Thom Yorke and Solange Knowles, among other notable talents.
Christian, is a scion of New Orleans’ first family of art and culture, nephew of saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr. and the grandson of the legendary Big Chief, Donald Harrison Sr., the only man to be Chief of four Black Indian tribes of New Orleans. The HBO series, Treme, borrowed the “Guardians of the Flame” name from the Black Indian nation Scott began “masking” as a member of with his grandfather in 1989.
Christian is also dedicated to a number of causes that positively impact communities. He gives his time and talents to a number of organizations which garnered him a place in Ebony Magazine’s 30 Young Leaders Under 30. His family’s not for profit organization, Guardians Institute, located in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, is dedicated to reading and fiscal literacy, cultural retention and a firm commitment to the participation of community elders and artists in uplifting and supporting the youth in underserved areas of New Orleans. Christian has been in the forefront of youth programming and has given private music lessons, spearheaded book give-a- ways, raised funds and purchased musical instruments in support of Guardians Institute. Since its post-Hurricane Katrina founding in 2006, Guardians Institute has purchased and distributed over 44,000 brand new books to the children of New Orleans.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/christian-scott-shining-a-light-christian-scott-by-chris-may.php?page=1
Christian Scott: Shining a Light
by
Trumpeter/bandleader Christian Scott's aTunde Adjuah (Concord, 2012), like its immediate predecessor, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow
(Concord, 2010), delivers on two fronts. Musically, it retains what is
precious in the jazz tradition, while drawing in ideas from hip hop,
rock, funk, ambient and Afrorock. Extra-musically, it reaffirms jazz as
protest music.
Born and brought up in New Orleans, Scott has lived in New York City since graduating from Boston's Berklee College of Music in 2003. In New Orleans, he was taught to play jazz by musicians "who were literally the children of the architects of the music." One of things he learnt was that "jazz is, first and foremost, about freedom, about shining a light."
On aTunde Adjuah, Scott shines a light on a range of modern social injustices. These include the rape of 400 African women in the Sudanese town of Rokero by Janjaweed militiamen ("Fatima Aisha Rokero 400"), the killing of an innocent black teenager in Florida earlier this year ("Trayvon"), the demonization of the homeless in the US ("Vs. The Kleptocratic Union: Mrs McDowell's Crime"), the international trafficking of women for the sex trade ("Away: Anuradha And The Maiti Nepal"), and police killings of innocent people in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina ("Danziger").
All About Jazz: One thing that is tremendously exciting about your style of jazz is that it embraces a range of influences, from hip hop to Afrorock, that are not normally regarded as "jazz."
Christian Scott: I call it "stretch music." I'm not attempting to replace jazz conventions, but to create a sound that is "genre blind" in its acculturation of other forms, languages and cultures. I'm trying to play music that is of today while also being rooted in the tradition.
AAJ: Another thing that is uplifting is that you are using your music to address social injustice. You are reaffirming jazz as a music of protest.
CS: As an artist, I'm not entirely comfortable with telling other musicians what they should or should not do with their work. But if I do have a criticism about what's happened to the music over the last twenty years, it is that a lot of the major musicians haven't made strides to get closer to the listening public, to engage with society. A lot of times, the music is just being made for the musicians.
I think the trend reflects the dynamic of American society as a whole. I've never felt America so divided as it is now. There's a huge section of the population, about half, who have cut themselves off from the wider world. They are incredibly misinformed about how government works, what government is doing, about how other people live. It's not a quarter, or a third, it's half of them. It's terrifying!
Born and brought up in New Orleans, Scott has lived in New York City since graduating from Boston's Berklee College of Music in 2003. In New Orleans, he was taught to play jazz by musicians "who were literally the children of the architects of the music." One of things he learnt was that "jazz is, first and foremost, about freedom, about shining a light."
On aTunde Adjuah, Scott shines a light on a range of modern social injustices. These include the rape of 400 African women in the Sudanese town of Rokero by Janjaweed militiamen ("Fatima Aisha Rokero 400"), the killing of an innocent black teenager in Florida earlier this year ("Trayvon"), the demonization of the homeless in the US ("Vs. The Kleptocratic Union: Mrs McDowell's Crime"), the international trafficking of women for the sex trade ("Away: Anuradha And The Maiti Nepal"), and police killings of innocent people in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina ("Danziger").
All About Jazz: One thing that is tremendously exciting about your style of jazz is that it embraces a range of influences, from hip hop to Afrorock, that are not normally regarded as "jazz."
Christian Scott: I call it "stretch music." I'm not attempting to replace jazz conventions, but to create a sound that is "genre blind" in its acculturation of other forms, languages and cultures. I'm trying to play music that is of today while also being rooted in the tradition.
AAJ: Another thing that is uplifting is that you are using your music to address social injustice. You are reaffirming jazz as a music of protest.
CS: As an artist, I'm not entirely comfortable with telling other musicians what they should or should not do with their work. But if I do have a criticism about what's happened to the music over the last twenty years, it is that a lot of the major musicians haven't made strides to get closer to the listening public, to engage with society. A lot of times, the music is just being made for the musicians.
I think the trend reflects the dynamic of American society as a whole. I've never felt America so divided as it is now. There's a huge section of the population, about half, who have cut themselves off from the wider world. They are incredibly misinformed about how government works, what government is doing, about how other people live. It's not a quarter, or a third, it's half of them. It's terrifying!
AAJ: Some older people are withdrawing into isolationism, some younger ones into an attitude close to nihilism.
CS: Yes. With the younger musicians, it seems to me that they are more concerned with doing stuff that will make them attractive to record labels rather than articulating what they feel about a political issue. I'm 28 now, and as I get older I realize that a lot of musicians my age or a little younger are feeling that they have no stake in trying to change things.
When you have a dynamic like that from the youth it is very dangerous. It's one thing when you have been playing this music for twenty, thirty years and you've reached a place where you are maybe a little more comfortable and life is showing you certain things; your thinking may be different to what it was when you were in your teens or early twenties. But you get guys coming out of college at 22, and they don't care about what is going on outside. I've had conversations with young musicians and they were proud that they didn't care about what is going on in the wider world. That sort of attitude scares the shit out of me. Fortunately, of course, there are young musicians who are trying to shine a light.
AAJ: A few musicians who have been along to the Occupy Wall Street action reported that they were not made welcome by some of the protestors, who let them know they regard jazz as part of the power structure they want to change.
CS: Well, I've been along there several times and I didn't feel that. It was actually a lot of fun, because though the people there disagree about many things, the one thing they do agree on is that we need to find a consensus about how to change the dynamic. Otherwise it's going to get scary, man.
AAJ: Do you think that because your music is instrumental, without sung lyrics, its ability to articulate protest is constrained?
CS: On one level, maybe. On the plus side, instrumental music can carry more power because it requires real intensity of feeling to get it over. When I'm playing a tune, I'm really trying to be in that space in the moment I'm doing it. And my band has that ability, too—I think it's one of the things that makes us one of the better bands right now, in that we all have the ability to get into the framework of a composition when we're playing it. A lot of bands, they are just playing the song, whereas we're really dealing with whatever the issue is. And people can feel that, because we're trying to emit the space that we're coming from. When I'm playing "Fatima Aisha Rokero 400," I'm not thinking about what might be in the fridge back home.
We did a performance in North Carolina last week, and after we did "400" there was an old lady who came up to me and she said that it made her think of an experience her husband told her about from when he was in the last world war. She said the music made her feel how he must have felt about it.
But on other occasions, with tunes that I do that are incredibly politically charged, I've had people tell me they remind them of the loving feeling they had when they gave birth. Sometimes it's the general intensity rather than the specific issue that is communicated. That doesn't bother me at all. Of course, I want you to think about those issues, but I'm in no way trying to force people in any direction, I'm just expressing how I feel about certain things.
AAJ: On a lighter note, on the new album, one of the things you are expressing is how you feel about people comparing you with Miles Davis.
CS: Yes. With the younger musicians, it seems to me that they are more concerned with doing stuff that will make them attractive to record labels rather than articulating what they feel about a political issue. I'm 28 now, and as I get older I realize that a lot of musicians my age or a little younger are feeling that they have no stake in trying to change things.
When you have a dynamic like that from the youth it is very dangerous. It's one thing when you have been playing this music for twenty, thirty years and you've reached a place where you are maybe a little more comfortable and life is showing you certain things; your thinking may be different to what it was when you were in your teens or early twenties. But you get guys coming out of college at 22, and they don't care about what is going on outside. I've had conversations with young musicians and they were proud that they didn't care about what is going on in the wider world. That sort of attitude scares the shit out of me. Fortunately, of course, there are young musicians who are trying to shine a light.
AAJ: A few musicians who have been along to the Occupy Wall Street action reported that they were not made welcome by some of the protestors, who let them know they regard jazz as part of the power structure they want to change.
CS: Well, I've been along there several times and I didn't feel that. It was actually a lot of fun, because though the people there disagree about many things, the one thing they do agree on is that we need to find a consensus about how to change the dynamic. Otherwise it's going to get scary, man.
AAJ: Do you think that because your music is instrumental, without sung lyrics, its ability to articulate protest is constrained?
CS: On one level, maybe. On the plus side, instrumental music can carry more power because it requires real intensity of feeling to get it over. When I'm playing a tune, I'm really trying to be in that space in the moment I'm doing it. And my band has that ability, too—I think it's one of the things that makes us one of the better bands right now, in that we all have the ability to get into the framework of a composition when we're playing it. A lot of bands, they are just playing the song, whereas we're really dealing with whatever the issue is. And people can feel that, because we're trying to emit the space that we're coming from. When I'm playing "Fatima Aisha Rokero 400," I'm not thinking about what might be in the fridge back home.
We did a performance in North Carolina last week, and after we did "400" there was an old lady who came up to me and she said that it made her think of an experience her husband told her about from when he was in the last world war. She said the music made her feel how he must have felt about it.
But on other occasions, with tunes that I do that are incredibly politically charged, I've had people tell me they remind them of the loving feeling they had when they gave birth. Sometimes it's the general intensity rather than the specific issue that is communicated. That doesn't bother me at all. Of course, I want you to think about those issues, but I'm in no way trying to force people in any direction, I'm just expressing how I feel about certain things.
AAJ: On a lighter note, on the new album, one of the things you are expressing is how you feel about people comparing you with Miles Davis.
CS: Yeah, on "Who They Wish I Was." That one is about me constantly having to navigate comparisons between me and Miles Davis. It sounds like something Miles might have done in the mid-1960s; it's modal, but some of the textural things are more modern. When I'm playing that tune I'm trying to capture the vulnerability of playing the instrument in public. You can hear that in Miles, he's completely willing to be vulnerable to people and place.
AAJ: On Yesterday You Said Tomorrow you played a customized trumpet called Katrina. Please tell us a little about the horns you use on aTunde Adjuah.
CS: The Katrina was made in 2006. On the new album I play three other horns, all of them made in 2011. There's a hybrid of a trumpet, a flugelhorn and a cornet. It's called a siren. There's a smaller version called a sirenette, and another one called a reverse flugel.
The Katrina is a trumpet with the bell tilted up twenty-two degrees and shifted a few centimeters to the left. It looks a bit like Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet, but it works in the exact opposite way. It's harder to play in the upper register, because it has got one less turn in it than Dizzy's, but it makes it a little easier to switch from a whisper to something high and piercing. All of these horns are about extending timbre and texture.
Selected Discography:
Christian Scott, aTunde Adjuah (Concord, 2012)
Stefon Harris / David Sanchez / Christian Scott, 90 Miles (Concord, 2011)
Christian Scott, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (Concord, 2010)
Christian Scott, Live at Newport (Concord, 2008)
Christian Scott, Anthem (Concord, 2007)
Christian Scott, Rewind That (Concord, 2006)
Photo Credits
Page 1: Kiel Scott
Page 2: Derek Conrad Murray
http://www.newsweek.com/2017/10/20/christian-scott-atunde-adjuah-jazz-centennial-trilogy-680887.html
Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah is the Past, Present, and Future of Jazz
by Ryan Bort
October 9, 2017
Newsweek
In reimagining jazz, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is both honoring and saving it. CHRISTIAN SCOTT ATUNDE ADJUAH
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah always hated the trumpet. Really hated it. But growing up in 1980s New Orleans, where music was one of the few ways a kid could get out of his neighborhood, the instrument he preferred was already taken. Adjuah is the nephew of renowned saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr., and “I knew that if I played the saxophone, I probably wasn’t going on the road,” he says. “My uncle still would have trained me at home. But if I played the trumpet, I was going to be onstage getting the actual lessons.”
Related: A Long-lost Thelonious Monk Album Is Finally Released 60 Years Later
By 16, he was a bona fide prodigy, and in the more than two decades since, the 34-year-old has won awards, toured the world and released close to a dozen acclaimed albums, beginning with his self-titled debut in 2002. One thing never changed, though. “I hate the fucking sound of the trumpet, man. It’s fucking terrible.”
So Adjuah ditched it and invented something better. We’re talking in the upstairs greenroom of the legendary Blue Note Jazz Club in New York’s Greenwich Village, and he’s explaining what he calls his “B-flat instruments,” which look a bit like space-age weapons. Such innovation is a natural extension of Adjuah’s unorthodox music. Along with fellow jazz musicians Robert Glasper and, more recently, Kamasi Washington, Adjuah has been at the forefront of a generation tearing down the boundaries between genres, with elements of rock, hip-hop and electronic music flowing into jazz recordings and vice versa. Adjuah has collaborated with Thom Yorke and Mos Def; Glasper and Washington worked with Kendrick Lamar on his Grammy-winning 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly.
By 16, he was a bona fide prodigy, and in the more than two decades since, the 34-year-old has won awards, toured the world and released close to a dozen acclaimed albums, beginning with his self-titled debut in 2002. One thing never changed, though. “I hate the fucking sound of the trumpet, man. It’s fucking terrible.”
So Adjuah ditched it and invented something better. We’re talking in the upstairs greenroom of the legendary Blue Note Jazz Club in New York’s Greenwich Village, and he’s explaining what he calls his “B-flat instruments,” which look a bit like space-age weapons. Such innovation is a natural extension of Adjuah’s unorthodox music. Along with fellow jazz musicians Robert Glasper and, more recently, Kamasi Washington, Adjuah has been at the forefront of a generation tearing down the boundaries between genres, with elements of rock, hip-hop and electronic music flowing into jazz recordings and vice versa. Adjuah has collaborated with Thom Yorke and Mos Def; Glasper and Washington worked with Kendrick Lamar on his Grammy-winning 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly.
Adjuah’s
sounds are recognizable—a modification of traditional jazz, with
familiar elements—but he welcomes myriad influences, from trap beats to
samba rhythms to polka. “Jazz is the original fusion music,” Adjuah
says. “Bringing all of this in is the essence of it; the traditional
tenets are to constantly search, to look for new terrain, new vernacular
and new ways of communicating. But we were up against this notion that
it had to be one way.”
Adjuah is about to release the final installment of an ambitious and socially insightful expression of his jazz vernacular, what he calls his “Centennial Trilogy,” three albums commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the first jazz recording: “Livery Staple Blues,” from the Original Dixieland Jass Band. Adjuah and his band are at the Blue Note for a final night of sold-out shows in support of this installment, The Emancipation Procrastination, recorded in just six days but in the works since he was 14. When he was growing up, his musical elders would say, “'When you guys get to be adults, the century mark will be up,'” Adjuah says. “'What are you going to do? How are you going to create beauty out of this moment, how are you going to spark a musical dialogue that will last another century? Are you good enough? Are you valiant enough?' I began the work in that moment.”
His experiences as a teenager in the Upper 9th Ward shaped his music further. “I’ve seen white people enduring food insecurity. I’ve seen black people enduring the same things. They view each other as their nemesis, even though they’re the same people,” he says. “As a social construct, race exists, but it doesn’t, man. There’s no Homo sapiens Africans."
In time, Adjuah began to find the term jazz “limiting,” so he created a new name, “stretch music,” for a sound free of artificial and arbitrary boundaries, where Kurt Cobain is as much of a blues musician as Muddy Waters. He says, “If I can blur or obliterate the spaces between genres, which are the cultural expressions of the [races] that we’ve carved up, then what am I saying about the people?”
Later that night, as he stood on the Blue Note stage, you could see evidence of Adjuah’s hopeful philosophy on the faces of the beguiled and diverse crowd: Asian, white, black and everything in between. “I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like sounds,” Adjuah said earlier. “There’s nothing more powerful than the potential music has, to be able to heal people and to get people past that junction. I think we’re going to do it.”
The third and final installment of the Centennial Trilogy, The Emancipation Procrastination, is out October 20 on Adjuah’s label, Stretch Music (via Ropeadope).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/arts/music/christian-scott-atunde-adjuah-stretch-festival-ruler-rebel.html?_r=0
Music
Jazz Trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah Melds Past, Present and Future
This
month is the hundredth anniversary of the first commercial jazz
recordings, and the trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is using the
opportunity to revisit some of that history. His new album, “Ruler
Rebel,” which will be available for pre-order on Friday and released on
March 31, is the first of what Mr. Scott is calling his “Centennial
Trilogy,” designed to take stock of the present moment while
highlighting how much has not changed in the past 100 years.
“A
lot of what was going on when those guys were making those documents,
it’s happening right here right now,” he said, referring to the 1917
recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band. “If you’re honest, it’s
very hard to differentiate between what was going on then socially, and
what’s going on now socially.”
This
week Mr. Scott, 33, is presenting events at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse
as part of his Stretch Music Festival. The event’s name comes from his
term for his own music, which uses jazz improvisation as a bedrock but
integrates a universe of influences, creating a sound that is open-ended
and immersive.
With
“Ruler Rebel,” he is taking up a new challenge: uniting the spare,
rippling power of trap music (Southern hip-hop known for its austere
beats and deep puddles of bass) with a range of parallel inspirations,
from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti-western themes to New Orleans funk.
“I think a lot of times, because culturally the music comes from the place that it comes from, it’s easy to write it off as being street or base,” Mr. Scott said in his dressing room at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse, referring to the hip-hop of artists like Migos and DJ Mustard. “But remember that’s the same thing that happened with jazz. And look what grew out of that.”
As
a trumpeter, Mr. Scott is the rare musician who has defined a personal
solution to one of jazz’s biggest challenges these days: how to make
sure solos stay engaging now that the swinging rhythms and swift chord
changes of traditional bebop have largely given way to simmering
grooves. Mr. Scott achieves this by ditching the linear, spry soloing
style that defined bop, instead favoring lengthy, draped melodies
punctured by the occasional boisterous howl on the trumpet.
Mr.
Scott grew up in a musical family in the Upper Ninth Ward of New
Orleans; he is the nephew of the jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr.,
one of the elders who mentored him as a child. He toured with his uncle
as a teenager, then attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston,
eventually moving to New York City. In Harlem, he was among a coterie of young, broad-minded musicians pursuing a marriage of jazz, hip-hop and Spotify-era eclecticism.
In
2007, he released “Anthem,” a post-Hurricane Katrina statement with a
scathing new sound — driven equally by rock thrash, hip-hop gravitas and
jazz sincerity. With tunes titled “Litany Against Fear” and “Katrina’s
Eyes,” it clarified his commitment to confronting social issues with his
music, something that had fallen out of vogue in most jazz circles. A
string of formidable albums followed, including “Yesterday You Said
Tomorrow,” in 2010, which sounded like a panoramic photo of a land in
turmoil, shot through a dusty lens.
Mr.
Scott extended his name in 2011, adding two Ghanaian appellations,
aTunde and Adjuah. It was an acknowledgment of suppressed histories, and
an act of self-definition in line with jazz’s ethos.
He also decided to move back to New Orleans that year, driven by “a hunger to reinvest after the hurricane,” he said — and to stay connected to a taproot. The city remains a hub of traditional jazz, but it is also a space of cultural admixture, all in the context of a strong black musical tradition.
Mr.
Scott grew up as a “spy boy” in New Orleans’s black Indian tradition,
in which groups of African-Americans pay respect to the Native Americans
who were often their supporters and peers during Louisiana’s early
years (many black residents of New Orleans have Native American
ancestry, too). The black Indian heritage involves marching in full,
feathered regalia on certain holidays, and performing a distinct brand
of marching songs with a prominent call-and-response element.
Mr.
Harrison was and continues to be a “big chief” of the Congo Nation
black Indian group, and Mr. Scott’s grandfather was a chief of four
groups. On Friday at Harlem Stage, Mr. Scott will perform a ceremonial
start of his own black Indian tribe, Chief Adjuah and the Brave.
When
he released “Stretch Music” in 2015, he accompanied it with a
smartphone app. It allows listeners to manipulate and isolate different
tracks, so they can see the way his innovations are wrought and even
play along. In a way, it’s an attempt to democratize the teacher-student
relationship, and to prevent jazz from getting passed over by the
onrush of technology.
And
Mr. Scott makes a point of spreading his approach to improvisation in
person. As part of the Harlem Stage residency, he has offered education
programs reaching roughly 500 grade school students over the past year.
He is also planning visits to New York-area colleges, where he will
deliver lecture-demonstrations on his approach to integrating myriad
influences.
“When
you look at the idea of genre, it is hyper-racialized,” he said, adding
that one of the first genre categories devised by record companies was “race music.”
“But if I can show the compatibility of all those seemingly disparate
groups, if I can marry the sound, then it shows that really people are
not just compatible, but we’re the same. Our heart is the same.”
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
Friday and Saturday at the Harlem Stage
Gatehouse; harlemstage.org.
A version of this article appears in print on February 16, 2017, on Page C7 of the New York edition with the headline: Melding Past, Present and Future. Friday and Saturday at the Harlem Stage
Gatehouse; harlemstage.org.
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah Talks Jazz as Protest Music, Trap Influence
"When the minds of Americans are hungry, they always go to jazz to get fed," says outspoken trumpeter and "Stretch Music" pioneer
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/acclaimed-musician-christian-scott-atunde-adjuah/
Acclaimed Musician Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
Tavis Smiley Program
June 23, 2017
PBS
The heralded musician discusses his latest project The Centennial Trilogy.
Two-time Edison Award–winning and
Grammy-nominated Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah—trumpeter, composer,
producer, and designer of innovative instruments and interactive
media—is set to release three albums to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of the very first jazz recordings of 1917. Collectively
titled The Centennial Trilogy, the series is at its core
a sobering re-evaluation of the social and political realities of the
world through sound. It speaks to a litany of issues that continue to
plague our collective experiences: slavery in America via the
prison–industrial complex, food insecurity, xenophobia, immigration,
climate change, sexual orientation, gender equality, fascism, and the
return of the demagogue.
Heralded by JazzTimes magazine as “jazz’s young style God” and “the
architect of a new commercially
viable fusion,” Adjuah is the progenitor of Stretch Music, a genre-blind
musical form that stretches the rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic
conventions of jazz to encompass many musical forms, languages, thought
processes, and cultures.
Like Christian Scott Music on Facebook.
Follow @cs_stretchmusic on Instagram.
Follow @cscottjazz on Twitter.
Acclaimed Musician Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
June 23, 2017
TRANSCRIPT:
Tavis Smiley Program, PBS
Tavis Smiley: Good evening from Los Angeles. I’m Tavis Smiley.
Tonight, a conversation with Grammy-nominated jazz artist,
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. This year, he’s releasing three albums,
the “Centennial Trilogy”, to mark the 100th anniversary of recorded
jazz. He’s also innovated an app to help musicians build their own
chops.
We’re glad you’ve joined us. All of that coming up in just a moment.
Announcer: And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.
Tavis: Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is a driving
force in the next generation of jazz artists. He’s out this year with an
ambitious project. He is marking the 100th anniversary of the first
jazz recordings by releasing a trio of albums he calls the “Centennial
Trilogy”. As I said, it is an ambitious project and we are honored to
have him back on this program. My man, how you doing?
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: I’m great. How are you?
Tavis: Good to see you, man. How’s your mom and your twin brother, your grandmother, your family?
Adjuah: Everybody’s good, yeah, everyone’s good.
Tavis: You are part of a wonderful family, man.
Adjuah: Thank you. I appreciate you.
Tavis: That’s a great family, man. And your uncle?
Adjuah: Yeah, he’s great. I just saw him…
Tavis: Donald Harrison, Jr., the great jazz artist, is his uncle.
Adjuah: Yes, sir. Yeah, I just saw him. We played together. He beat me up. I learned a lot. So I still get lessons.
Tavis: I think the last time you were here, maybe you had, maybe you hadn’t changed your name.
Adjuah: No, I had not.
Tavis: You had not changed your name the last time
you were here. For those who knew you as Christian Scott when you first
came out, you’re still Christian Scott. You added some to your name.
Tell me what you did and why you did it.
Adjuah: Yeah. So I always say that I completed my
name by adding on aTunde and Adjuah. You know, I wasn’t comfortable
exclusively navigating the world as Scott. Obviously, I’m a world
citizen as a jazz musician or a practitioner in this culture of music.
You get to travel the world, right?
I’ve been touring since I was about 14 years old and, when
you’re in all of these different places, all of these different
cultures, the way they react to our names, it gave me a different
context. So as I got older and started to tour more, maybe about 16 or
17 years old, I started to feel it when people called me Scott. It felt
differently. It didn’t feel like I was being called.
So I decided to complete my name by adding aTunde and
Adjuah. These are names that have reverence sort of in the culture that I
come from in New Orleans, Black, Indian, Afro Native American culture,
obviously. My uncle has been chief. I just became this year. My
grandfather was chief.
So I wanted to sort of de-westernize my name in a way that
sort of hearkened to the cultural tenets that I hold dear. But I also
wanted to hold onto Scott because it’s also important to me that people
acknowledge and reference the fact that I am aware and they need to be
aware of where my actual history is here.
You know, obviously, the way that we’ve got these surnames
is kind of dense, right? You know, that wasn’t a part of what I wanted
to give to my children when they get here. I don’t necessarily know that
they are going to be called Adjuah.
I think, you know, when I get married or find a partner
and have kids, I think we’ll probably mutually decide what our family
name will be and then we’ll let the children determine what the naming
will be. But in the interim, I’m aTunde Adjuah.
Tavis: So when you hear yourself introduced in that
way now, referenced that way around the world, as you were starting to
have some issues with Scott not feeling it, to use your phrase, how does
it feel now?
Adjuah: It feels amazing.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Adjuah: Yeah. It feels, you know, obviously, to me
it’s important to deal with the fact that we have a history that
predates the American experiment, right? You know, being a New
Orleanian, this is something that’s really important to people where I’m
from.
But because of their life realities, a lot of people are
apprehensive or afraid to de-westernize their names because a lot of
times the moment that you do that, in some ways you become sort of an
enemy to the state in a lot of peoples’ minds eye.
You know, they think just general things, like if you’re
filling out a job application and your name is a Roloff or a con name
just automatically means some things. You know, you may not get a call
back. That’s one example. So, you know, for me, it was important to make
the change. It was something that I felt that I needed to do.
Now when I’m called, even when I’m called Scott, it’s not
something that hurts. It’s not something that feels strange anymore
because aTunde and Adjuah exists, right? But I remember even being a
young person in school and they would say Scott, Christian Scott. It
would be strange, you know.
Obviously, my surname is my father’s name and his father’s
name, and I love them very much, which is part of why I kept it because
I love them so much. But it was time to make a move and a change to
make sure that my children have their own…
Tavis: Let me ask one more question about this because, as I mentioned at the top, I’ve known your family so well for years.
Adjuah: Yeah, absolutely.
Tavis: And if I’m getting too personal, you push me back. Don’t hit me. Just push gently [laugh].
Adjuah: I’ll just…
Tavis: Play me out [laugh]. Pun intended. Just play me out. How did your family react?
Adjuah: You know, it’s interesting. Dependent on
the size of the family, right, most people were really happy that I did
it, but they were scared for me. When I first completed my name, it was
sort of a charged moment.
In the jazz community, I was admonished. People tried to
project me as like a nationalist and all types of things and came to
conclusions about how I am as a person that were completely unreal. The
first bit of touring that we did, there were like threats. A lot of
times, the producers and promoters of festivals and things would say
that this is a threat that’s happened in different places.
One time, I showed up to a hotel and there was like a
figure that had been left on an ironing board that was like a pejorative
figure of a Black person with a noose around his neck that said “Your
name is not aTunde Adjuah. It’s nigger.” So that was hard for the ladies
in my family. The men, they all understood it. But, obviously…
Tavis: Not to cut you off. So when you said —
speaking of the ladies in your family, women in your family — you say
they were scared. They were scared for you, scared for your safety,
scared for the impact on your career just because you changed your name?
Adjuah: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Tavis: Wow.
Adjuah: Well, you know, that even happened with a
lot of other musicians. They said, “Why would you do that? Are you
crazy? Like you’ll never work again.” My thing was is like, “If this is
the rationale for me not working with all that I’ve sacrificed and tried
to develop the acumen, what we’re trying to do to evaluate the way we
communicate in this music, then I don’t want to work if that’s what it
is.”
Tavis: The reason why I’m pressing on this — we’ll get to the music in a second, I promise…
Adjuah: No, it’s all good.
Tavis: The reason why I’m pressing on this is because Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sat in this chair not too long ago…
Adjuah: I need to rub it out.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah, yeah [laugh]. Well, this will really mess you up.
Adjuah: The Captain, yeah, yeah.
Tavis: Muhammad Ali sat in this chair.
Adjuah: Okay. I’m going to take another rub [laugh].
Tavis: The point I’m making is that, I mean, Ali
changes his name and he catches all kind of Hades. Abdul-Jabbar changed
his name. He caught some as well. But that was years ago. I’m just
surprised, I guess, on some level to hear that an artist of your note
and of your stature would get that kind of pushback for, as you say,
completing your name.
Adjuah: Yeah. You know, I mean, look at what just
happened to LeBron’s house. I mean, obviously, there’s still a lot of
work to be done.
Tavis: If I’m getting personal again, tell me and I’ll…
Adjuah: No, it’s all good.
Tavis: When you first walked on this set years ago,
the first time I saw you, there was a young lady who came with you that
day. You know who I’m talking about, right?
Adjuah: Esperanza.
Tavis: Esperanza. I didn’t want to ask because I
haven’t asked, you have obviously soared to heights. She has soared to
heights, and the two of y’all were dating as just kids basically. I get a
kick out of that. What do you make of the success that Esperanza has
had?
Adjuah: You know, what’s crazy about it is…
Tavis: Is that too personal?
Adjuah: No.
Tavis: Okay, okay.
Adjuah: No, not at all. What’s great about it is I
know how hard we all worked, right? I think a lot of times, you know,
when looking at that environment, what they come up with is topical and
they like to make excuses for why she is as successful as she is, right?
I’ve heard people say, “Well, she’s getting it because
she’s beautiful.” She’s getting it for this reason or that reason. No,
she’s getting it because she works harder than everyone else, right?
You know, when you fast forward and you look at it like
what Robert Glasper has done or Stephen Bruner and all these, I think a
lot of times people don’t realize that the proximity that we have to
each other, like some of the greatest practitioners of this culture of
music in this generation, they’re all family.
That existed in the past, but I think it’s a little
different than that. Most of us knew each other, right? I met her when
she was 17. I was 18 years old. I’ve known Robert since I was 14 years
old, Stephen since he was a little kid.
So when I look at that moment, I see that obviously my
heart opens up and I’m just like the proudest person on the planet
because I remember when this person was 17 years old and they wake up at
5:00 in the morning and practice for four or five hours of the day
right before anyone knew any of our names, right? So when you see what’s
grown out of that, you can’t help but be proud.
Tavis: What’s cool about that too, about that story
— I don’t mean to demonize or cast aspersion on the hip-hop community,
but as we all know, it can be really competitive. And sometimes they get
off on and they sell records based upon dissing one another. But in
this jazz culture, it’s much more familial and collaborative, so it’s
nice to hear those stories.
Adjuah: Well, I think a big part of it too is, you
know, I think as a cultural misnomer, what we do is about a constant
reevaluation of the way that we’re communicating and we do it as a
collective, right? So like, obviously, like I demo the app and play
today, right? That’s just me playing by myself with this template that
we created.
But 99% of the time when I’m playing, there’s at least
four other, seven, eight, nine other musicians that are also making this
music. So it becomes easier to build that sort of family type space
when you have to rely on each other to actually communicate. So I think
that’s partly why it’s a little different.
Tavis: That makes sense. And the app that Christian
just referenced, don’t go anywhere because this thing is amazing. It’s
the app that they’ve created. For anybody who
loves music, plays music, has family members who play music, you’re
gonna want to see him demonstrate this. You’re gonna play with the app?
Adjuah: Yes, sir.
Tavis: He’s actually gonna play with this app that
he’s created, so you’ll want to stick around in about seven minutes just
to see the demonstration of the app and, moreover, to hear Christian
play alongside it. Now to that point, tell me about this three-part
project. This is, as I said, ambitious.
Adjuah: Oh, yeah, yeah. So the “Centennial
Trilogy”. This is a document that I wanted to make to commemorate the
first 100 years of this music’s history, but that also looks to
reevaluate the way we communicate with the listener now, right?
I think for most people that enjoy jazz music or listen to
this culture of music, part of what I’ve seen is there’s this idea,
sort of this notion that floats around in this culture that all of the
best jazz records already exist or have already been made. I think a lot
of times, even as I say that, I can feel it dawning on people that they
feel that way, right?
Tavis: Do you feel that way?
Adjuah: I don’t.
Tavis: Is that intimidating?
Adjuah: No.
Tavis: For people even to…
Adjuah: It’s strange.
Tavis: Is it intimidating for you to know that
people feel that way, that the best stuff — “Kind of Blue”, Coltrane —
that stuff’s already been done, yeah?
Adjuah: That’s weird actually. I never thought
about that. No, not really. I think, you know, the thing for me is when
you think about this music, it’s like any other thing.
You know, if you take Bob Cousy and Steph Curry and put
them in a gym, my money’s on Steph Curry, right? But it’s mainly because
Steph had the opportunity to watch Bob Cousy, right? So the music is
the same. Like, obviously, I’m the hugest Miles Davis fan you could
think of, right? I, obviously, love Dizzy Gillespie playing, right?
But this generation has had an opportunity not only to
study their contribution, but to study the practitioners that studied
them in the next generation and the guy’s generation after that. So,
obviously, there’s things that we have the opportunity to showcase and
we’ve had the opportunity to develop that they couldn’t based in the
time that they inherited it, right?
But I think having this sort of notion that there’s a cap
on what jazz has the potential to be is sort of strange to me because it
is essentially a very young form, you know. So we wanted to make these
records to look at that moment, but to try and take the music into a new
vernacular, to create new vernacular, new modes of operating, right?
New sonic realities for the music, right?
So essentially what we’re also looking to do is we’re
trying to take all of this seemingly disparate forms of music that have
grown out of jazz — you think of jazz and blues are really synonyms for
each other. This is the same culture.
My teachers, when I was a little boy, would always say
that jazz was just blues that refined itself to exist in all contexts,
right? And blues, not in terms of like melancholic woe is me music, but
blues as in how I learned as a little boy in New Orleans, which is the
most sincere thing that you can excavate in a moment of communicating
through music is blues, right?
But you take jazz and blues and eventually that evolves
into what was called race music, then that evolved into rhythm and
blues, R&B music, and that evolved into rock and roll music. So you
have all of these different cultures that have grown out of jazz.
Part of what we’re looking to do in the “Centennial
Trilogy” is to also go about the business of enculturating all of those
vernacular back into a creative improvised context so that we can figure
out the next century’s worth of communicating.
Tavis: So say a word to me before you get to this
demonstration of this app and your horn. Tell me about the three parts
of the trilogy.
Adjuah: Absolutely. So…
Tavis: The first part came out in March earlier this year.
Adjuah: Yeah. The first one is out. That was titled
“Ruler Rebel”. This one is identifying who you’re listening to.
Obviously, my identity politics, being from New Orleans, coming up in an
Afro Native American or Black Indian culture and tradition, I just
became chief of the Braves this year.
So this is a big part of my identity politics. So I wanted
to start off sort of by showcasing that because it directly relates to
the beginning of this music’s history, right? Obviously, this is the
culture that was in Congo Square when the seeds of the music were
starting, right?
There are documents of Louis Armstrong and Sydney Bechet
and Kid Ory and Baby Dodds, talking about seeing the great chiefs
singing there and how some people would say that Louis’s phrasing
sounded like the great chiefs, right? So taking those moments and
identifying who you’re listening to.
The second record is “Diaspora”. I sort of mean that in a
more macrocosmic sense in that, you know, I think that this generation
has a profound opportunity in front of it so that we can be the
generation that eradicates a lot of these systemic and social ills and
all these things.
But the way that that happens is by us looking for the
sameness as opposed to constantly illuminating the differences between
cultures. So this is essentially what we do is stretch music, but the
second record references that.
So it’s like, okay, we’re going to put — there are
influences in this record where you can hear through rhythm like
[inaudible] or [inaudible] from Senegal or Mali or Gambia and that might
be coupled with something that sounds like Nordic pop music. It might
be coupled with the harmonic type that comes from a Polish aria or
something like that, right?
So this record is essentially who is being spoken to and
grabbing all of these different cultural elements to create a marriage
of those cultures to say that we belong together. Then the last record
is called the “Emancipation Procrastination”.
Tavis: I love that title [laugh].
Adjuah: Yeah.
Tavis: “Emancipation Procrastination”, yeah.
Adjuah: And that is as real as the title is, right?
And deals with what we deal with not just in this country, but in the
world in terms of, you know, we have to actually really take a step back
and reevaluate the way that we communicate, the way that we interact
with each other.
Because we don’t get to the place that we want to get if
we’re constantly fracturing in this tribalism that stops us from
essentially freeing ourselves, right? So the last record is essentially
the message.
Tavis: In a minute, tell me what you make of jazz 100 years later.
Adjuah: 100 years later.
Tavis: After this first recording.
Adjuah: After the first recording. You know, what’s
great about jazz — I was speaking to your interns earlier. A part of
what I was speaking about was that jazz is essentially the world’s first
fusion music. It’s the first music that actually references the fact
that seemingly disparate perspectives and cultures belong in the same
spaces, right?
So when you look at the trajectory of how this music
started and then you look at that 100 years, you can literally find
every other form of music. Every other genre of music that has ever
existed in this world has a space in jazz music.
I can show you and you can find a jazz record that mixes
polka music with jazz music [laugh]. I can find a jazz record that mixes
salsa music with jazz music. So when I’m looking at that history, it’s
hard not for your chest to just open it and you’re not to be so proud
because it’s essentially a music that is based on the idea that we
should love each other.
Tavis: So Christian has just taught a master class to you, me and the interns [laugh] and I thank you for that, my friend.
Adjuah: Of course. Thank you.
Tavis: This “Centennial Trilogy” out in various
pieces this year. Pick all three of them up and I promise you — the
third piece comes out in September, I think.
Adjuah: Yes, sir.
Tavis: I think so. Third piece on the way. You get
all three before the year’s over and I think you’ll be empowered,
inspired and entertained by all three. Speaking of entertaining,
Christian is going to close us out with a special performance of his
song, “Twin”. I mentioned he has a twin brother…
Adjuah: Yeah. Kyle.
Tavis: A song called “Twin” using the Stretch Music
app which he’s going to demonstrate for you in just a second. This is
pretty amazing stuff. Check it out. Christian, love you, man.
Adjuah: I love you too. I appreciate you.
Tavis: Good to see you. That’s our show for tonight. Don’t move, keep the faith, here comes Christian.
Adjuah: Stretch Music, the app, is the first
interactive media player of its kind. It allows you to customize your
practicing or listening experience through manipulation of the stems of
the tracks in the songs of Stretch Music, right? So I’ll give an example
of that. So we’re going to play a song called “Twin” and I’m going to
customize this guy so you can hear it. All right, here we go.
[Music]
So let’s say you play piano and you want to learn the
piano part without hearing the other instruments. Well, we have a button
for that. You can solo any instrument. You can also solo groups of
instruments. You also have the ability to mute any instrument.
So let’s say you want to take the drums out and play
without the rhythm section in that way. You can take a trumpet out or
you can take all the drums out. You also have the ability to pan
instruments from left to right. So I can move the bass to the left, the
guitar to the right.
It also comes with the charts for all of the instruments,
so you can see this is the chart for this particular song composition.
So if I bring everything else back, there’s also a looping function. So
if I want to play a smaller passage as opposed to the entire
composition, I can start a loop here, give it a bar or two, and then I
can repeat that loop. So to just loop that moment, I can turn the loop
off.
And then the last thing that it has is tempo controlling.
So let’s say you can’t play my tempo at first and you want to take it
slower, then you can slow it down. Or if you want to play it faster, you
can play it faster or really fast.
So, again, we have the ability to solo any instrument or
groups of instruments, to mute any instrument, to pan any instrument
from left to right. It comes with the charts of all of the instruments.
There’s also a looping function and tempo controlling. So this is
essentially what the Stretch Music app is all about.
[Performance]
Announcer: For more information on today’s show, visit Tavis Smiley at pbs.org.
Announcer: And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.
On the three albums that compose The Centennial Trilogy, the New Orleans horn player and composer pays tribute to the American jazz tradition by tapping into the legacy of fusion.
Featured Tracks:
In this environment, fusion seems not merely legitimate or acceptable, but desirable. It’s a far cry from the early 1990s, when a talented saxophonist like Greg Osby could work with elite hip-hop producers and become the target of too-easy jokes. (Osby’s 3-D Lifestyles is now ripe for reappraisal.) That means the challenge before today’s fusion-oriented artists is not to defend the organizing principle, but rather to distinguish the execution.
In 2015, trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah formally debuted his fusion concept of “stretch music,” with an album of the same name. Over the course of three releases this year—Ruler Rebel, Diaspora, and now The Emancipation Procrastination—Adjuah has continued to hone his strategies. Together, Adjuah calls them The Centennial Trilogy, in honor of the 100-year anniversary of the song often considered the first jazz recording.
At points throughout Stretch Music, it was possible to pick apart Adjuah’s main ingredients, mid-song: a bit of soul-jazz driving the beat during solos before a rush of hip-hop-influenced percussion delivered a track’s hook. On the best portions of The Centennial Trilogy, the stirring happens more slowly and the flavors blend more fluidly over the course of the project.
Early in Ruler Rebel, we are introduced to “New Orleanian Love Song,” a melancholic, feverish track that presents Adjuah’s arcing trumpet lines over rhythms built up from samplers and African percussion instruments. The tune that follows is called a remix, but it feels like a complete rearrangement: A piano-driven melody is similar to that of the original take, but instead of moving through legato phrases, the line has turned staccato and nervy—the sort of motif you might hear in a track from E-40’s production shop.
On “Phases,” blending Sarah Elizabeth Charles’ ethereal vocals with burbling percussion programming yields a ballad influenced by trap music’s sonics. Ruler Rebel’s closing track, “The Reckoning,” draws from the clatter of drum ‘n’ bass and the sustained tones of ambient. With these reference points firmly established, Diaspora has a more relaxed, casual air. Throughout, Adjuah departs from acoustic-jazz practice by freely overdubbing his solos, most noticeably on “Idk.” That choice can help a listener acclimate to Adjuah’s overall environment, rather than living or dying with each improvised riff.
After two releases filled with high-concept fusion, some listeners might be hungry for solos that hang around longer and aren’t so beholden to the mood of the production. Adjuah delivers exactly this on The Emancipation Procrastination. It is also here that he more willingly invites associations with past styles. The prominent use of electric guitar suggests a vintage rock-fusion approach, and soulful Fender Rhodes playing by Lawrence Fields often seems like it’s channeling some of Miles Davis’ late-1960s sound.
The lengthy closing number, “New Heroes,” features some of the most exciting instrumental interplay of the entire series. Adjuah’s trumpet, Elena Pinderhughes’ flute, and Braxton Cook’s alto saxophone all take turns shining. Adjuah reserves the last solo for himself, letting rip with some of his most ecstatic riffs. Sometimes he growls through his horn. At other points he lets loose with some piercing cries. Eventually, he settles on a final texture, one both burnished and regal. It’s the sound of a player confident not just in his chops, but fully at home in his own compositional world.
More Album Reviews For Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
THE
MUSIC OF CHRISTIAN SCOTT: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF
RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS
WITH CHRISTIAN SCOTT:
Christian Scott - Stretch Music (Full Jazz Album)
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: NPR Music Tiny Desk
Christian scott - Live @ festival Jazz à Vienne 2017
Christian Scott - Diaspora [Full Album]
Christian Scott - Of a New Cool
Christian Scott - The Emancipation Procrastination
Christian Scott live at Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - Diaspora [Full Album]
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - Phases
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - The Reckoning
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - No Love
The Checkout Live from Berklee College of Music: Christian Scott
Christian Scott - Ruler Rebel
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah 'TWIN' | Live Studio Session
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Scott
Christian Scott
| Christian Scott | |
|---|---|
Scott in 2009
|
|
| Background information | |
| Born | 31 March 1983 New Orleans, Louisiana, United States |
| Genres | Jazz, hip hop, alternative rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, producer |
| Instruments | Trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, soprano trombone |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Labels | Universal, Concord, Ropeadope |
| Associated acts | Ninety Miles, NEXT Collective, Thom Yorke's Atoms for Peace Band, Marcus Miller's TUTU Revisited, Donald Harrison Quintet |
| Website | Christian Scott |
Christian Scott (born March 31, 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana), also known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, is an American trumpeter, composer and producer. He is the nephew of jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison.[1]
Contents
Biography
Christian Scott live in 2016 at Leverkusener Jazztage
Scott was born on March 31, 1983, in New Orleans, Louisiana,[2] to Cara Harrison and Clinton Scott III and also has a twin brother, Kiel. At the age of 13 he was given the chance to play with his uncle, jazz alto saxophonist Donald Harrison.[3] By 14, he was accepted into the New Orleans Center of Creative Arts where he studied jazz under the guidance of program directors, Clyde Kerr, Jr. and Kent Jordan.[3]
Once he graduated NOCCA, Scott received a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he graduated in 2004. Between 2003 and 2004, while attending Berklee,[3][4] he was member of the Berklee Monterey Quartet, and recorded as part of the Art:21 student cooperative quintet,[5] and studied under the direction of Charlie Lewis, Dave Santoro, and Gary Burton. He majored in professional music with a concentration in film scoring.[5]
His debut album for Concord Records, Rewind That, received a Grammy nomination.[6] Scott received the Edison Award in 2010 and 2012.[7]
Since 2002, Scott has released eight studio albums, and two live recordings.
Discography
Discography as a leader
- 2002 Christian Scott – Impromp2 Records / Omni American Music
- 2004 Two of a Kind – Nagel Heyer Records w/ Donald Harrison
- 2006 Rewind That – Concord Records
- 2007 Anthem – Concord Records
- 2008 Live at Newport – Concord Records
- 2010 Yesterday You Said Tomorrow – Concord Records / UMG / OmniAmerican Music
- 2011 Ninety Miles – Concord Picante w/ Stefon Harris and David Sanchez
- 2012 Christian aTunde Adjuah – Concord Records / UMG / OmniAmerican Music
- 2012 Ninety Miles Live At Cubadisco – Concord Picante
- 2015 Stretch Music – Ropeadope/Stretch Music
- 2015 Stretch Music App – Stretch Music
- 2017 Ruler Rebel – Stretch Music
- 2017 Diaspora – Stretch Music [8][9]
- 2017 The Emancipation Procrastination – Stretch Music [10][11]
Additional discography
- 1999 Paradise Found – Donald Harrison (producer/trumpet)
- 2001 Real Life Stories – Donald Harrison
- 2003 Karin Williams – Karin Williams
- 2005 Blueprint of a Lady:Sketches of Billie Holiday – Nnenna Freelon
- 2006 Every Road I Walked – Grace Kelly
- 2006 Survivor – Donald Harrison
- 2006 What is Love – Erin Boheme
- 2007 Return From Mecca – X Clan
- 2007 Planet Earth – Prince
- 2008 Blueprints of Jazz, Vol 1 – Mike Clark
- 2008 Charlie Brown TV Themes – David Benoit
- 2008 Global Noize – Global Noize
- 2008 It's Christmas – Ledisi (producer)
- 2011 Tutu Revisited – Marcus Miller
- 2014 Inner Dialogue – Sarah Elizabeth Charles (producer/trumpet)
Members of the Christian Scott Ensemble
Scott in 2016 at Leverkusener Jazztage
Current
- Christian Scott - trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, soprano trombone
- Braxton Cook - alto saxophone, straight alto saxophone
- Joe Dyson - drums, pan-African drums
- Corey Fonville - drums
- Lawrence Fields - piano
- Kristopher Funn - bass
- Dominic Minix - guitar
- Elena Pinderhughes - flute & vocals[12][13]
Previous
- Esperanza Spalding - bass
- Matthew Stevens - guitar
- Thomas Pridgen - drums
- Aaron Parks - piano
- Walter Smith III - sax
- Jamire Williams - drums
- Luques Curtis - bass
- Zaccai Curtis - piano
- Marcus Gillmore - drums
- Milton Fletcher Jnr - piano
References
- "Friday 25 July: Christian Scott Sextet feat. Isadora". Sligo Jazz Project. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
External links
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