Saturday, December 30, 2017

Christian Scott (b. March 31, 1983): Outstanding and innovative musician, composer, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, music theorist, and teacher



SOUND PROJECTIONS



AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE



EDITOR:  KOFI NATAMBU



WINTER, 2017



VOLUME FIVE     NUMBER ONE


Image result for Ornette Coleman--images

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


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.

Rewind That 
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.

Anthem  
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.

The Emancipation Procrastination 
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


Christian Scott: Shining a Light


by

"We get into the framework of a composition when we're playing it, and people can feel that 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."

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!

 
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: 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

Culture Music Jazz 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.

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

by GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO






The trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. He is presenting events at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse as part of his Stretch Music Festival. Damon Winter/The New York Times

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. Order Reprints| Today's Paper

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/christian-scott-atunde-adjuah-on-jazz-as-protest-music-w474099




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





Trumpeter Christian Scott discusses confronting police brutality, the marginalization of women in jazz, his New Orleans heritage and more.





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.

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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.


https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/christian-scott-atunde-adjuah-ruler-rebel-diaspora-the-emancipation-procrastination/



Ruler Rebel


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:

Depending on the decade, jazz artists who mix advanced improvisation with popular music might be required to engage in some tough lobbying—of audiences, critics, or even fellow players. We are not currently living in one of those eras. Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, and Esperanza Spalding have all built imposing reputations thanks, in part, to their adaptation of pop textures.

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
Stretch Music artwork

  • Stretch Music

    New Orleans musician Christian Scott craves a more absorbent and sensitive kind of jazz. Stretch Music finds him experimenting with moods and electronic textures, bumping against the genre's conventions even as he remains rooted in tradition.
 

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 






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Scott 


Christian Scott



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Christian Scott
Christian Scott in 2009.jpg
Scott in 2009
Background information
Born 31 March 1983 (age 34) 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

 


 

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

 


 

References

 












  • "Christian Scott (2)". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2017-11-16.

  • Aidan Levy (2013-03-13). "Christian Scott - - Voice Choices - New York". Village Voice. Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2014-03-26.

  • Hayes, Rob (October 8, 2004). "Berklee Monterey Quartet to Headline at Blues Alley". News@Berklee. Archived from the original on 2004-10-11. Retrieved 2014-05-20.

  • "The Checkout - Live at Berklee: Christian Scott". Berklee Events. Retrieved 2014-05-20.

  • Mahoney, Lesley (2008-09-02). "Alumni Profile: Christian Scott Breaks Convention". Berklee News. Retrieved 2014-05-20.

  • "GRAMMYs On The Road With Dave Douglas And Christian Scott". Grammy.com. Retrieved 26 March 2014.

  • "Christian Scott" (in Dutch). Edison Stichting. Nominaties. Retrieved 2014-01-10.

  • "Ruler Rebel, by Christian Scott". Christian Scott. Retrieved 2017-03-08.

  • "Interview with Christian Scott". Burning Ambulance. Retrieved 2017-04-02.

  • Okayplayer. "Christian Scott Announces "The Reckoning," New Album Okayplayer". www.okayplayer.com. Retrieved 2017-03-08.

  • "Interview with Christian Scott". Burning Ambulance. Retrieved 2017-04-02.

  • "Christian Scott played jazz, proposed to girlfriend at the New Orleans Jazz Fest". NOLA.com. Retrieved 24 November 2014.


    1. "Friday 25 July: Christian Scott Sextet feat. Isadora". Sligo Jazz Project. Retrieved 24 November 2014.

     

    External links

     

     
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