Friday, February 13, 2015

Steve Coleman (b. September 20, 1956): Outstanding and innovative saxophonist, composer, arranger, music theorist, teacher, and ensemble leader-- February 7-February 13, 2015 issue of SOUND PROJECTIONS: Volume 1, Number 2

http://soundprojections.blogspot.com/

All,

I hope you enjoyed the second week issue from February 7-February 13, 2015 of Volume 1, Number 2 of SOUND PROJECTIONS, the online quarterly music magazine which featured the brilliant, innovative, pioneering, and legendary pianist, composer, arranger, songwriter, teacher, and ensemble leader MARY LOU WILLIAMS (1910-1981). The third week issue of this volume of the quarterly begins TOMORROW on Saturday, February 14, 2015 @10AM PST which is @1PM EST

The featured artist for this upcoming week (February 14-February 20, 2015) is the outstanding and innovative saxophonist, composer, arranger, music theorist, teacher, and ensemble leader STEVE COLEMAN (b. September 20, 1956) . So please enjoy this week’s featured musical artist in SOUND PROJECTIONS, the online quarterly music magazine and please pass the word to your friends, colleagues, comrades, and associates that the magazine is now up and running at the following site. Please click on the link below:

http://soundprojections.blogspot.com/

Thanks. For further important details please read below…
Kofi

Sound Projections

A sonic exploration and tonal analysis of contemporary creative music in a myriad of improvisational/composed settings, textures, and expressions.

Welcome to Sound Projections

I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.

Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of 'Jazz', 'classical music', 'Blues', 'Rhythm and Blues', 'Rock 'n Roll', 'Pop', 'Funk', 'Hip Hop' etc. in order to search for what individual artists and ensembles do creatively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what music is and could be.

So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Steve Coleman: Outstanding and innovative saxophonist, composer, arranger, music theorist, teacher, and ensemble leader

SOUND PROJECTIONS

AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU

WINTER, 2015

VOLUME ONE NUMBER TWO

THELONIOUS MONK

Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:

ESPERANZA SPALDING
January 31-February 6

MARY LOU WILLIAMS
February 7-13

STEVE COLEMAN
February 14-20

JAMES BROWN
February 21-27

CURTIS MAYFIELD
February 28-March 6

ARETHA FRANKLIN
March 7-14

GEORGE CLINTON
March 14-20

JAMES CARTER
March 21-27

TERENCE BLANCHARD
March 28-April 3

BILLIE HOLIDAY

April 4-10

[In glorious tribute and gratitude to this great legendary artist we celebrate her centennial year]

VIJAY IYER
April 11-17

CHARLES MINGUS
April 18-24

http://www.macfound.org/fellows/911/

September 17, 2014

MACARTHUR FELLOWS / MEET THE CLASS OF 2014

Steve Coleman
Jazz Composer and Saxophonist
Founder
M-Base Concepts, Inc.
Allentown, PA
Age: 57

http://www.macfound.org/fellows

Steve Coleman is an alto saxophonist and composer whose technical virtuosity and engagement with musical traditions and styles from around the world are expanding the expressive and formal possibilities of spontaneous composition.

Whether performing solo or with his regular ensemble, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Coleman delivers signature performances of notated works and brings a masterful facility to intricate and complex improvised pieces. His original compositions weave disciplined rhythmic structures, refined tonal progressions, and overlapping and mixed meters into soulful and fluid interpretations. In his improvisational performances, Coleman energizes and updates iconic musical idioms in the creative traditions of luminaries like John Coltrane and Charlie Parker by infusing them with melodic, rhythmic, and structural components inspired by music of the larger African Diaspora, as well as from the continents of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas (in particular, West Africa, Cuba, Brazil, Europe, India, and Indonesia). His work also draws heavily on inspiration from nature, metaphysics, and science, integrating, for example, patterns derived from the cycles and relationships of the planets in our solar system or, as on Functional Arrhythmias (2013), the pulsating patterns of the human heart.
Coleman’s commitment to mentorship and community has also distinguished his career. M-Base (Macro-Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations), a cooperative that Coleman co-founded in the mid-1980s and that is still vital today as the non-profit organization M-Base Concepts, Inc., provides a supportive environment for musical experimentation and original performance, and his workshops, seminars, online instruction, and interdisciplinary collaborations encourage younger musicians both here and abroad to push the boundaries of their craft. Influential well beyond the scope of saxophone performance and composition, Coleman is redefining the vocabulary and vernaculars of contemporary music.

Steve Coleman attended Illinois Wesleyan University (1974–1976) and Roosevelt University (1976–1977). In addition to giving workshops worldwide, he has been an artist in residence at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (2009–2010) and the Thelonious Monk Institute (2008–2009) and a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley (2000–2002), the Stanford Jazz Workshop (1995–1996), and the Banff School of Fine Arts (1985–1991). His extensive catalog of recordings includes Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (2010), Invisible Paths: First Scatterings (2007), and Resistance Is Futile (2002), among many others.

- See more at: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/911/#sthash.bnXctPup.dpuf

Steve Coleman is an alto saxophonist and composer whose technical virtuosity and engagement with musical traditions and styles from around the world are expanding the expressive and formal possibilities of spontaneous composition.
Whether performing solo or with his regular ensemble, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Coleman delivers signature performances of notated works and brings a masterful facility to intricate and complex improvised pieces. His original compositions weave disciplined rhythmic structures, refined tonal progressions, and overlapping and mixed meters into soulful and fluid interpretations. In his improvisational performances, Coleman energizes and updates iconic musical idioms in the creative traditions of luminaries like John Coltrane and Charlie Parker by infusing them with melodic, rhythmic, and structural components inspired by music of the larger African Diaspora, as well as from the continents of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas (in particular, West Africa, Cuba, Brazil, Europe, India, and Indonesia). His work also draws heavily on inspiration from nature, metaphysics, and science, integrating, for example, patterns derived from the cycles and relationships of the planets in our solar system or, as on Functional Arrhythmias (2013), the pulsating patterns of the human heart.
Coleman’s commitment to mentorship and community has also distinguished his career. M-Base (Macro-Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations), a cooperative that Coleman co-founded in the mid-1980s and that is still vital today as the non-profit organization M-Base Concepts, Inc., provides a supportive environment for musical experimentation and original performance, and his workshops, seminars, online instruction, and interdisciplinary collaborations encourage younger musicians both here and abroad to push the boundaries of their craft. Influential well beyond the scope of saxophone performance and composition, Coleman is redefining the vocabulary and vernaculars of contemporary music.
Steve Coleman attended Illinois Wesleyan University (1974–1976) and Roosevelt University (1976–1977. In addition to giving workshops worldwide, he has been an artist in residence at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (2009–2010) and the Thelonious Monk Institute (2008–2009) and a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley (2000–2002), the Stanford Jazz Workshop (1995–1996), and the Banff School of Fine Arts (1985–1991). His extensive catalog of recordings includes Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (2010), Invisible Paths: First Scatterings (2007), and Resistance Is Futile (2002), among many others.

- See more at: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/911/#sthash.bnXctPup.dpuf

MacArthur Fellows / Meet the Class of 2014

Steve Coleman

Jazz Composer and Saxophonist

Founder
M-Base Concepts, Inc.
Allentown, PA
Age: 57

Published September 17, 2014

Steve Coleman is an alto saxophonist and composer whose technical virtuosity and engagement with musical traditions and styles from around the world are expanding the expressive and formal possibilities of spontaneous composition.
Whether performing solo or with his regular ensemble, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Coleman delivers signature performances of notated works and brings a masterful facility to intricate and complex improvised pieces. His original compositions weave disciplined rhythmic structures, refined tonal progressions, and overlapping and mixed meters into soulful and fluid interpretations. In his improvisational performances, Coleman energizes and updates iconic musical idioms in the creative traditions of luminaries like John Coltrane and Charlie Parker by infusing them with melodic, rhythmic, and structural components inspired by music of the larger African Diaspora, as well as from the continents of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas (in particular, West Africa, Cuba, Brazil, Europe, India, and Indonesia). His work also draws heavily on inspiration from nature, metaphysics, and science, integrating, for example, patterns derived from the cycles and relationships of the planets in our solar system or, as on Functional Arrhythmias (2013), the pulsating patterns of the human heart.
Coleman’s commitment to mentorship and community has also distinguished his career. M-Base (Macro-Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations), a cooperative that Coleman co-founded in the mid-1980s and that is still vital today as the non-profit organization M-Base Concepts, Inc., provides a supportive environment for musical experimentation and original performance, and his workshops, seminars, online instruction, and interdisciplinary collaborations encourage younger musicians both here and abroad to push the boundaries of their craft. Influential well beyond the scope of saxophone performance and composition, Coleman is redefining the vocabulary and vernaculars of contemporary music.
Steve Coleman attended Illinois Wesleyan University (1974–1976) and Roosevelt University (1976–1977. In addition to giving workshops worldwide, he has been an artist in residence at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (2009–2010) and the Thelonious Monk Institute (2008–2009) and a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley (2000–2002), the Stanford Jazz Workshop (1995–1996), and the Banff School of Fine Arts (1985–1991). His extensive catalog of recordings includes Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (2010), Invisible Paths: First Scatterings (2007), and Resistance Is Futile (2002), among many others.

- See more at: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/911/#sthash.bnXctPup.dpuf

Steve Coleman is an alto saxophonist and composer whose technical virtuosity and engagement with musical traditions and styles from around the world are expanding the expressive and formal possibilities of spontaneous composition.
Whether performing solo or with his regular ensemble, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Coleman delivers signature performances of notated works and brings a masterful facility to intricate and complex improvised pieces. His original compositions weave disciplined rhythmic structures, refined tonal progressions, and overlapping and mixed meters into soulful and fluid interpretations. In his improvisational performances, Coleman energizes and updates iconic musical idioms in the creative traditions of luminaries like John Coltrane and Charlie Parker by infusing them with melodic, rhythmic, and structural components inspired by music of the larger African Diaspora, as well as from the continents of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas (in particular, West Africa, Cuba, Brazil, Europe, India, and Indonesia). His work also draws heavily on inspiration from nature, metaphysics, and science, integrating, for example, patterns derived from the cycles and relationships of the planets in our solar system or, as on Functional Arrhythmias (2013), the pulsating patterns of the human heart.
Coleman’s commitment to mentorship and community has also distinguished his career. M-Base (Macro-Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations), a cooperative that Coleman co-founded in the mid-1980s and that is still vital today as the non-profit organization M-Base Concepts, Inc., provides a supportive environment for musical experimentation and original performance, and his workshops, seminars, online instruction, and interdisciplinary collaborations encourage younger musicians both here and abroad to push the boundaries of their craft. Influential well beyond the scope of saxophone performance and composition, Coleman is redefining the vocabulary and vernaculars of contemporary music.
Steve Coleman attended Illinois Wesleyan University (1974–1976) and Roosevelt University (1976–1977. In addition to giving workshops worldwide, he has been an artist in residence at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (2009–2010) and the Thelonious Monk Institute (2008–2009) and a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley (2000–2002), the Stanford Jazz Workshop (1995–1996), and the Banff School of Fine Arts (1985–1991). His extensive catalog of recordings includes Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (2010), Invisible Paths: First Scatterings (2007), and Resistance Is Futile (2002), among many others.

Photos

High-resolution photos for download. Photos are owned by the MacArthur Foundation and licensed under a Creative Commons license: CC-BY. Credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Right-click on a link below to save the file to your computer.

- See more at: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/911/#sthash.bnXctPup.dpuf

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/popcast-parsing-steve-colemans-genius/?_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=tw-share&_r=0

Popcast: Parsing Steve Coleman’s Genius

By Ben Ratliff September 26, 2014
New York Times

Steve Coleman, center, performing on Tuesday with Five Elements at the Stone in the East Village. Credit Jacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times

The saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman became a MacArthur Fellow last week — joining the ranks of so-called “genius grant” winners — and is coming to the end of a two-week residency at the Stone in the East Village. Mr. Coleman has become of the most influential improvisers of the last half-century — mostly through decades of functioning as a one-man, nonacademic academy, the teacher of his own system. His sound, or his thought, can be traced through some of the other recent recipients of the award: Miguel Zenón, Jason Moran, Vijay Iyer and Dafnis Prieto, who have all played with him at one time or another.

And his work, live or on record, sounds like what we think of as new in jazz: tight percussive patterns in uneven or overlapping cycles, funk phrasing, cueing systems and so on. But the more you poke at it, the more you find that’s old. It draws ideas not just from Miles Davis of the ’60s and ’70s and Charlie Parker of the ’40s, but from West African rhythmic practices and even heartbeat patterns, the oldest music in the world.

On this week’s Popcast, Nate Chinen and I try to define Mr. Coleman’s great old-school achievement: the way in which he’s created a language that echoes outward through practice rather than through record sales, dominant cultural institutions or academia.

Listen above, download the MP3 or subscribe in iTunes.
RELATED

Ben Ratliff on Steve Coleman at the Stone

"'Genius Grant' Saxman Steve Coleman Redefining Jazz"

The Philadelphia Inquirer Steve Coleman, 2014 MacArthur Fellow Read More

- See more at: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/911/#sthash.bnXctPup.dpuf

September 20, 2014:

(Which happens to be Steve Coleman's 58th birthday-ed.)

Saxophonist Steve Coleman honored with MacArthur 'genius grant'

Saxophonist Steve Coleman was named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow.
By Chris Barton
September 17, 2014
Los Angeles Times

Influential saxophonist, composer and educator Steve Coleman has been named as one of the 2014 MacArthur Fellows.

In presenting the honor, the MacArthur Foundation praised the 57-year-old Coleman for "infusing iconic spontaneous music idioms with the melodic, rhythmic and structural components of an eclectic range of musical traditions to create a distinctive new sound."

Born in Chicago and counting Sam Rivers, Von Freeman and Sonny Rollins among his early influences, Coleman is also known as the driving force behind M-Base, a loose musical collective that began in the 1980s as well as an evolving school of creative thought. An acronym for Macro-Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations, M-Base emphasizes artistic expression of personal experiences without structural or stylistic limitations, a philosophy that continues to be heard across the spectrum of contemporary jazz.

Among the many artists influenced by Coleman and M-Base include Ambrose Akimusire, Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, Dave Holland, Ravi Coltrane, Geri Allen and 2013 MacArthur Fellow Vijay Iyer.

"To me, Steve’s as important as Coltrane,” Iyer told the magazine JazzTimes in 2010. "He deserves to be placed in the pantheon of pioneering artists.”

Throughout his career, Coleman has looked to make connections between ancient cultures and the sound of today, researching harmonic structures and the role of music in transmitting information in Africa and Cuba in his travels. He served as an associate professor of music at UC Berkeley from 2000 to 2002 as well as stints at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Thelonious Monk Institute and Banff School of Fine Arts.

Coleman continues to explore improvisation through his long-running ensemble Five Elements, a group whose sound reflects a focus on constant movement rather than familiar repeated melodies. Often flirting with a sort of odd-angled funk, Coleman's most recent recordings, including last year's "Functional Arrhythmias," also feature a wealth of rising talent such as Miles Okazaki and Jonathan Finlayson.

Coleman joins five other arts figures in receiving the honor, which is commonly known as a “genius grant” and comes with a prize of $625,000

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2014/09/steve-coleman-innovative-musician.html

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Panopticon-Review/342702882479366

Thursday, September 25, 2014

STEVE COLEMAN, INNOVATIVE MUSICIAN, COMPOSER, TEACHER AND MUSIC THEORIST IS A 2014 MacARTHUR FELLOWS FOUNDATION GRANT RECEIPIENT

http://jazztimes.com/guides/artists/21-steve-coleman

STEVE COLEMAN (b. September 20, 1956)

Steve began playing music just days before his 14th birthday as a freshman at South Shore High School on the south side of Chicago. His first instrument was violin but later that year he switched to the alto saxophone. For three years Steve studied the basics of music and saxophone technique, then he decided that he wanted to learn how to improvise. Looking for the best improvising musicians to listen to is what brought Steve to the music of Charlie Parker, although it helped that his father listened to Parker all the time. After spending two years at Illinois Wesleyan University Steve transferred to Roosevelt University (Chicago Music College) in downtown Chicago in order to concentrate on Chicago’s musical nightlife. Specifically Coleman had been introduced to the improvisations of Chicago premier saxophonists Von Freeman, Bunky Green, Gido Sinclair, Sonny Greer and others and he wanted to hang out and learn from these veterans. By the time he left Chicago in May 1978, he was holding down a decent gig leading a band at the New Apartment Lounge, writing music, playing Parker classics, and getting increasingly dissatisfied with what he felt was a creative dead end in the Chicago scene.

After hearing groups from New York led by masters like Max Roach, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Sonny Rollins, etc. come through Chicago with bands that featured great players with advanced musical conceptions, Steve knew where he wanted to go next. He felt he needed to be around this kind of atmosphere in order to grow musically.

Hitchhiking to New York and staying at a YMCA in Manhattan for a few months, he scuffled until he picked up a gig with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band, which led to stints with the Sam Rivers Big Band, Cecil Taylor’s Big Band and others. Soon he begun cutting records as a sideman with those leaders as well as pivotal figures like David Murray, Doug Hammond, Dave Holland, Mike Brecker and Abbey Lincoln. However it was really the influence of Von Freeman and Bunky Green in Chicago, Thad Jones, Sam Rivers, Doug Hammond in New York and listening to recordings of past improvising masters and music from West Africa that got Coleman turned around musically. . The most important influences on his music at this time was listening to tenor saxophonist Von Freeman (who primarily influenced Coleman as an improviser), saxophonist Sam Rivers (who influenced Steve compositionally) and drummer/composer Doug Hammond (who was especially important in Steve’s conceptual thinking).
Even playing with these masters only went part of the way toward paying the rent, and so for the next four years Coleman spent a good deal of time playing in New York City’s streets for small amounts of money with a street band that he put together with trumpeter Graham Haynes, the group that would evolve into the ensemble Steve Coleman and Five Elements. It is this group that would serve as the flagship ensemble for most of Steve’s activities.
Within a short time the group began finding a niche in tiny, out-of-the-way clubs in Harlem and Brooklyn where they continued to hone their developing concept of improvisation within nested looping structures. These ideas were based on ideas about how to create music from one’s experiences which became the foundation which Coleman and friends call the M-Base concept. However, unlike what most critics wrote this concept was philosophical, Coleman did not call the music itself M-Base.
After reaching an agreement with the West German JMT label in 1985, Steve and his colleagues got their chance to document their emergent ideas on three early Coleman-led recordings like Motherland Pulse, On The Edge Of Tomorrow, and World Expansion. The late 1980s found Coleman working to codify his early ideas using the group Steve Coleman and Five Elements and working with a collective of musicians called the M-Base Collective. As his ideas grew Steve also learned to incorporate various forms of research to expand his awareness, these techniques included learning to program computers to be used as tools to further develop his conception. He developed computer software modules which he referred to as The Improviser which was able to spontaneously develop improvisations, harmonic structures and drum rhythms using artificial intelligence based on certain musical theories that Steve had developed over the years. It was also during this time that Coleman came into contact with the study of the philosophy of ancient cultures. This began in the late 1970s with his listening to music from West Africa and studying about he African Diaspora, but in the 1980s Steve began to study and read about the ideas behind the music. He began to see that there was a sensibility that connected what he was interested in today with the ancient cultures of the past. All of these ideas are documented on his recordings in the form of a sonic symbolic language.

These emerging concepts were documented on Steve’s subsequent albums Sine Die (the last recording of the 1980s on the Pangaea Label), Rhythm People, Black Science, Drop Kick, The Tao of Mad Phat, and the first album of the entire M-Base Collective called Anatomy of a Groove (all on BMG Records). However, not being satisfied with reading and listening to recordings, Coleman embarked on the first of many research trips, first going to Ghana in December 1993 to January 1994 to study the relationship of language to music. One of the places that he traveled to was a small village called Yendi to check out the Dagbon people who have a tradition of speaking through their music using a drum language that still survives today. Steve had certain ideas about the role of music and the transmission of information in ancient times and he wanted to verify his speculations. This trip had a profound effect on Coleman’s music and philosophy. Upon returning to the United States Steve recorded Def Trance Beat and A Tale of 3 Cities on BMG Records, however the impact of the ideas that he was introduced to in Ghana would not be fully expressed in his work until late in 1994 after meeting the Kemetic (i.e. related to ancient Egypt) philosopher Thomas Goodwin, whose influence on Steve’s work was profound and far reaching.

In June 1994 Steve formed the group Renegade Way which at that time consisted of Steve Coleman and Greg Osby on alto saxophones, Joe Lovano and Craig Handy on tenor saxophones, Kenny Davis on bass and Yoron Isreal on drums. This group also did its first tour of Europe in late august 1995 (with Bunky Green on alto taking Greg’s place and Ralph Peterson on drums instead of Yoron). A later version of this group consisted of Steve Coleman and Greg Osby on alto saxophones, Gary Thomas and Ravi Coltrane on tenor saxophones, Anthony Tidd on Bass and Sean Rickman on drums, however this group has never recorded a commercially released CD.

Representing both a summation of the previous period and the beginning of another phase is the three CD box set entitled Steve Coleman’s Music - Live at the Hot Brass released by BMG France. Each CD in the box set was recorded live in March 1995 in Paris and features one of Coleman’s groups, Curves of Life by Steve Coleman and Five Elements, The Way of the Cipher by Steve Coleman and Metrics and Myths, Modes and Means by Steve Coleman and The Mystic Rhythm Society. This last CD was directly influenced by the trip to Ghana and philosophical studies with Tom Goodwin, it was to point in the direction of Steve’s investigations for the remainder of the 1990s. Together with an experimental ensemble put together called Steve Coleman and The Secret Doctrine, that brought the total number of group projects that Steve was involved in to five.

The year 1995 was an important year for Steve. He began by organizing a trip that would make a profound impact on his music. While pursuing his philosophical studies and learning more about the transmission of these ideas through music, Steve began to plan to investigate an idea that he had been thinking about for at least 7 years. In an effort to follow the development of certain philosophical and spiritual ideas obtained by studying ancient cultures (primarily ancient Egypt) and following up on the 1993-94 research trip to Ghana, Africa, Steve wanted to meet and collaborate in a creative way with musicians who were involved in certain ancient philosophical/musical traditions which come out of West Africa. One of his main interests was the Yoruba tradition (predominantly out of western Nigeria) which is one of the Ancient African Religions underlying Santeria (Cuba and Puerto Rico), Candomble (Bahia, Brazil) and Vodun (Haiti). Steve decided to go to these places and investigate the method by which the ideas of these traditions were transmitted through music. First stop, Cuba!

In Cuba Steve found that the situation was more complex than he had imagined for the people had preserved more than one African culture and these were mixed together under the general title of Santeria. There are the Abakua societies (Ngbe) , the various Arara cults (Dahomey), the Congo traditions such as nganga, mayombe and palo monte as well as the Yoruba traditions. But he did find one group called AfroCuba de Matanzas who specialized in preserving all of the above traditions as well as various styles of Rumba.

It was to the town of Matanzas that Steve headed in January of 1996 in order to study the music and also contact AfroCuba de Matanzas and arrange a meeting with the leader of this group, Francisco Zamora Chirino (otherwise known as Minini). Minini was also excited about the project and so it was arranged that the collaboration would take place in February during the time of the Havana Jazz Festival in order to give the expanded group a chance to perform before the Cuban public.

In February of 1996 Steve rented a large house in Havana and along with a group of 10 musicians and dancers, a three person film crew and the group AfroCuba de Matanzas (who had been bused in from Matanzas) the collaboration was started. For 12 days the two groups hung out together, worked, practiced and conceptualized in order to realize their goal. After their performance at the Havana Jazz Festival the musicians went into a Egrem Studios in Havana and recorded the collaboration. The results of this effort are preserved on a recording made for the BMG France recording company called The Sign and The Seal by Steve Coleman and The Mystic Rhythm Society in collaboration with AfroCuba de Matanzas.

Although this project went well Coleman viewed the results as he did every other project he has been involved in, as a step along a certain path. It did demonstrate another step in the evolution of his music, but it is being on the path that is important to Steve. It also shows that there is a more obvious connection than is generally thought between the creative music of today and the dynamic musical traditions of African peoples living in various parts of the earth. The combined group of Steve Coleman and The Mystic Rhythm Society in collaboration with AfroCuba de Matanzas did a major tour of Europe in June-July of 1997. This year also saw Steve form a large group (big band) called Steve Coleman and The Council of Balance. This group recorded a CD called Genesis which was released as part of the two CD set released by BMG France called Genesis and The Opening of The Way (the second CD in the set featuring Steve Coleman and Five Elements).

1997-1999 saw a continuation of the projects involving cultural exchange with musicians around the world. Partially funded by a grant from Arts International (1997), Steve took a group of musicians from America and Cuba to Senegal to collaborate and participate in musical and cultural exchanges with the musicians of the local Senegalese group Sing Sing Rhythm. Using his own funds he also led his group Five Elements to the south of India in January-February of 1998 to participate in a cultural exchange with different musicians in the Karnatic music tradition. Steve and his group also gave workshops in the Brahavadhi Center headed by the renown musicologist Dr. K. Subramanian. What Steve learned on the trip to India (along with a research trip to Egypt the preceding month) helped to substantiate the knowledge of the ancient systems that Steve had been studying. These trips were helpful in supplying the additional information necessary for Steve to continue his studies which he hopes to express through his own music. Two of Steve’s Five Elements recordings released by BMG France, The Sonic Language of Myth (1999) and The Ascension to Light (2000) are a direct result of these studies.

This work came to the attention of IRCAM (the world renown computer-music research center in Paris France) leading to Coleman receiving a major commission from IRCAM to further develop his ideas, in the form of interactive computer software, at the IRCAM facilities in Paris with the aid of programmers Sukandar Kartadinata, Takahiko Suzuki, Gilbert Nouno and IRCAM technology. A premier concert in June 1999 featuring Steve Coleman and Five Elements interacting with what Steve calls his Rameses 2000 computer software program was the public result of this commission. In 2000-2001 Steve withdrew from performing/recording and began study sabbatical. During this time he traveled extensively to India, Indonesia, Cuba and Brazil and continued much of his research as a music professor at the University of California at Berkeley and at CNMAT (the Center for New Music and Technology). He also overhauled his business organization and signed with another record company from France called Label Bleu. After returning to the world of performing Coleman recorded a live double-CD set called Resistance Is Futile (2001) on Label Bleu records.

Artist’s website:

http://www.m-base.com/

Articles on Steve Coleman
09/17/14

NEWS BY JEFF TAMARKIN

Steve Coleman Awarded MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship

THE MUSIC OF STEVE COLEMAN: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. COLEMAN:

http://www.jazzspeaks.org/steve-coleman-presents/

Steve Coleman Presents

Photo of Steve Coleman by Esther Cidoncha via http://ecidonchafotosdejazz.blogspot.com/

To call Steve Coleman “influential” is an understatement. Vijay Iyer, one of the many groundbreaking composer-performers who began their careers apprenticing with Steve, says, “To me, Steve’s as important as Coltrane. He has contributed an equal amount to the history of the music. He deserves to be placed in the pantheon of pioneering artists.”

But the scope of Steve’s influence isn’t limited to his collaborators. He’s been presenting weekly workshops at The Jazz Gallery almost every season since the fall of 2004, where anyone with a thirst for knowledge can go to absorb the infinitude he has to offer.

On March 8th, we’ll be bringing this series uptown in collaboration with our friends at Symphony Space. The Jazz Gallery Uptown: Steve Coleman Presents, A Musical Salon will expose a new neighborhood to Steve’s ideas and approaches. For those of you downtown, we’ll also begin the Spring season of “Steve Coleman Presents” at The Jazz Gallery next Monday.

Never been to one of Steve’s workshops? Michael J. West provides a great account in the 2010 issue of JazzTimes:

The audience at the Jazz Gallery is under Steve Coleman’s spell. The alto saxophonist, casually dressed in jeans and a backwards baseball cap, sits center stage at the scruffy upstairs club in New York’s SoHo district, leading two of his band members—pianist David Virelles and guitarist Miles Okazaki—through alien-sounding renditions of Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are.” The people in the club’s cramped chairs sit in rapt attention, following Coleman’s urgings to clap and sing along with the musicians. Then something unusual happens: Coleman calls one young spectator up to sit with Virelles at the piano, and encourages others to stand onstage behind him and watch.

This is Coleman’s gig, but it isn’t a concert. On a Monday night in March, he’s conducting his weekly master class and workshop, “Steve Coleman Presents,” for musicians of all instruments and skill levels. Coleman has spent the evening discussing negative chords, a system of his own design in which chords are built by stacking notes downward, not upward, from the root. He and his musicians first re-harmonize the changes on “All the Things You Are,” then reconstruct the tune itself using the same concept. “You’re gonna work out the bridge,” he tells the kid he’s brought onto the bandstand, and for the next hour they deconstruct the standard’s B-section note by note, looking to retain the compositional structure but turn it upside down as the remainder of the class—about 20 people, mostly young, some with instruments—looks on.

“What you’re really doing with this is to alter your perspective,” he explains as the kid picks away at the keys. “You’re just looking at the same thing from a different angle, holding up a magnifying glass to see why things work and why they don’t. And you don’t have to stop tonight; you can keep doing it, because it presents situations you’ve never been in before and possibilities you’ve never even thought of.”

We’d like to point out that Steve’s own website is an incredible resource, with several scores and essays – as well as almost two dozen albums – available for free download. The author also recommends this feature in The Wall Street Journal, as well as this extensive 2008 interview via Innerviews.

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February 28th by Rafiq in Press Previews

http://www.m-base.com/int_vijay.html

INTERVIEWS

An interview conducted by Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer: What goals did you have in mind when starting the M-Base Collective and how close have you come to actualizing them?

Steve Coleman: My goal was, and is to express the relationship of mankind, myself in particular to everything else, through music (or some sort of organized sound). Since I do not live in this universe alone I feel that this is best done by more than one person at a time, or groups of people. I've always wanted to be around other creative individuals so that is why I hook up with others. If it is called a collective or not really is not the point for me, it's the work that gets done and trying to stay on this path of creative expression. I feel that being on the path is the important thing and in that sense the goals have been actualized. In other words, to be on the path is in itself success.

VI: How did this collective form? Was M-Base essentially your brainchild, or did others have similar goals? Did you often have to push things along yourself?

SC: Getting together with the other people who have been considered in the past as being a part of the M-Base collective just happened as a result of me expressing myself and others doing the same. I hooked up with each person one by one but I really feel that it was creative energy that initially brought us together. This energy acts to attract other like energy so I really only responded to that.

I did create the name M-Base but the energy was and will always be here, I had nothing to do with that except to allow it to work through me. The name's not important.

It is my nature to push things along (or I should say that's the nature of the energy working through me) so I would have done that collective or no collective. In fact I have done that at times when there were no other people to work with.

VI: Do you feel that M-Base is still a true "collective" today? What problems do you see facing the notion of a music collective today?

SC: I will always be working with people and since I call the frame of mind that I and the people that I work with are generally in "M-Base" (and not the music itself), then maybe you could say that M-Base is a collective. But when I use the term "collective" I'm really not using it in the same sense as I think you are. For me the M-Base collective is the group of people who have contributed to a way of thinking about creating this music. It is not a group of people who make a certain style of music. So for me Muhal Richard Abrams is part of the M-Base collective, even if he would not say so. I don't think that the collectives that most people talk about last very long in this country today because of western mentality and commercial pressures but that does not effect the kind of collective I mentioned above because creative energy always will find a way to manifest itself through individuals and groups of individuals. So the so called 'problems' are really an illusion.

VI: How have the earlier African-American music collectives influenced you? How do you view their importance? You've said before that the collective approach to learning is fundamentally a non-Western concept -- can you elaborate?

SC: Again are we using my definition of a collective? If so the answer is obvious. What we are doing today would not be possible without the work of others who got together and created in the past. So from that standpoint the influence and importance is too great to be measured.

By learning with others you can get instant feedback from other creative minds (each bringing to the table different experiences and insights) DURING the learning process. This enables a kind of collective experience that can be drawn upon when internalizing information the first time. Individual learning does not have this advantage (although it does have its own advantages, but you can always learn on an individual level. You have to reach out and interact with others to learn collectively). I don't believe collective learning is stressed in the west. Performing music in a creative group is collective learning as is playing in a big band of some sort but I'm speaking now of collective learning in the more general and traditional concept of studying and conceptualizing together with others.

VI: With your newer projects like Mystic Rhythm Society, Metrics, and the Secret Doctrine, which bring younger musicians, lyricists, and other non-Western musicians into the fold. Do you hope to enhance and further the collective atmosphere? Do you feel that the musicians are learning from each other?

SC: Of course the musicians are learning from each other. I started these different groups to provide some way to allow me to work with others in a creative environment.

You see when I was working with Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, Geri Allen etc.. we made it a point to try and have a group that did not have a musical leader (or a business leader). I was one of the pushier people in the group in terms of trying to advance our musical way of thinking. When the press began to write about us as a group they (the press) decided to make someone in the group the leader. In every interview that I've ever done and when I talked to anyone I made it a point to tell them that I was not the leader of M-Base and that there was no leader. This made no difference to western thinking journalist who insisted that there was a leader, and normally it was written that I started (or was the leader of) M-Base.

This led to problems as others wanted to be looked at by people outside of this process (critics, writers, record company people) as doing more things of a leadership nature, they wanted to be looked at as leaders. Eventually egos came into play and this is one of the reasons why this particular group of people are not really working together that much today. Everybody wanted to be looked at as a leader and as a result all of these people (and some others too) have got their own groups today. The nature of the music industry today is such that individual musicians are immediately looking to form their own groups and get their own recording contracts, even before they get any real experience out in the field. This is due in large part to the commercial pressures of the music industry (and the west in general). Many times musicians deviate from their original purpose of creating music because of commercial pressures.

Combined with the nature of the western educational institutions, which stress pedagogy over creativity ,spirit and culture, this is one of the reasons why so many musicians (who see themselves as playing "jazz" music) do not really have a personal (or individual) sound to their music.

So I decided to just start the groups myself and lead in a more obvious way (business wise and musically) so there would be no argument and therefore no ego battles. I think this works out better in this culture, although I wish it were different because I have to do a lot of things that really have nothing to do with creating music, just to make the music happen at all. Because I've called myself the leader, Five Elements has been around since 1980. It cannot break up unless I break up, unless I end it. And I see no reason to do that. On the other hand if I start The Mystic Rhythm Society (instead of Steve Coleman and The Mystic Rhythm Society) then you have the kind of situation that existed with Weather Report or The Jackson Five, where any aggressive dissenting member of the group can break up the whole thing, because of the way this society is. When this happens then of course the press jumps on it and announces the thing "dead". I have seen many articles that have announced that M-Base is dead but these writers do not understand the nature of what there are talking about. M-Base is only a name, and names do die in a way. But what M-Base represents will never die, it will only be called something else in the future, just like it was called by other names in the past.

Mystic, Metrics, Elements and Secret Doctrine are just groups formed to express various elements or perspectives of this same M-Base conception (or mentality). As an accomplished musician it is easy for you to see the connection between all of these groups. I am only the catalyst and portal through which the energy (that is holding this particular incarnation of creative relationships together) is working. But other individuals respond to these vibrations by opening themselves to these creative energies and this is what makes it a collective on this plane of existence.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-mancy-of-sound-steve-coleman-pi-recordings-review-by-ian-patterson.php

Steve Coleman and Five Elements: The Mancy of Sound (2011)

By IAN PATTERSON

Published: January 6, 2012 | 5,035 views

Although alto saxophonist Steve Coleman's conceptual approach to composition has grown increasingly adventurous, high-brow or esoteric, depending on your viewpoint—with lunar phases and the Yoruba of West Africa's philosophical system providing inspiration here—The Mancy of Sound merely represents Coleman's relationship to the world, which is the font of most music of worth. Retaining the same musicians from Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (Pi Recordings, 2010), Coleman's Five Elements follow-up shares its broad stylistic features, including non-western rhythms and multiple, interweaving voices, though it differs in the increased rhythmic energy and slightly sweeter aesthetic.

The two-pronged drums of Tyshawn Sorey and Chris Persad Group, The Dautaj, Marcus Gilmore , Coquito, Fri inject tremendous vibrancy, and percussionist Ramon Garcia Perez's animation is equally central in infusing the music with West African spice. All three fairly bristle on "Jan 18," where Coleman, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, trombonist Tim Albright and vocalist Jen Shyu explore adjacent and often interlocking paths. Coleman tears free, coursing over tumbling drums, crashing cymbals, an insistent bass pulse and searing brass riffs, while Shyu's vocal, "nature's call for progression with no fear or aversion, teaching the value of immersion," could serve as the music's creed.

The four-part "Odú Ifá Suite" is the centerpiece of the CD---representing the elements Fire, Earth, Air and Water—and revolves around Shyu's voice. There's an elemental African flavor to the playing, particularly on the up-tempo "Fire-Ogbe," with Shyu's voice floating gaily over brass and reed solos. An intermittent motif serves as a signpost for the musicians, as trombone, trumpet and saxophone all pass the baton. Tight, near-unison riffing or counterpoint lends close support to the soloist. The high energy slowly dissipates, like dying flames. The gently cantering "Earth-Idi" features male African vocals, with trumpet, trombone and saxophone uniting in a delectable descending motif. Again, the energy dissolves, leaving just Shyu's mantra-like vocals, African vocal and percussion. There's a vaguely Duke Ellingtonian spirit about this beautiful composition.

Sweltering brass and reed and lively percussion bring an Afro-Cuban vibe on "Air-Iwori." A ritualistic element colors Shyu's vocal, which seduces over the babble of singing, chanting instrumental voices, rendering palpable the music's deep roots and spiritual vein. "Water-Oyeku" shares the rhythmic pulse of "Earth-Idi," and Shyu and an African male vocal trade back and forth over tightly woven trombone and trumpet. The music swells, enveloping, before gradually receding.

The suite is bookended by the harmonically arresting, percussion-free "Formation 1" and "Formation 2,"— allowing Shyu's captivating voice to emerge more fully. "Noctiluca (Jan 11)" features freer soloing, less buoyed by counterpoint, though when Shyu sings, a carpet of sound lifts her. A two-minute percussive exchange nicely alters the record's overriding aesthetic, before all the voices converge again in a stimulating combination of careful charts and free improvisation. Shyu's interpretation of Patricia Magalhães' poetry, sung in the song's tail, contains the same seeds of mystery as her wordless singing, as calm descends once again.

An important influence on Coleman, alto legend Charlie Parker once told journalist Nat Hentoff, upon listening again to Bartók's Second Piano Concerto, which he had previously dismissed: "I heard things in it I never heard before." Sage advice for anyone who hopes the wonders of The Mancy of Sound will reveal themselves.

Track Listing: Jan 18; Formation 1; Fire-Ogbe [Odú Ifá Suite]; Earth-Idi [Odú Ifá Suite]; Air-Iwori [Odú Ifá Suite]; Water-Oyeku [Odú Ifá Suite]; Formation 2; Noctiluca (Jan 11).

Personnel: Steve Coleman: alto saxophone; Tim Albright: trombone; Jonathan Finlayson: trumpet; Marcus Gilmore: drums; Thomas Morgan: bass; Ramon Garcia Perez: percussion; Jen Shyu: vocals

Record Label: Pi Recordings Style: Modern Jazz

THE MUSIC OF STEVE COLEMAN: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. COLEMAN:

Jazz Composer and Saxophonist Steve Coleman, 2014 MacArthur Fellow:

Jazz Composer and Saxophonist Steve Coleman is infusing iconic spontaneous music idioms with the melodic, rhythmic, and structural components of an eclectic range of musical traditions to create a distinctive new sound.

The MacArthur Fellowship is a $625,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more. Learn more at www.macfound.org/Fellows.