A.F. Jones

(interviews conducted 03.16.2001 and 05.01.2001)

(related profile published in Copper Press Issue Seven (Steve Brydges, Royce Deans, editors), June 2001

MARILYN CRISPELL and I recently reconnected through email on the topic of an interview that we conducted in 2001 and its related profile piece, published in Copper Press (ceased publishing in mid-late 2000’s) in June of that year. As you surely know, Marilyn continues to be a force in creative music, with new and continuing collaborations, notably in Trio Tapestry, with Joe Lovano and Carmen Castaldi. She has been dealing with pandemic-forced restrictions and curveballs as many of us have, with optimism, frustration, and with new outlooks.

A vastly anticipated European tour of Trio Tapestry was cancelled this year as a result of never-ending shifts in protocols and travel advisories in the EU and UK. A re-scheduling of the tour is in progress, likely to take place beginning in the early spring of 2022. The pandemic for her has not been without various recording projects and occasional performances. Crispell has otherwise been enjoying life through reading, frequent walks in nearby woods, British television, and staying in touch with friends as much as possible.

We decided to publish our 2001 interviews in full for the first time. Perhaps 300 words of the 10,000+ that were transcribed from microcassette made it as-recorded into the Copper Press piece — scans are included here (and without express permission from the editors, who I could not locate). Given the moments of depth reached in our talks and the range of the content, the interview is quite comprehensive, and should function well as an aid to researchers and casual readers alike in studying Marilyn Crispell and her work. Most interestingly perhaps, it functions as an in-depth snapshot of turn-of-this-century creative music, one of its most interesting and tireless composers and improvisers, and her terrifically relevant thoughts on the politics, the business, and the grind, still faced (and often perpetuated) by musicians, organizers, curators, and label owners.

~Alan Jones, 11.01.21

preceding page and photography by Jones, Vancouver, B.C., June 2001

Copper Press piece (2001) photography by Laurence Svirchev, layout and design by Andrei Cabanban. Copper Press was a monthly journal published out of Ann Arbor, MI.

Marilyn Crispell, March 16 and May 1, 2001

AJ:    Let's discuss your background.  Can we start from the beginning?

Marilyn Crispell:  Ahhh. Well, I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia until I was ten years old, and my father heard me playing songs by ear on a toy xylophone that I had and decided that I should have piano lessons.  So I did, and basically studied classical music. I went to New England Conservatory. When I was ten my family moved to Baltimore and I started studying with a teacher at Peabody Conservatory. Also, at that time, I had met a woman named Grace Cushman, who ended up being unbelievably influential in my life. She had a summer music camp, a small music camp connected with Peabody Conservatory.  There were about thirty kids.  It was in Northern Vermont, about twenty minutes from the Canadian border.  And every year there were about thirty kids from all over the country, and faculty and older students from the Peabody Conservatory.  So there was a string quartet in residence, there was a great Filipino pianist named Renaldo Reyes.  Uh…I don't know how much of this that you want to hear, actually.

AJ:    No, no, this is good.

MC:  But, every Monday night we would have a forum, a composers' forum.  Basically it was a camp for kids who are interested in composition. We studied theory and harmony.  Every Monday night there was a composers' forum and everybody would play or have people play what they had written that week, and then we would kind of talk about it. And they would play it again and we would talk about it some more.  The emphasis--I guess that I started going there when I was about fourteen and I went there for five years--and the emphasis was really on contemporary music of various kinds, as well as older renaissance music.  We had a madrigal group and stuff like that. So I was being exposed at a really early age to contemporary sounds. So that by the time I got to be 28 and heard McCoy Tyner for the first time I related it very much to the sounds that I had heard since I was fourteen.  And then Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton, and people like that.

AJ:    Has piano been your only instrument?

MC:  Piano and harpsichord.  And I tried to play violin for a year but that was when I was at the conservatory and there was basically no time.  My first year there I was a composition major and I barely had time to breathe.  I could never get caught up with my work or anything.  I think I could have been a good violinist but I ended up dropping it.

AJ:    Was that just for expansion or did you have something for that instrument?

MC:  Actually I wanted to play viola but my hands were too small.

AJ:    How did you become interested in jazz?

MC:  When I was in my late twenties I met someone who knew a lot about jazz.  He himself was a blues and jazz pianist.  I was working in a bookstore at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis and he was working at the record store across the hall.  The stores were owned by the same people so we would play CDs in the bookstore.  Actually, at that time they were playing a lot of Keith Jarrett CDs, The Köln Concert and all of that.  I started listening and it reminded me of stuff that I play when I improvise for dance classes -- I made a living improvising for dance classes for many years.  That also started at that music camp, I had a partial scholarship in return for doing that.  My interested was piqued at that moment.  I ended up getting together with this guy -- we lived together for three years.  He had a great record collection and he played me a lot of stuff, all contemporary stuff: Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Chick Corea, Coltrane, McCoy Tyner...  Contemporary.  So those were the sounds that I was hearing.  One night I was alone in the apartment and I put on A Love Supreme, and something just happened…it was like some magical, chemical thing happened.  It was very emotional, very strong, powerful.  I decided that I had to learn to play that music -- not thinking of doing it professionally, just playing it.

AJ:    What was it?  Do you think you could put into words what it was about A Love Supreme that so enraptured you?

MC:  If I could I would be a poet and not a musician. (laughs) Powerful. It was intense and powerful and spiritual and I felt a lot of love in the music. I felt a presence of great love in the room. I was just reading a book that said, "It's an intentional universe." Things come about because of intent.  I think I felt a very strong intent or intention that night to become a part of that music, based not only on what I was hearing but what I was feeling, which was a tangible presence that I directed a feeling of asking for help and direction to. Soon after that I had heard about a teacher in Boston named Charlie Banacos. I moved back to Boston and I studied with him for two years: traditional jazz that was studied very intensively. I transcribed lots of solos, did lots of listening, had no social life for two years (laughs). I just worked on this stuff day and night to get some kind of familiarity with it. Even though it wasn't the tradition I was coming from I related strongly to it. I think you can make things your own tradition in the sense that you find what in them relates to you, and you make it your own. So even if you're not coming from there originally you somehow make it your own.

During the time that I was in Boston studying with Charlie Banacos I met Charlie Mariano, the saxophone player, who was teaching at Berkeley at that time (very unhappily, actually). He heard some of my music and he suggested coming up to Woodstock to a place called the Creative Music Studio, run by Karl Berger. So I came up here for a summer and met all kinds of kindred spirits including Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell and Cecil Taylor. And I went back to Boston, got my stuff, and I've been here ever since for 23 years.

AJ:    Is that circle still around? Do you see new people come in?

MC:  Well, unfortunately, 5 years after I came here the studio went bankrupt. But a lot of people stayed on and it has become a Mecca of sorts for jazz musicians. There have been various jazz series that have happened here, including one that's just ending. But there are a lot of musicians with a lot of creative energy up here. A lot of writers, artists and dancers.

AJ:    It sounds like a very healthy environment.

MC:  It's a very interesting environment, yeah.

AJ:    How do your own experiences translate to your music?

MC:  I think that everything you are, everything you do in your life comes across in music. 

AJ:    If you are honest in it.

MC:  Yeah, I mean I don't really know any other way to say it or any particular thing to think out. Just that all of your emotions, all of your history, all your experiences, interests come across sort of modified by what is currently happening in your life.

AJ:    Are there any times that you attempt to convey emotion or to tell a particular story?

MC:  I wouldn't put it that way. I would say that I sit down and I just start to go on a journey. It's not that I'm trying to convey something, so much as allowing that inner journey to come out in music. Trying to create the space for it to be able to come out and, at the same time, listen to it and try to guide it somehow. I've heard a good analogy of tuning a violin: you don't want to tune the string too tight or tune it too loose... it has to be just right.

AJ:    Your technique. You value African rhythms and percussive techniques.

MC:  Yeah, very much.

AJ:    Is this something that simply works for you? Or have you studied these rhythms through admiration?

MC:  No, I haven't studied them formally, I just relate to them very much. They speak to me. A lot of it relates to my background with playing for dance when I was younger. Some people, when they hear or play music, see visual things; if anything, I tend to visualize dance. It is a very kinetic thing for me. 

AJ:    How does that translate to the creative process behind your compositions?

MC:  Sometimes I just sit down and start playing a melody and write things down, keep changing them. It's a very torturous process for me, in a way. 

AJ:    Is that perhaps because you are a perfectionist?

MC:  Yeah, but more because I like the freedom of sitting down and playing something in the moment…and then it's gone. Often if I write something down, it's not really quite what I wanted to say, somehow. Or I start finding fault with it. It can be difficult.

AJ:    How about improvisation?

MC:  Like a spontaneous composition. There is one CD that I did called Santuerio. I remember, I would lie in bed in the morning, and I would imagine that I was hearing the music, imagine the music in my mind. Rather than sitting down and starting to play something and letting something unfold, I would actually just lie there in bed and try to imagine what I wanted the music to sound like, the shape of it, the feel of it, the sections… And then I would try to work at it on the piano.

AJ:    What are your feelings about Thelonious Monk's music?

MC:  I love it. I've played it a lot over the years. I think that it lends itself to interpretation, kind of like Bach. It's a very basic thing that translates well into a lot of different interpretations. It is very angular, and the slightly "off" harmonies. Those things leave a lot of room for interpretation, at least for me. Just like listening to McCoy Tyner, the fourth chords; harmonically, it is a very open sound, kind of a non-committed sound that is not committed to any one key center. These things were sort of an entry point for me because I used harmonies in fourths when I was playing and improvising for dance classes. And Bach also lends itself to interpretation over the centuries.

AJ:    Monk's music opened up a lot of doors for me as a listener. He was the guy that convinced me that the music should be played that way. Like his use of the minor second, is that something that works for you?

MC:  I would say that it correlates to sounds that I was relating to before I heard him. So it was a connection point. I was dealing with all kinds of dissonances before I had heard jazz at all.  Monk wasn't an original inspiration. In fact, to be honest, I related to his written compositions before I actually heard his music. Whereas with Coltrane and Cecil Taylor and Keith Jarrett and McCoy Tyner, I related to the sounds that I was hearing first and foremost.

AJ:    Let's talk about Cecil Taylor. I don't know if he has been a direct mentor to you, but I hear a lot of him in your music. You have said that you really admire his work and look up to him for inspiration. Where exactly does he stand out for you?

MC:  He is a huge inspiration. It was a revelation to me when I first heard his music. He was doing the kinds of things which were very similar to what I had been doing when I was composing and improvising contemporary classical stuff. The thing is that he was doing it in a context that just felt much more alive. That context brought many things to life. It was a huge revelation to me. I think the first many times that I heard Cecil, I heard the overall ambience of the music without actually distinguishing the themes and other elements, which I hear now when I listen to him. The structure at the time wasn't initially apparent to me, but became apparent over the years as I listened to him. Cecil and Anthony Braxton and Ornette Coleman I think are the true fusion artists of our century. It seems to me that they took elements from many different musical backgrounds in a very organic way. Their music is some of the greatest true fusion music, between the Western classical music, contemporary jazz, World music, all the influences are there in a very real, organic way. They absorbed at a very young age all of those elements simultaneously.

AJ:    Like restructure.

MC:  Yeah, definitely.  Anthony uses that term a lot, “restructuralist”. He says that there are very few, true restructuralists. That there are very few true innovators.

AJ:    Would you call yourself a restructuralist? Do you strive for that?

MC: I would say that I am of that school of those people. But I am also influenced by different traditions. I feel like they created large modes of expression. It's someone created the automobile, and then lots of different people creating lots of different styles of automobiles. But the creation of the automobile created space for others to be created. But they are all cars. I don't think it's necessarily important or unimportant to be that kind of innovator. I don't think that's the criteria for being a musician, but I think that those people are very significant. None of what is happening today would or could be happening if they hadn't given us what they have.

AJ:    The creative music scene in New York seems thriving right now.

MC:  New York City? I'm not in New York that often. I know that the Knitting Factory has done great stuff over the years and now there are other small clubs springing up. In particular, a club called Tonic, I have enjoyed playing there a few times. There is a scene, although I feel like the whole retro-jazz thing with Lincoln Center and Ken Burns is doing a fairly good job of trying to stomp down anything that doesn't fit into their notion of what's valid.

AJ:    How do you feel about that?

MC:  Well, I feel that it's very irresponsible of them. I kind of think I understand where they're coming from; in the sense that they want jazz to be looked at -- and of course it is -- as the true American music. They want the importance of that to be validated. However, in the process of doing that, it seems that they are destroying one of the greatest elements of what jazz has been, which is freedom of expression and the freedom to change and do something new.

AJ:    I don't think that Europeans are in their idea of the equation, either.

MC:  Not at all. They are trying to get something validated and respected. That I understand. But jazz is a living, breathing thing. I don't think that you can put it into a museum and just look at it like an icon, imitating what has gone on before. I mean, all of the people in the 60's -- it's like the lost decade, you know. The 60's through the 90's, all of the creative stuff that was happening, the whole loft scene. There was a lot of stuff that was happening that went unmentioned in Ken Burns's documentary. There was a lot of great music happening and a lot of great musicians who are just being overlooked. Take the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Lester Bowie… for Wynton Marsalis or anybody to put them down, I think that it's disgraceful. I think that they very clearly come from a jazz tradition and have clearly extended that. And to deny that or denigrate it I think is terribly irresponsible. They are trying to stomp out the possibility of, of a movement. They are trying to put the whole thing into a museum.

AJ:    It's okay to tip your hat to it, but…

MC:  It's as valid as anything else. People still play Bach, they still play Renaissance music…why not? You can play anything you want. As long as you play it well it is valid and relevant. But to deny the validity of other stuff or to turn a blind eye to the fact that these things obviously came out of a jazz tradition is total prejudice and pigheadedness.

AJ:    Sometimes I think that just a change in the title of that series might have eradicated all of this. I don't know what I would call it.

MC:  Louis Armstrong. (laughs)

AJ:    Louis and Duke.

MC:  (laughs) Yeah.

AJ:    It was nice to see them mention Cecil Taylor, but it also seemed like they might as well have flipped him off. But then, was it a sound bite? Who knows. "Irresponsible" for sure. From your perspective, what elements are currently driving the music?

MC:  Good question. To be honest, I really don't know.

AJ:    Is it something we can only check out in hindsight?

MC:  Yeah. I think that no matter how hard they try, these guys can't kill the creative spirit. I think that's happening in a lot of ways, here and other places. I play with a lot of Scandinavian musicians and some of them have said, "We don't play jazz, we play Nordic music." People are getting a little more nationalistic.

AJ:    You are in excellent company. How do you feel about your contemporaries, both here and abroad?

MC:  They are great musicians. I wouldn't be playing with them if I didn't have a lot of respect for them. People that come to mind are Barry Guy, Paul Lytton, and Anders Jormin. I'm playing with a Danish saxophone player, Lotte Anker. And Marilyn Mazur. She is a percussionist who played with Miles Davis for a while. She lives in Denmark and is half-Danish, half-American.  There are some Swiss musicians who I play with… all of the contexts are different. It is challenging for me to relate to all of these different contexts. And then, in America, there are Gerry Hemingway, Mark Dresser, Mark Elias, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian.

AJ:    Your music now is more serene than it was, say, twenty years ago. Why is that?

MC:  It just is. (laughs)

AJ:    Would you cite playing with people like Paul Motian?

MC:  I don't know. I've played with Paul in the past and we've done duets that were not that serene. I'd say that, well, you change. Different aspects of the psyche come to the forefront and you have to allow that freedom. I've always played lyrical things. Years ago I started writing some very lyrical things and kept them in the closet until I heard some of the Scandinavian musicians. They woke something up in me just in the way that Coltrane did. They woke up a lyrical sense that realized it could find a venue for expression. I think that that's how it began, way back in 1992, when I was in Stockholm and heard some of these people.

AJ:    How did that come about?

MC:  I had listened to Paul Bley many years ago and I was really struck by Annette's compositions. They seemed to come partially from a contemporary classical place that I could relate to, and yet they had elements that came more from jazz.  So that was very intriguing to me.  I transcribed one of her songs off of a record, "Gesture Without Plot" (I'm the One, RCA, 1972), and played that for many years. And then I heard that she had moved to Woodstock. Some of my friends had met her, so I got her number and gave her a call. I asked her to check out my transcription. We got together and became friends. I had the idea one day to do a solo recording of a lot of her compositions. Gary Peacock, her ex-husband, lived around here, and Annette suggested including him. And I had played with Paul Motian before, so why not add him? It would be a great trio. To be honest, I didn't even realize that they had been traveling around with Paul Bley (laughs). Well, I sent a fax to Manfred Eicher at ECM and told him about the project and offered it to him. He sent a fax back a few hours later saying, "Yes!"

AJ:    Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?

MC:  What a question! I suppose the answer to that would be yes, in the sense that I am concerned with, other than…you know, this is really difficult to put into words. The problem is, if you answer "yes" to that question, you are almost negating the fact. Because to say that you are a spiritual person is an arrogant kind of statement, I think.

AJ:    Why would you say arrogant?

MC:  Because I think spirituality has a lot to do with humility. I'd say that I am concerned with spiritual issues. I'd say it is at the core of my life, in the sense that I think at the core of every life is a question as to the nature of reality. Through a long involvement with various practices, I've been dealing with that question. What's stressed a lot is concern with beings other than oneself.  Also the nature of what reality is… looking at the larger picture. It is a hard thing to talk about, I'm certainly no expert.  I've spent a lot of time and effort trying to work out some of these things. I've been able to put a lot of my life experiences into the context of those concerns.

AJ:    You are involved in Tibetan Buddhism.

MC:  I have been involved with it, yes, as a philosophy in practice.  But it is also something that I don't like to talk about so publicly, because it is just a very personal thing.  It's the kind of thing where when you talk about it, it becomes something that it is not meant to be, if that makes any sense.

AJ:    It does make sense. Actually, your spirituality and your concerns have been alluded to within other subjects.

MC:  My basic outlook on life does come from that place.  Being concerned about the welfare of other people, other beings.

AJ:    In the sense of being altruistic?  Or empathetic?

MC:  Both of those, but in a larger sense, to be aware that the world does not center around you.  Sometimes I walk down the street and I'll look at people.  Maybe I've been walking and thinking, "I've got to get home and make dinner.  I'm really hungry."  It's like I'm the center of my world at that point.  Then suddenly I'll look at somebody else walking down the street and realize that they are thinking the exact same thing.  They are the center of their world.  There are all of these little centers of the world walking around. (laughs)  For the most part unaware, almost sleepwalking.

AJ:    I have been listening to your music with Tisziji Muñoz. He is a masterful guitarist. But it goes beyond that, doesn't it?

MC:  I think so. You think so too?

AJ:    Well, I feel it.

MC:  Yeah. He is also very concerned with these issues [of spirituality]. I feel that our relationship comes from that level. We met through Henry Kaiser, who put together a recording session that we both participated in with Mark Dresser and Lukas Ligeti. At the end of the session Tisziji and I played two duets. He called me to do this other recording with Rashied (Ali) and Don Pate. We began talking on the phone and realized that we share many common interests.  I feel very comfortable with him. We just began working on a duo session a few weeks ago at his house. It was very nice. I went up there and spent the whole day. We took a walk and sat on the stairs, talking.  I think that there is a feeling of deep communion there. I think we both feel it.  What's interesting is that I first got into the music through Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders, and Tisziji happens to be a very good friend of and plays with Pharaoh Sanders. And he’s played with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones.

AJ:    I'm glad to hear that you and Muñoz are recording again. There is something really happening in his music.

MC:  Yeah!  It's really powerful.

AJ:    It's unlike anything I've ever heard, his approach. 

MC:  For me it is like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Coltrane.

AJ:    I can hear that. Very distorted, very abrasive, but fine as well.

MC:  He wanted to document some of his compositions by playing them through with me as is, without improvising. So when I went up there recently we did about four of those compositions.  We also did some free improvising. So when I go back again, probably in August, we will probably record some more of his compositions again and perhaps some free stuff.

AJ:    The two of you complement each other so well and so beautifully. There is a piece where there is about a two and a half minute piano intro. It sounds like a composed piece with some free improvisation mixed in. The quartet picks it up and sustains the energy which really brings it forward. Where what you were playing was delicate and expressive.

MC:  I think that was actually improvised, totally. 

AJ:    It is beautiful.

MC:  Does it have a slight, almost gospel feel to it?

AJ:    It did! It sounded like there were some notated changes. Can we discuss your newest Leo release?

MC:  It is some stuff that was on vinyl, a selection of things that were on vinyl. And Your Ivory Voice Sings was duets with a drummer who lives up here in Woodstock, Doug James, a very good drummer who doesn't get out and play that much. I haven’t had many opportunities to play with him. But I used to practice on his piano in the studio--he was looking for people to break in his new piano, a Steinway. I was one of the people he called. He sat there listening to me one day and asked if he could get his drums and play with me. I found that he had great ears and he really listened and was very sensitive -- even more so than a lot of the professional drummers I had worked with up to that point. So we started playing together, and hopefully we will again. There is Rhythms Hung in Undrawn Sky, a real early solo recording. And there is a quartet recording.

AJ:    This is a compilation, more or less.

MC:  Yes.

AJ:    This must be exciting for you.

MC:  To have these things released again?

AJ:    Yeah.

MC:  Well, it makes me realize that I am older than think I am! (laughs) Old enough to have a reissue, that's a little scary. No, it means a lot to me that these companies want to re-release them.

AJ:    It says a lot for how solid your music is.

MC:  Thanks. For me, the music is a very fluid thing that is always changing. I look back on the old things that I played and I see how I have changed and how I do things differently.

AJ:    Your sound has changed over the years. It's all about progression, isn’t it?

MC:  And expansion. I don't feel that I have abandoned anything. I feel like I have come to ways of having more space in my music. That started when I began playing with Anthony Braxton, who is a master of composition and space, and phrasing. When I first started playing with him, I was playing an awful lot of notes, pretty much all of the time. He was the first person who suggested to me to leave some space, "You can't have a phrase without breath; you can't talk without breathing."  Cecil definitely has that sense of space and breath, even though he plays a lot of notes and the music is often very intense.  When I first came to Anthony, I was playing a lot of notes that didn't have that kind of breath and space.

AJ:    And before that point it always seemed like there was a transition going on, rather than using notes as space?

MC:  I think that I was just playing lots of notes. I was just playing sheets of energy without defining things by breaking them up with space. If you have a constant sheet of energy, in a way, that's not going anywhere. It can be very static, as static as something that has no intensity. But if you have that kind of intensity with breath and space… like if you are talking very fast, you have to take a breath sometimes. That breath defines everything that happens on either side of it.  If you don't have any breath you have no definition. If you listen to Cecil carefully you will hear a lot of definition in his phrasing.  I guess when I started playing with Anthony I was beginning to become aware of that.

AJ:    He heard you first in 1978 with the Creative Music Orchestra.  How did that come about?

MC:  It was at the Creative Music Studio, here in Woodstock. When I first got here, George Russell came up to conduct a workshop. I was playing piano in the workshop and Anthony was standing outside listening. Anthony gave a workshop shortly after and he and I played a duo concert in the studio. He asked me to play with his orchestra and the rest is history.

AJ:    Those recordings are so important, the music that you made with Anthony Braxton.

MC:  They are very important to me too. I think that it was a very sad moment when it stopped. But I guess Anthony felt like we had reached a point where we had said everything that we could say as a group, and, for him at least, it had become predictable... what we could say in that context to each other. I happen to think that we had reached a plateau, which we could have pushed beyond to go to some other place. But we played together for ten years and made a lot of recordings. 

AJ:    What did Gerry (Hemingway) and Mark (Dresser) think at that time?

MC:  Well, we were all very disappointed.

AJ:    You had John Lindberg in that quartet for the first few years.  How did Mark Dresser come into play?

MC:  I think it was in 1985. We were on tour and John and Anthony were having some conflicts. Anthony fired him at a gig at the Bimhaus, in Amsterdam. Before we went on stage, Anthony decided at that moment that he didn't want to play with John anymore. The gig went on as a trio gig -- free improv. We went on to do the tour with a different bass player in every city, basically. Gerry told Anthony about Mark, who at the time might have been living in Italy. Mark joined us in Yugoslavia and stayed with the quartet until the very end.

AJ:    The group sure documented some gorgeous music.

MC:  Yeah. I feel like I played with one of the greatest geniuses of the century. I feel very blessed to have been part of that whole creative process.

AJ:    I would think that you are in an incredible minority, not just to comprehend, but to ingest Braxton's language and his compositional style. And even then to build upon it.

MC:  Well, in a sense it was very close to things that I had been doing with contemporary music when I was at New England Conservatory, and when I was composing there myself. The language felt very familiar to me.

AJ:    How about the notation?  It's Greek to me. 

MC:  A lot of that was before my time. A lot of what I played with him was written out in a more conventional way. There were some diagrams where you had to interpret the shape, but most of it was pretty conventional notation. 

AJ:    I have seen one diagram where there is a staff containing erratic lines in place of standard notation.

MC:  Well you play within that area of the staff a line that has that general shape, without the notes being specific.

AJ:    You mentioned the Creative Music Studio.  What was the atmosphere like when you were there?

MC:  It was great.  First of all, it's in the country, up here in the Catskill Mountains. Karl Berger and his wife Ingrid Sertso -- a name given to her by her Tibetan teacher. I keep introducing her to people as Ingrid Berger and she keeps getting mad at me (laughs) -- they kind of introduced me to Tibetan Buddhism and meditation. Ingrid is very into healthy food, so we always had vegetarian cooks around. There were students and teachers from all over the world, hanging out in a very relaxed atmosphere. There were a lot of grounds there. Musicians would play all night out on the lawn. People would dance. I specifically remember some of the musicians from Africa teaching songs and dances from their villages. A lot of professional connections were forged there. It was possible to get to know some of these musicians and play their music in ensembles in a way that couldn’t have been possible anywhere else. If you went to the city it would be very difficult to meet people in different circumstances. You had an atmosphere where you could just relax and check out some of the peoples' music, and then have a chance at the end of the week to have a concert with them, talk to them, eat with them, and get to know them as a human being rather than just as some figurehead.

AJ:    It sounds like you loved the place.

MC:  Yeah! I really miss it too. I miss the energy of all those people and all of those wonderful concerts. They are trying to start it up again, I think.

AJ:    At the same spot?

MC:  No, not at the same spot. I think they are looking right now for a place and for funding.  There is a lot of interest in having that happen again. I know that Karl is very interested in trying to make it happen again.

AJ:    Tell him to come out here to the Olympic Mountains!

MC:  (laughs)

AJ:    Let's talk about your playing with Evan Parker.

MC:  I love it. I'm actually doing a lot of work right now with Barry Guy, with his groups and with his trio with Paul Lytton. And then we do occasional quartet performances with Evan. They are all fantastic musicians. Barry can play everything … exquisite Baroque music and beautiful lyrical things with incredible intensity and  power. He does it all. There is some work that I do with Scandinavian musicians. There was a duo performance with Bobo Stenson. I perform with Anders Jormin and Raymond Strid, who plays in a group called “Gush” with Mats Gustafsson. Anyway, I have a trio with the two of them (Anders and Raymond) and we have done a lot of things in Scandinavia.  We have one recording out called Spring Tour on Alice Records.  It came out around 4 or 5 years ago.  There is a trio recording on Intakt with Barry and Paul Lytton that comes out in October, called Odyssey, which features a few of Barry’s compositions. There are other European musicians who would like me to do projects. Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser, and Joelle Leandre are in a quartet with me called Quartet Noir, because we all dress in black all the time, I guess. (laughs)

AJ:    What is the difference between playing with American and European musicians?

MC:  I find that it really depends on the musicians. I would say that with the Scandinavian musicians, for example, that there is a particular sound that comes with their playing. A Nordic sound that is very interesting for me to play with; it is very lyrical, influenced by Scandinavian folk music. It really depends on who I am playing with. Different facets of what I do come out more strongly with different people. When I play with Tisziji, the influences of Coltrane emerge more strongly, although that can also come out with Barry and some of the others, you know? 

AJ:    Does the relationship play a role?

MC:  In the most fundamental sense … I can close my eyes and I listen to what people are saying, musically. And I respond to them the way I would respond to different people in conversation. Of course, you can’t separate the musician and the music, so in that sense it does have to do with the relationship. But I think it really has fundamentally to do with what people are saying and how they are saying it. The way you talk to each person is different, even though it is still you doing the talking. 

AJ:    You wrote something called “Elements of Improvisation” for Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton. It was featured in John Zorn’s book, Arcana. You discussed the use of phrasing as a very personal matter, like speech.

MC:  Exactly. The emphasis in a grouping might be on some of the more lyrical stuff. All of the groups incorporate all the different elements, intensities, whatever. Not that they are mutually exclusive either. I think all of the different elements of the conversation should be present, but the emphasis will vary. When I am playing someone’s written compositions, I try to always be respectful of the tone of the material. Like when I was playing with Braxton, I wouldn’t suddenly break out into a 12-bar blues! It would have been inappropriate to that conversation. I tend to play with people who compose. I’m interested in exploring people’s compositions. I try to play in a manner that makes sense to and uses their music. A lot of what I have done with Gary (Peacock) and Paul (Motian) has been centered around our and Annette’s compositions. We are getting into an area where we are experimenting with some freer stuff. Four of the compositions on the new album, Amaryllis, are complete improvisations. None of us had any idea what was going to happen.

AJ:    I love the results.

MC:  Yeah, me too. The title piece, “Amaryllis,” sounds completely written, but it’s not at all. Gary started a bass line, I came in with something, and we ended up playing the same lines at the same time. That’s a very intimate thing. Something that I think is not as easy to pull off in a performance. It can be done, but the intimacy of the recording studio was particularly conducive to complete improvisation. I would like to bring that more into performances too.

AJ:    Jazz bears so many different facets and attributes. Not only do you get wonderful music, as with Amaryllis, but you get to experience and draw your own conclusions about the musicianship that is occurring, and how eloquent it can be. I am surprised to learn that “Amaryllis” is a fully improvised composition.

MC:  Completely. I love it too; it’s my favorite piece on the album.

AJ:    Does this group plan on touring here?

MC:  Yes. We’ve done a couple of tours in Europe and hopefully we will be doing more.  Apparently there is some interest on the West Coast. Maybe we’ll have a chance to do something there next year.

AJ:    You are playing in Vancouver for the Du Maurier Jazz Festival.

MC:  Yes, June 20th through the 25th. I will play with the Barry Guy New Orchestra. Are you going to be in Vancouver?

AJ:    I’ll be making it for sure.

MC:  Well I hope that you come introduce yourself.

AJ:    Of course!

MC:  Where do you live again?

AJ:    I’m just outside of Seattle, about thirty miles away. Your piece in Arcana, can we talk about that?

MC:  Sure.

AJ:    Unless you are a musician, it’s a bit cryptic.

MC:  Yes.  Those were actually teaching notes that I wrote to myself, kind of as a guideline for improvisation workshops.

AJ:    You’ve said that lately most of your work has been in Europe and you tend to work with European musicians. Have you ever lived over there?

MC:  I haven’t, though I’ve thought about it, particularly about living in Sweden.

AJ:    Are you thinking about it right now?

MC:  Not too much right now. At the moment I feel somewhat settled here in my apartment in Woodstock. But you never know, I very much love Sweden and the society there. There are many things that I love about it and I can easily see living there under the right circumstances.

AJ:    How do you feel about our society?

MC:  Well, I have mixed feelings. It’s my home. It’s where I’m from. It’s my comfort zone. I speak the language. I have friends and family here. It’s familiar to me and relatively easy to be here. I wish we had a national health care system. I wish that there was more of a way for the various arts to be taught and performed here. I wish that the emphasis was on something other than economics.

AJ:    You’re sounding like an artist!

MC:  (laughs)  There are a lot of good things and a lot of bad things.  The culture in Europe is an older culture. Here we’re like a bunch of teenagers. I feel like we have a very adolescent society in a lot of ways. Yet, on the other hand, there is a lot of possibility and space and openness for things to happen that possibly couldn’t happen the same way in Europe, because it’s older and set in its ways to some extent.

AJ:    It seems like it is just a matter of sitting down at the table and agreeing with one another.

MC:  I think that there are wonderful things in Europe and wonderful things here in the States.  There are also very bad things in both places. I’d like to live in a society where there is a national health system, where there are more programs to promote the arts and educate young people and send American artists abroad. Other countries pay all of the expenses for their artists to travel and play concerts.

AJ:    Are you satisfied with the festival activity here in the U.S.?

MC:  I’m not satisfied with any of the activity here on our side. I think that there is tremendous potential here, tremendous interest among people. The audience is there.

AJ:    Is advertising the issue? 

MC:  It needs something, some kind of promotion… You can’t expect people to be excited about something they don’t even know exists. There is really a dearth of agents here, although I finally have an agent in Charlottesville, Virginia. I think the audience is there, the musicians are there, and inspired people are needed to bring those two things together. It takes a certain amount of inspiration to figure out how to tell people about this music and get them interested in it.  Every time I play in the States, the audience is very enthusiastic and want to know why they haven’t heard the music before or where they can find the records.

AJ:    People need to be reminded a year up the road that they experienced your show, if they don’t go out that week to buy your record.  There must be a way to do that.

MC:  Yeah, it’s all about getting the information out there. People are overwhelmed by the huge amount of information nowadays. If I’m going to go out somewhere in Woodstock, I’ll look in the newspaper and look at the weekly picks. Sure, I’ll look through the paper, but I might miss a lot of things if they are not highlighted somehow. Advertising and marketing are extremely important, and it exists for other types of music. There is no reason why it couldn’t also exist for this type of music.

AJ:    What would you say about the charge that the music is too heady?

MC:  I don’t agree with that at all. I feel that my music is very emotional. The first time you listen to it you might not — if you’ve never heard that kind of music before — understand it intellectually.  But you can still respond to it emotionally. You can be completely unfamiliar with this kind of music and still relate to it. Of course, the more you hear it the more sense it is going to make to you.

AJ:    Can we talk about your experiences in New Zealand?

MC:  It was a very transformational experience.  We spent three days on a Marae, an ancestral land of a group of Maori people. There are many of these Marae all through New Zealand. I was only on the North Island. There is a North Island and a South Island, and a very small Island called Stewart Island. The person who was taking care of the Marae I visited is a bass player. He arranged for my group to spend about three days on the Marae. I knew even before I went there that the experience was going to have much more to do with other things than it would with music. Although it certainly had to do with music. Immediately when I got there I felt very much at home. The people were incredibly welcoming of us as guests. I would say that they have a very spiritual society. Nothing is superficial there, everything has a meaning. Every action, every event has a meaning. We played a concert there -- we didn't just do the gig and leave -- we played the concert and then the Elder on that Marae, whose name is Tatu, got up and gave a speech. He talked about the music. He admitted at first not knowing what to make of this music. But he and others realized that they were hearing the wind and the sea and the birds… He spoke about what the music had said to him. And then they invited each one of us up to receive a gift that the women of the Marae had stayed up half the night, apparently, making for us. They make a lot of things out of flax and had woven small baskets for us with gifts in them. See, when you arrive on the Marae, you don't just walk on in. You are greeted and you have to say who you are and show that you are a friend. Because this was a very special occasion we were given like a dignitary or formal welcoming. There was a warrior who greeted us. The first voice heard on the Marae is supposed to be a woman's voice, so the women of each group called to each other as the groups walked toward one another. They sent one of the women out to be our representative.  The women call to each other and say who they are, and "Welcome." They prepared a huge feast for us. When we left, there was a three hour ceremony. I had been given a bird caller. The person who had given it to me wanted it to be blessed and named. The name would be given by the Elder. So the first thing that happened at this goodbye ceremony was having my bird caller blessed by Tatu. Just about every person there got up and spoke. I have never been to a Quaker meeting, but I imagine it must be something like that. Feelings were so strong, some of the men actually cried, including the warrior! The people felt like we had come there for a reason, like we had not come there only to perform. The people who belong to that Marae, who are part of a greater culture there, had been brought back together as a cultural group by our coming there. It was very emotional. I felt like I had reconnected with what basic human relationships are supposed to be. 

AJ:    This is fascinating. 

MC:  Yeah.  I took a filmmaker with me whose name is Burill Crohn. He shot forty hours of film of this whole thing, including an hour long solo concert that I did in Wellington. He is going to make a film of the material. It was very interesting because the same filmmaker, a few months after that, went to Ecuador to film some shamans. He was given basically the same greeting in Ecuador. 

AJ:    That says a lot for Kon-Tiki!

MC:  Yeah!

AJ:    It sounds like the music was just the surface for the people.

MC:    Yes, and for me, actually. It's more that the music was an entry into a larger experience --  it wasn't insignificant. A young New Zealand saxophonist by the name of Jeff Henderson put a band together called Urban Taniwha. Taniwha is the word for monster, but it really means more something like a guardian. Like a hot pool or spring will have a taniwha that guards it, that kind of thing. Jeff wrote some music based on Maori creation myths, focusing particularly on women. There was a young Maori woman singer in the band named Waimihi Hotero. I feel like they are my family now. I didn't want to leave; I felt like I suddenly had this instant family there.

AJ:    When are you going back?

MC:  Next October.

AJ:    Are we going to have access to this film? 

MC:  Hopefully, yes.

AJ:    I want to talk a little bit about the free scene, and the role of women in improvisation. I am very interested to know if you have been inspired or not by the fact that the free scene could probably use more women in it. As a young artist, were you aware of what people like Jeanne Lee and Carla Bley were doing?

MC:  No, I wasn't. Actually, I wasn't aware of anything that was going on in the scene until I was about 27 or 28. And the first people I heard were pretty much old men.

AJ:    As is apparent in your own beliefs, the male/female issue is, well, really not an issue. 

MC:  It's never been an issue. Never. I heard this music, I wanted to play it, and I went out and did it. It never occurred to me that I couldn't do it because I was a woman. What difference would that make?  It didn't seem to hold me back.

AJ:    Have you been approached by other young women musicians as a role model? What would you say to someone like that?

MC:  Yeah, sometimes. I always try to encourage them to go out and be true to their voice and true to what they hear. Just go ahead and do it. Because if you have convictions, and you act upon those convictions with conviction, I think what you have to say is going to get across. I don’t really deal with the male/female issue. It's not an issue for me. There are some young women performers who have approached me as a role model for advice or whatever. That always makes me feel good if I can encourage them. 

AJ:    It's as if you have unknowingly transcended an entire range of barriers that are recognized not just by fans, but also are perceived by a lot of your contemporaries.

MC:  If I really want to do something I don't see barriers. I just see what I want to do and I go ahead and do it. And I'm certain that barriers were there that I just wasn't aware of.

AJ:    Do you feel successful?

MC:  That depends on how you define success. If you define success as being able to do what I want and play with the people I want to play with, then I'd say largely, yes. I have done and am doing what I set out to do. Financially? Or in terms of quantity of work? I'd say that there is definite room for improvement there. But also I think I've had the opportunity to do a lot of things that many other people have not. For instance, playing for ten years with Anthony Braxton, and a lot of the other things that I have done; traveling, places I have gotten to see, people I have gotten to meet. I feel like I am really blessed in a way, like I have a charmed life. And yet, if there are any barriers that I am aware of, I'd say it has more to do with marketing and commercialism. Those are the barriers that I am aware of. And the barrier of ignorance. Because the arts in general in this country have to struggle and are regarded by the mainstream as entertainment, or frivolous. A doctor or a carpenter wants to get paid for his work, but God forbid that musicians should ask for some money that will enable them to pay their rent! (laughs) 

Something else about commercialism and marketing… It used to be mostly this way in America, but now it's going to be very much this way in Europe -- that there are a handful of big names, big stars created by the whole record industry that are really monopolizing the festivals and things like that. Now I don't blame that on the musicians, I blame it on the people who are trying to set this up.

AJ:    What do you mean by stars?

MC:  You see the same names. Like if you look at lists of summer festivals in jazz magazines, and the lineups there, you see the same names everywhere. It used to be that there was a large middle class of people who would also be involved. But now people are really concentrating on this small upper class. It's becoming almost as difficult to work over there as it is here.

AJ:    How about the expatriates over there? The Duke Jordans. The Steve Lacys. Are they on the same page with you, theoretically?

MC:  I'm not sure. The people who live over there can work there. And Steve is sort of an exception, because he's a big star.

AJ:    Do you feel like you get support from that group?

MC:  No, not particularly.

AJ:    I'm in no way trying to pigeonhole anybody, but do you think that the expatriates have forgotten about where they are from and who they were working with?

MC:  Probably not. Steve is very into Monk, you know. No, I don't think they have forgotten that. But I think a lot of them have thrown up their hands in disgust. Charlie Mariano, a friend of mine, has tried several times to come back and live in the States. He is a great saxophonist who is very revered over there. He's treated like a big star over there. And here, all he got was studio work. He just couldn’t make a living. He wanted to be with his daughters who live here, but he couldn't survive it. It's not surprising though, because there is very little way for anyone to find out about this music over here. Unless they are in New York and go to the Vision Festival or in Chicago for the Empty Bottle Festival. Or if they are lucky enough to be in one of the small handful of cities where there is somebody promoting this stuff. There are a lot of people spread out over this country who are interested in this music, but don't have any money to put anything together.

AJ:    What about the Universities?

MC:  That's difficult too.

AJ:    A little extra responsibility and a little extra promotion among educators would make a world of difference.

MC:  It also needs to happen at an early age. There is an age where people are not yet judgmental of things… well, the human mind is always judgmental, but I've seen two-year-old kids dancing to Anthony Braxton or Cecil Taylor… Being at an age where they don't know that they aren’t supposed to like something, or that something is "avant-garde" or weird, or…

AJ:    Yeah, that has to be reinforced. Especially in a culture like ours where you have Britney and Pepsi forced down your throat every time you turn on the television or radio. These things are difficult to escape.

MC:  That's what I'm saying: marketing and commercialism. And it's worse here, but it is definitely catching on in Europe. It's just about what's going to make money. It used to be more about the music people loved and wanted to hear. Also, in Europe, there is no longer a feeling that American musicians are the authentic ones. They are very proud, and rightfully so, of their own musicians. There is also much more of a connection to their own folk music. The percentage of Americans invited to play at European festivals is much less now. And the dollar is very high, so it is getting to be difficult. 

There is so much information available now that people are just overwhelmed, unless something just really hits them over the head.  People are less likely to get out of their easy chairs, turn off the TV or computer, and go hear a concert. 

AJ:    What would your recipe be for hitting somebody over the head?

MC:  Lots of promotion. Lots. Lots of really good articles where people talk about their music in as many publications as possible. Somebody has to have the imagination to make people interested. I definitely would not have been able to survive without Europe, and that should not be understated.

AJ:    Where are you going from here?

MC:  The canvas just kind of paints itself as you go along.  I am interested in finding out where new ideas will lead.  I hope to keep playing with the people I am playing with now, and to possibly rejuvenate some old musical relationships. I would like to do more things with Oliver Lake, Joseph Jarman, Reggie Workman… renew some of those relationships. Is that an answer to your question?

AJ:    That is a wonderful answer.

MC:  Good.

AJ:    I think that's about it.

MC:  Really??

AJ:    Yeah.

MC:    (laughs) Yay!!!

~ end of tapes