Profile of Flutist Nicole Mitchell

[JSngry]

Perhaps Maria Scheinder's music, according to the descriptions in her new CD, have a visual/emotional narrative driving her organization of sounds, though she surrenders great chunks of the story line to the improvisors in the orchestra.

Haven't heard the new one yet, but I cared much less for the last one than for the first two, in part because the sense of pictorial moodiness being in the driver's seat was so strong there.

I don't ask this casually, carelessly, or provocatively. But...

...to what extent could this "sense of pictorial moodiness" perhaps, perhaps, be a distintively "feminine" - a "modernly" feminie - approach to the music? And, is it possible that we're seeing a new "perspective" emerge from some female jazz musicians where trying to do it/prove that they are "just as good as the men" is no longer a motivator?

I know it's a loaded question, but still I wonder. I hear what you're referring to in both Mitchell's & Schneider's music, but it strikes me as being less, for lack of a better term, "easy" than it seems to strike you.

And I really do think that the "guy thing", that repeated climbing of the mountains just to prove that you can climb them combined with the veni, vidi, vici thing of surveying the land from above once you have, is, if not exactly played out entirely, desperately in need of some tempering at this point in time. And not just in music...

A little "travelling around", paying attention, and allowing one's self to be affected by what one sees instead of instinctively trying to "conquer" it ain't always a bad thing, ya' know what I'm saying?

[Chuck Nessa]

It means you have "relaxed/shifted" your standards.

Maybe not a bad thing for you but let me deal with my own standards.

[Larry Kart]

Perhaps Maria Scheinder's music, according to the descriptions in her new CD, have a visual/emotional narrative driving her organization of sounds, though she surrenders great chunks of the story line to the improvisors in the orchestra.

Haven't heard the new one yet, but I cared much less for the last one than for the first two, in part because the sense of pictorial moodiness being in the driver's seat was so strong there.

I don't ask this casually, carelessly, or provocatively. But...

...to what extent could this "sense of pictorial moodiness" perhaps, perhaps, be a distintively "feminine" - a "modernly" feminie - approach to the music? And, is it possible that we're seeing a new "perspective" emerge from some female jazz musicians where trying to do it/prove that they are "just as good as the men" is no longer a motivator?

I know it's a loaded question, but still I wonder. I hear what you're referring to in both Mitchell's & Schneider's music, but it strikes me as being less, for lack of a better term, "easy" than it seems to strike you.

And I really do think that the "guy thing", that repeated climbing of the mountains just to prove that you can climb them combined with the veni, vidi, vici thing of surveying the land from above once you have, is, if not exactly played out entirely, desperately in need of some tempering at this point in time. And not just in music...

A little "travelling around", paying attention, and allowing one's self to be affected by what one sees instead of instinctively trying to "conquer" it ain't always a bad thing, ya' know what I'm saying?

Jim -- I think that the real musical preferences/habits/what have you that we've both been talking about here, and that terms like "pictorial" seem to fit up to a certain point, begin to break down when you push the metaphorical aspect just that much further with "repeated climbing of mountains just to prove that you can climb them" (masculine) versus "a little 'travelling around,' paying attention, and allowing one's self to be affected by what one sees" (feminine). That is, while I recognize music that kind of fits the former description, the latter seems rather vague (though unobjectionable) to me and I'd be hard pressed to think of any particular music that fits it. Is, say, Monk's music "paying attention and allowing itself to be affected by what it sees"? And what in this scheme would "travelling around" be? Ingesting and reshaping more or less pre-existing musical flavors from other lands or cultures? Schneider certainly does a good deal of that, but her taste for Latin gestures seems rather auto-pilot-like to me.

[Lazaro Vega]

She all but admits that on her new one where she writes from the influence of the Peruvian "lando" (sp) which is a polyrhythmic native form. She calls her piece Aires de Lando, or something like "with the air of a lando." Not authentically original but her bit of the process of coming to terms with it. It's "Blue Rondo A La Turk."

[Joe G]

Aires De Lando doesn't strike me as "auto pilot" in any way, shape, or form. It's a beautifully composed and performed piece of music, IMO, as well as a further refinement of how Maria deals with these types of textures and rhythms.

My apologies that I have nothing to add about the subject of the thread, whose music I am not familiar with.

Edited August 8, 2007 by Joe G

[JSngry]

It means you have "relaxed/shifted" your standards.

Maybe not a bad thing for you but let me deal with my own standards.

Shifted, definitely. Relaxed? Hmmm... I'll get back to you on that one when I can no longer personally differentiate between crap, mediocre, and gold within any "type" of music to which I listen.

And please, god yes, deal with your own standards. They are in no way under attack from me. You're still a true hero of mine, no matter what or where I may be going now.

[Larry Kart]

Joe -- I assume that piece is on the new one, which I haven't heard yet. I'm thinking in particular of "Choro Dancado" and "Buleria, Solea Y Rumba" from "Concert in the Garden."

[JSngry]

Perhaps Maria Scheinder's music, according to the descriptions in her new CD, have a visual/emotional narrative driving her organization of sounds, though she surrenders great chunks of the story line to the improvisors in the orchestra.

Haven't heard the new one yet, but I cared much less for the last one than for the first two, in part because the sense of pictorial moodiness being in the driver's seat was so strong there.

I don't ask this casually, carelessly, or provocatively. But...

...to what extent could this "sense of pictorial moodiness" perhaps, perhaps, be a distintively "feminine" - a "modernly" feminie - approach to the music? And, is it possible that we're seeing a new "perspective" emerge from some female jazz musicians where trying to do it/prove that they are "just as good as the men" is no longer a motivator?

I know it's a loaded question, but still I wonder. I hear what you're referring to in both Mitchell's & Schneider's music, but it strikes me as being less, for lack of a better term, "easy" than it seems to strike you.

And I really do think that the "guy thing", that repeated climbing of the mountains just to prove that you can climb them combined with the veni, vidi, vici thing of surveying the land from above once you have, is, if not exactly played out entirely, desperately in need of some tempering at this point in time. And not just in music...

A little "travelling around", paying attention, and allowing one's self to be affected by what one sees instead of instinctively trying to "conquer" it ain't always a bad thing, ya' know what I'm saying?

Jim -- I think that the real musical preferences/habits/what have you that we've both been talking about here, and that terms like "pictorial" seem to fit up to a certain point, begin to break down when you push the metaphorical aspect just that much further with "repeated climbing of mountains just to prove that you can climb them" (masculine) versus "a little 'travelling around,' paying attention, and allowing one's self to be affected by what one sees" (feminine). That is, while I recognize music that kind of fits the former description, the latter seems rather vague (though unobjectionable) to me and I'd be hard pressed to think of any particular music that fits it. Is, say, Monk's music "paying attention and allowing itself to be affected by what it sees"? And what in this scheme would "travelling around" be? Ingesting and reshaping more or less pre-existing musical flavors from other lands or cultures? Schneider certainly does a good deal of that, but her taste for Latin gestures seems rather auto-pilot-like to me.

You're taking me just a little too literally, and I can't blame you for that, given the language that I used. But I do sense in Mitchell, Schneider, Geri Allen, Ursula Rucker, and even Monday Michiru, all women making distinctly personal music of substance (to one degree or another, depending on one's tastes) an attitude that music is not always best made by "conquering" the various strands of life that go into it, but rather by "absorbing and cooperating" with them. It's more of a general "feel" I get from their music than it is anything specific, and it feel like the right thing for these times to me, assuming that one has all one's ducks in a row to begin with.

And it's not about "surrendering" one's masculinity or anything like that. It's simply about paying attention and learning something new to keep going. By such means does the species survive and evolve.

Really - all the "conquering" has been done. Now it's time to build. Has been for quite a while, actually, only now the need is more obvious than ever as life goes one way and so much of the music seems to stay put, as if there's honor in voluntary stasis. All I'm saying is that these women all present an approach, an "attitude" in their music that seems to me more conducive to future growth, personally and musically", than most of what I'm getting out of most men these days. And it's that quality that may in the long run prove more constructive than the concrete aspects of their music. We'll see.

One thing's for sure, though - the days of the gladiator are over, for now anyway. It was fun while it lasted, and it was damn well necessary, but geez, look around the world today and tell me what good slaying the dragons from the mountaintops is gonna do in a world where "one" is everywhere at once.

Edited August 8, 2007 by JSngry

[Chuck Nessa]

In a way, Jim is inventing a new debate.

[JSngry]

Well, I'm not going to say that the music of any of these women is "the new perfection" or anything like that. For one thing, that would be hyperbole, and for another, that's probably not the point at all of what they do/why they do it.

I just think that there's some new perspectives on the nature of creativity, and some different routes being taken to explore same that are worthy of paying attention to and taking to heart, at least as much as one feels the need to keep moving ahead. That's nto to say that it'll all "stick", much less that it should, just that...things have got to move, to change. And I do feel that the "old ways" glorious as they were (and to experience by those who did it in real time, still are), ain't gonna be particularly relevant to life any more, if they even still are right now.

so yeah, I'm open for suggestions right now and I ain't ruling nothing out. The final choice(s) will be 100% mine, but I wanna hear what everybody's got to say. And I'm hearing some good things - good in that they stir the imagination as far as furhter possibilities - from some new places and some new voices. It's a good time to be alive in that sense, although if you like the certainty/comfort/stability of a "tradition" (and let's face it, no matter what the neocon devils say, "free music" is deep in the tradtion by now) it's gotta suck, since you're probably gonna feel like you're under attack every time you open your eyes.

But otherwise, hey. The future of the music - not of the "style", but of the actual music is uncertain in a fundamental way that it's not been for quite a while. Best of times, worst of times.

[Larry Kart]

Don't know Ursula Rucker, but I do like Geri Allen and, thanks to you, Monday Michuro. On the other hand, MM seems to me to be representative of her own intensely musical self and doesn't strike me as being about not "conquering" things, while if there's some aura of feminine "family warmth" to Allen, the main thing is that she can think and play.

Edited August 8, 2007 by Larry Kart

[JSngry]

Well of course. But those are qualities that do not necesarily "come naturally" to men in the "jazz culture" of the last... your call.

And that's my point - what comes naturally (relatively, god knows that they gotta shed and do the work same as anybody else) to these women is a quality that men can, if not necessarily (or even desirably) "learn" then learn from.

We still gonna be men. We need to still be men. But we ain't gotta be dinosaurific about it, if you know what I mean.

That's all I'm really saing, although if you get me at the right time in the right mood, I can and will say a lot more, some of it as serious as you want it to be and some of it as a cosmic joke that I just heard in my sleep. But that right there is all I care about anybody really taking to heart.

[JSngry]

And by all means - nest time you stop in @ DG, ask'em about Ursula Rucker and see if they can hook you up with Silver Or Lead for starters.

[Chuck Nessa]

And please, god yes, deal with your own standards. They are in no way under attack from me. You're still a true hero of mine, no matter what or where I may be going now.

So, you've left me behind? How sad for me.

[JSngry]

Nonsense on all counts.

[AllenLowe]

"but what does that have to do specifically with Nicole Mitchell? "

beats me; I never heard of her. I was responding to Larry. But I think my formalist complaints apply directly to his comments on programatticism - (new word)

[AllenLowe]

"there's some aura of feminine "family warmth" to Allen"

well, I do some flower arranging on weekends, and I occasionally retain water -

Edited August 8, 2007 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

Responses in blue

Jim:

I understand the distinction you are making between a "conquering" aesthetic on the one hand and an "absorbing and cooperating" mode on the other, as well as a belief in new perspectives of creativity. But I'm uncomfortable with ascribing these qualities to a specific gender -- it's a masculine-feminine stereotype not that different from the familiar black-white divide.

It would be if I claimed that this "feminine" perspective was the feminine perspective, which I hope I haven't done. If I have, then that would be my bad entirely.

You can easily create lists of musicians who subvert it. Wouldn't Ingrid Jensen, Renee Rosnes, Myra Melford all qualify as more conquering than absorbing?

Perhaps, and perhaps not coincidentally, those are women whose music doesn't particularly interest me. Which is not to say that it disinterests me, just that there's nothing there that stimulates my imagination more than any other # of "good players".

And wouldn't Wayne Shorter, Tom Harrell and Maria's hero Bob Brookmeyer all qualify as more absorbing than conquering according to your definitions.

On the surface, yeah, but under the surface...I'm not so sure. Especially Brookmeyer, who seems neither conquering nor absorbing as much as he does...prickly. In a good way, of course.

And on some level wouldn't Duke Ellington be the ultimate absorber? (Maybe he's the ultimate absorber and conquerer at the same time?)

Well hey!

There clearly was a time in jazz when women were forced to to adopt an aggressive, overtly masculine approach -- it's always curious to come across old liner notes in which Toshiko, Melba Liston, Vi Redd or somebody is praised for "not playing like a girl." I suppose you could say that women are more free to play like women today, but wouldn't the more important point be that they are more free to play like themselves -- whether that means they lean toward what you're defining as masculine or feminine aesthetics?

The conundrum here is that the women who naturally leaned toward the "masculine esthetic" (and I use these designations quite cautiously, in spite of being the one who brought them into the discussion) have always been "free to play like themselves". Their battle was only to prove their equality of skills. Validity of esthetic was never an issue, since the whole point of proving equality of skills was to prove ability to function in the pre-existing esthetic.

And if there is a movement afoot in jazz to give greater weight to feminine values as opposed to masculine values wouldn't the natural swing of the aesthetic pendulum and a recognition that the old ways are played out be a more critical determinant than the influence of a newly liberated class of women musicians -- especially if the feminine values have always been present in some fashion in the jazz of the past?

To some extent I agree, but... The thing I'm feeling is that yes, the old ways are largely played out, and that there's a lot of women who are providing what strikes me as intriguing potentials for future developement. Those potentials are based esthetics that would appear to be at least partially the result of not intentionally supressing what might generally be called "feminine" qualites. Now, what I'm not willing to go out on a limb and say is that these qualities are intrinsically feminine, much less that they are exclusively so. I hope they aren't, because if they are, then that might well leave us men SOL in terms of adapting and evolving.

In other words, there's become a vaccum in the evolvement of the music, and right now there's a lot of women who seem perfectly capable of filling it. That's probably not a coincidence, but it's probably not a harbinger that men can step aside form here on out either. I think it just means that right now, if you're feeling lost, that it's ok to ask for directions. Or that if you need to takea nap, you can feel safe handing over the wheel while you do. No need to stop the trip, and sharing the driving from here on out probably ain't such a bad idea.

As for feminine values having always been present in some fashion in the jazz of the past, I....don't think so. I think that masculine notions of feminine values have been present more than the real thing (such as it exists, and if we argue that it doesn't, then that's as crazy as arguing that it is only one thing, same as with a "black" esthetic as you hinted earlier. Of course it exists, but not in any one monolithic form. And as a result, it's next to impossible to define it in its "pure" state. But no sane individual would deny its existence. Nor would I claim that either "black" or "feminine" esthetic is something purely genetic or otherwise intrinsic. But I would claim that both exist (to the varying extents that they do or don't in any given instance) as a result of a combination of ancient cultural-specific habits meeting ongoing extra-cultural stimuli.

Remember all the Blindfold Tests back in the day where Bill Evans was mistaken for a woman? Now WTF was that all about? I don't know "what a woman sounds like", in fact, I can say with absolute certainty that there is no one such thing, but I think what that was all about was men projecting what they thought a woman would "sound like" if they played like what they thought a woman playing like a man would sound like.

Perhaps more than masculine/feminine, this is better looked at as yin/yang, qualities instead of gender, each quality generally being more dispositional to gender in quantity, but in no way exclusive. Lots of "in-between" room. The pendulum must swing in order for continuity to ensue. Right now, I think we're coming out of a period of excessive yang (which followed a lengthy period of extremely necessary yang). If this thing goes the way these things are "suppposed" to, then there'll be various transitions followed by a period of growth, then stability, some lather/rinse/repeat and then some deterioration brought on by too much of the once-new, and then, hey, the more things change...

How much of it I'll actually live to see is questionable. Evolutions used to be somewhat lenghty, but time has gotten so compressed. Then again, maybe that's a by-product of the excessive yang - the whole "hit and run" reality (the most primal male sexual instinct as definer of time?) .

But I'm pretty sure that I'm seeing the first part of it right now.

MS

[Mark Stryker]

Jim:

Thanks for such thoughtful and illuminating responses. I find myself agreeing on several counts. Still, while I'm intrigued by the notion that the past featured more of a masculine projection of feminine values than the real thing, I'm not sure I'm convinced -- I would need some time to ponder this. Also, for the record, I'm always the one willing to stop and ask for directions; it's my wife who will stubbornly stick to her guns, even if it means getting more lost.

MS

Edited August 8, 2007 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Well, GPS is (are?) making the whole issue irrelevant anyway...

Sign of the times.

[sheldonm]

OK Mark -- To exaggerate a good bit, if you're writing some music that's meant to accompany images of Snidely Whiplash behaving like Snidely Whiplash or a lush tropical paradise being all lush and tropical, you're probably going to be drawing on a more or less agreed upon stock of sounds that suggest such things, which usually doesn't lead to or allow much room for significant musical invention. I'm not saying that Mitchell's music is all that way or that simplistic, but as tasty as her ear is and as technically gifted as her flute playing is, for my taste I hear too much upfront programmatic thinking in her music. YMMV.

Larry, just having some fun with you but nice analogy!

m~

[Alexander Hawkins]

Heard a little bit of the forthcoming Nicole Mitchell album on Firehouse 12 on the radio a couple of days ago. Sounded really great. Very strong composition, the one I heard. Looking forward to it a lot.

FWIW - I think Mitchell adds a great voice to the Braxton 12+1 tet stuff from the Iridium.

[jimi089]

Heard a little bit of the forthcoming Nicole Mitchell album on Firehouse 12 on the radio a couple of days ago. Sounded really great. Very strong composition, the one I heard. Looking forward to it a lot.

I saw the composition performed live at the Chicago Cultural Center last year and have been eagerly awaiting the recorded release ever since. Some of her most interesting work to date to my ears.

[jimi089]

An interview with Ms. Mitchell about her upcoming release on Firehouse 12 and some other topics.

[sheldonm]

Heard a little bit of the forthcoming Nicole Mitchell album on Firehouse 12 on the radio a couple of days ago. Sounded really great. Very strong composition, the one I heard. Looking forward to it a lot.

I saw the composition performed live at the Chicago Cultural Center last year and have been eagerly awaiting the recorded release ever since. Some of her most interesting work to date to my ears.

Here are a couple images from that show.

m~