Winter Tour Diary

February 3, 2010 by Rafiq

A belated Happy New Year, everyone!

When co-founder Seth Rosner first asked me to become the blog’s editor-at-large, he did so with the goal of creating “an opportunity to let people know where a student of this music’s head is at.” With that in mind, this post is documentation of the tour that I recently completed with my ensemble, The Rafiq Bhatia Collective, which also features saxophonist Jeremy Viner, trombonist Corey King, bassist Jackson Hill, and drummer Alex Ritz.

Those of you who have followed my previous posts have noticed my concern for the state of exposure to creative music among general audiences, as well as my concern for the lack of opportunities for young musicians and ensembles to develop necessary skills. In addition to bringing those issues to light, I’m doing my best to be a part of the solution, and am currently focused on finding ways to leverage the existing infrastructure for the presentation of creative music to create opportunities for community outreach.

Armed with support from the Oberlin Creativity & Leadership Project’s Conservatory Grants Supporting Imagination and Excellence (CIGSIE), the Collective toured Boston, New York, and North Carolina, performing and speaking in schools and clubs. Below is a (long) account of the whole affair – enjoy!

Preface—Rehearsals: Brooklyn, NY

On the morning of the first rehearsal, I found myself busy attending to logistics. An hour before rehearsal was scheduled to start, I was still at the local stationary store making copies of the sheet music, when I was interrupted by a phone call from Jackson. In a voice that brought to mind the soliloquies from The Blair Witch Project, I was informed that Jackson’s bass was in pieces. Built in 1870 and purchased less than a year before, the instrument had slipped out of his grasp as he was walking down the steps of a friend’s apartment building. The bass hit the wall at the bottom of the stairwell, causing the neck to split and forcing a vulnerable piece of the side inward. [As a courtesy to the reader, I must immediately mention that the bass is reparable, and that the $3,000+ in damages is going to be covered entirely by insurance, which so far has cost a total of ~$150.]

This setback was the first of many on the tour to be remedied promptly by a viable, albeit temporary, solution: Jeremy was able to find a bass for us to borrow for the day, delaying rehearsal by a mere hour (special thanks to Jeff Ratner). Jackson later found another bass to borrow for our dates in Boston and New York.

Even the tragedy of the morning was offset by the immediate chemistry we began to achieve during rehearsal. Every band member old (Jackson and I have been playing together for 5+ years) and new (it was Jeremy’s first day in the group) had put the necessary amount of time and effort into learning the music, and I was extremely grateful to have two days for us to work together to realize and refine the compositions. Additionally, while I have been working for two years to seek out individuals who are best suited to inspire, challenge, and shape the trajectory of the music and band on and off the bandstand, I was very pleased to find that my arrangements for the new instrumentation (featuring a heavy low-end: tenor saxophone and trombone, in addition to deep bass and big drums), in tandem with the creative minds of the musicians, seemed to be propelling us into new and interesting territory.

Day One: Cambridge, MA

We congregated at Jeremy’s with the intention of grabbing a quick breakfast and hitting the road. However, as we approached Alex’s car with drums in tow, we realized that the rear passenger-side window had been smashed in. Alex’s suitcase (which he had mistakenly left in plain view in the back) was taken, but aside from some clothes, nothing irreplaceable was lost.

Although the police station was a mere two blocks away, the boys in blue took over an hour to arrive. The confusion that ensued delayed us significantly enough to force a cancellation of our afternoon engagement with the youth team at Close To Home, a domestic violence prevention initiative in Dorchester, MA. However, we again had little trouble finding a fix—Jeremy had been working to insulate his windows, and happened to have window sheeting on hand in his apartment! After a few failed attempts at finding a replacement window and an intensive taping operation by Alex and Jeremy, we were ready to depart. Thankfully and amazingly, our mock-window didn’t let any air in, allowing us to make it to Boston and back without too intimate an encounter with the elements.

We arrived in Cambridge just in time to check in to our hotel (thanks to the Oberlin – otherwise, we would have had to settle for far less comfortable accommodations) and immediately head to our performance at Outpost 186. Despite the fact that we have yet to release an album and that none of us know many people in the Boston area, we were pleased to find ourselves performing for an intimate audience. This was undoubtedly thanks to the decision of The Boston Globe’s Kevin Lowenthal to include us in his weekly “editor’s picks”. Although marked by its share of first-performance kinks, we all felt that the concert was another step in the right direction.

Day Two: Brookline, MA

After seeking out breakfast/coffee, we made our way to Brookline High School, home of Carolyn Castellano’s Creative High School Music program. A drummer and graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Castellano started Creative High School Music as a way to connect high school students with current trends in improvised music. Recognizing the reverse-chronological perspective on music shared by many young people (see my first entry for this blog), the program focuses on the collaborative process, with students arranging instrumental versions of their favorite music, as well as selections from past masters. The program has been visited and supported by such luminaries as Andrew D’Angelo (who I believe is also a graduate of the program), Jim Black, Chris Speed, and John Hollenbeck, and we were happy to have the opportunity to interact with and learn from such inspiring students. After playing a couple of pieces, we spoke at length with the class, doing our best to answer questions about composition, orchestration, internalizing rhythmic forms, and ways to structure improvisation. We also stole the opportunity to receive feedback from Carolyn on our approach, and she gave us a number of very useful pointers, many of which we successfully employed later in the tour.

We spent the afternoon getting a taste of Anna’s Taqueria, Boston’s most highly recommended Burrito spot, and afterwards I joined Alex in his quest to replace his stolen wardrobe.

In the evening, we returned to Brookline High School for a performance exchange with the Creative High School Music Ensemble. Their performance, consisting solely of a collective arrangement of “Gobbledigook” by Sigur Rós, revealed a seasoned and finely grained ensemble—a display of orchestrational nuance and improvisatory wit. We followed with our set, which was beginning to take shape…

Day Three: Brooklyn, NY

Jack and Jeremy left for New York early in the morning (due to Jeremy’s obligation to attend a photoshoot at Juilliard), and the rest of us drove straight from Boston to the soundcheck at Barbes. After realizing that we had set up incorrectly (the venue no longer permits bands to place drums near the side door due to cranky neighbors), we were forced to re-arrange ourselves. Upon completing the move, we realized that a sizable audience was present, and that it was past time for us to start.

Perhaps it was this immediacy that set the tone for the evening—something pushed the band further into the void that night. We found ourselves approaching the thresholds that we had been striving to reach the past two nights, and the music that resulted was a glimpse at what may lay beyond. By this point, I had begun feeling more comfortable in my newfound role in the rhythm section (we have previously employed a pianist), and Jack, Alex, and I were beginning to synthesize the building blocks of a common vocabulary. Similarly, although Corey and Jeremy have been playing together in various contexts for years, this was the first night where they seemed to find that connection in the repertoire.

Day Four: New York and Brooklyn, NY

After a relaxing morning, I set out for the East Village to meet Mr. Lee Koonce, Executive Director of the Third Street Music School Settlement. As the oldest community music school in the country, Third Street provides excellent arts instruction to thousands of young children who may otherwise never have such an opportunity. It was a great honor to meet with Mr. Koonce. I spoke with him at length about my goal to create opportunities for young ensembles to be able to develop through community outreach, increasing access to creative music among the general public. He was very interested in our work and ideas, and generously provided feedback, criticisms, and suggestions. I came away from our conversation concomitantly inspired and daunted—the challenges are immense, but so are the prospects!

In the afternoon, the band met for setup and soundcheck for a private audio/video recording at 58 North Six Media Labs, the Williamsburg-based creative outpost of the great trombonist/composer Josh Roseman. We met the crew and were given a tour of the amazing space, which Mr. Roseman has been working to develop into a comfortable yet state-of-the-art space for creative musicians to document their work in the audio-visual medium.

The space was fantastic, and the audience was filled with both friends and special guests. However, this proved to be one of the most challenging performances of the tour. I personally found myself nervous in the unfamiliar live-recording environment, and learned later that I had not been alone. The band limped through the set; we made mistakes in the most unlikely places, and generally struggled to generate momentum. Nevertheless, people seemed to have a favorable opinion of the performance, and upon listening back to the recording, I realized that we had some good moments and some great footage. The proprietor himself was there for the duration of the event and expressed enthusiasm for what we were doing. Afterwards, he was kind enough to offer us his continued support, and gave me some very useful feedback and advice. After noticing that I was disappointed with the way things had gone, Mr. Roseman chuckled and gave me a reminder: “Recording sessions are like car accidents—if you walk away in one piece, it went pretty well”.

Day Five: Raleigh, NC

My alarm went off at 5:50 a.m., signaling the start of a very long day. We congregated in Park Slope, and split a cab to LaGuardia International Airport to catch our flight to my hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. Our booking on such an early flight was on account of our commitment to present a workshop/performance at William G. Enloe High School (where Jack and I met and began working together). Although we had heard tales of unwieldy lines resulting from the foiled terrorist plot just weeks before, check-in and security were a breeze, and we found ourselves eating breakfast near the terminal within a few short minutes of arriving.

Over breakfast, we distilled what we had learned from our last masterclass experience, as well as the advice that we had received from Ms. Castellano and Mr. Koonce, into a refined plan of action for our workshop in the afternoon. Having an idea of the level of knowledge and interest in the subject to expect, we chose talking points that we thought would best engage the students and strategies for including them in our music.

The flight over was smooth, and arrived on time. We were counting on a punctual arrival, as our schedule was extremely tight. Thankfully, with 10 minutes to spare, we managed to make it to Bojangles Famous Chicken n’ Biscuits, the Raleigh locations of which I can safely say serve some of my favorite food in the world. Disguised as a fast-food restaurant, Bojangles consistently delivers southern specialties soaked in flavor, and the location on New Bern Avenue is something of a cultural center for the inner-city community. While Jack and Alex are well acquainted with “the tase” (pronounced with a hard “s”), as we jokingly refer to it, Jeremy and Corey were eager to see if our incessant hyping was justified. The answer is best expressed by the fact that nobody spoke during the time we were eating, and that Corey asked if we could go again immediately after the workshop.

Word of our presence had spread quickly, and our back-to-back masterclasses were filled with students, as well as a few old teachers of ours. We performed for both groups, did our best to give general explanations of the music (both for musicians and non-musicians), and answered a variety of questions. Additionally, we tested a suggestion from Ms. Castellano: we asked student musicians to join us in playing one of our compositions. Ms. Castellano had noted that younger students often feel as though they don’t understand the sort of techniques that creative musicians employ when composing and improvising, and that this approach tends to help those students see themselves in the music. The suggestion was extremely effective, and we enjoyed seeing the students gracefully work their way through the music.

In the evening, we regrouped for soundcheck at Marsh Woodwinds. The longstanding woodwind and brass retail/repair shop is owned by saxophonist Rodney Marsh. When Marsh moved the location of the store across town, he made sure to find a space with an upstairs, which he has converted into the best local venue for jazz and experimental music. Marsh provides use of the venue as a service to the community, allowing bands to take everything they make at the door, and goes out of his way every time to prepare tables worth of hors d’oeuvres, desserts, as well as lots of soda, coffee, beer, and wine. We were honored to be performing in such a great place, and the band immediately felt at home.

At close to one hundred people, the audience that night was the largest that we had played for over the course of the tour, and we were later informed that it was the largest audience that had the venue had ever had. From the first note, the band was focused and incisive, and we rebounded from the difficulties of the previous evening with our strongest performance of the tour. Those listening were visibly and audibly moved, and we came away from the experience with a sense of purpose.

We closed the tour in good spirits, inspired by the results of our efforts and aware of how far we have yet to travel. I’m already working on planning the next one…

posted February 3, 2010 by Rafiq

A Musing on Purpose

November 12, 2009 by Rafiq

This has been my most extended absence from the Blog yet, but I assure you that I’ve been productive since my last post. Much of my time has been spent juggling my research in the field of neuroeconomics with trying to learn as much about music and the world as I can (while I’m still in this chrysalis), but I’ve also been giving a lot of thought to what I should do when I get out of here.

That I will make music is a given—I can’t help it. But by what means? As many musicians young and old are quick to note, the opportunities to perform appear to be growing scarcer by the year, and mentor-figures like Art Blakey, Miles Davis, and Betty Carter have no replacements in modern times (though many artists are doing their best). The most significant obstacle in making this decision for me has always been the question of purpose. I’ve always found it difficult to consider a career in music when reminded that I could just as easily use the advantages of my upbringing and education—privileged, thanks to the hard work of my parents, who came to this country with next to nothing—to more directly benefit the lives of others. I expect to graduate in May with a degree in economics and cognitive science (and, much more importantly, a perspective born out of exposure to a liberal arts education). Why not use this knowledge to work in economic development, for example?

Part of this difficulty undoubtedly comes from my perspective as a first-generation American, raised by immigrants. I’ve found a lot to identify with and look up to in the examples of two of the pioneering South Asian American voices in creative music, Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa, and their article, “Sangha: Collaborative Improvisations on Community”, is no exception. As Iyer notes:

…I came to realize that there was something quintessentially western, and even American, about this myth of self-actualization — the idea that you would find your true calling, and it would be what you love to do, and what you’re great at doing, and that would be where you belong in the world. That sort of picture really presupposes a lot of social freedom and mobility that people in the culture of our ancestors didn’t generally have. Their lives were bound by familial obligations and duties, and social stratification that went hand-in-hand with what your career choice was… I think that self-actualization bug was something we all got bitten by, having grown up here. But it was so alien to my parents, really, the idea that you would actually do what you want. Who cares what you want? It’s not about you!

Of course, my experience has been distinct from that articulated by Iyer and Mahanthappa. To state the obvious, we are different people, and I am approximately half their age—they are a part of an earlier generation, and have been fighting trivialization and ignorance since before I was born. But I also have a different history. The last two generations of my family were born into the Indian diasporic community in East Africa, which has its roots in the importation of South Asians as manual laborers by European settlers to build the region’s infrastructure during the late nineteenth century. They had to improvise their way through that environment, but did so quite successfully by building their own institutions of business and community. Following the East African revolutions, however, conditions became hostile for South Asians in the region—most notably, Idi Amin expelled an estimated 75,000 Asian Ugandans in 1972. When the British left, they took with them the experience from positions previously denied to colored people in the region, and the quality of education suffered immensely. While still in high school, my father snuck out of his home country of Tanzania in pursuit of a better life.

While my ancestry shares the community-centered viewpoint described by Iyer above, there is a difference—the idea of “hoping to make some difference in the world” mentioned by Mahanthappa is a fundamental ethic, but (I believe) in a different sense than he meant it. By “difference in the world”, I mean the belief that it is one’s responsibility to take full advantage of every opportunity one is granted, and to use the resulting benefits in the service of others. This is born of a longstanding tradition of civil service as voluntary and professional work alike. But where does this idea extend to the clearly related one expressed by Mahanthappa above? I believe that the same values that compel us to work towards providing the less fortunate with economic and educational empowerment also suggest joining the ranks of social and community activists, journalists, and artists. I see a clear path to Strange Fruit, A Change Is Gonna Come, People In Sorrow, Mississippi Goddamn, Machine Gun, and In What Language?—indeed, calls-to-action from artists have inspired some of the most powerful social movements of the last century.

In any case, it is clear to me that one area in which creative musicians can take action is in the service of the music itself. For readers who are not aware of the debate I mentioned in my previous post (yes, it was a long time ago), it is elaborated upon here.

In June, the National Endowment for the Arts released its latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which was conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau. In early August, the Wall Street Journal’s drama critic Terry Teachout penned Can Jazz Be Saved?, a controversial article intended to sound alarms about the implications of the NEA report for jazz audiences. Teachout observed that the number of adult Americans who had been to at least one jazz concert in the past year fell 3% from 2004, that attendance among middle-aged Americans has dropped 30% since 2002, and, most worrisome, that the median age of adult jazz concert-goers has increased from 29 in 1982 to 46 in 2008. In short, the numbers suggest that the audience is growing older, and that the older audience is growing less interested. Teachout asserted that this trend could be attributed to a shift in public perception of jazz as a “high art”.

Yet more scrutiny reveals that perhaps Teachout’s conclusions were at least partially misguided. As mentioned previously, his article was very controversial and received numerous responses from within the jazz community. As I mentioned in my last entry, Teachout was asked to debate Vijay Iyer on WNYC’s Soundcheck. Iyer pointed to an alternative hypothesis—rather than the accessibility of jazz being the issue, these numbers may suggest that the issue is access to jazz concerts. He noted that the NEA study presumes that the number of jazz concerts in America has stayed constant, leading to the false conclusion that interest in the music has declined. As one of creative music’s most in-demand performers, Iyer hypothesized instead that it is the number of opportunities to see live jazz in America that has declined precipitously.

Besides the fact that we are in the midst of a recession and that the numbers point to an overall decline in participation in the arts in general (with jazz being no exception), Iyer also called attention to the critical fact that the median age of Americans was 30 in 1980, but has subsequently risen to 38, which partially explains the rise in the median age of the live jazz audience. Moreover, Iyer illuminated another likely catalyst: arts education. Music education was historically defunded under Regan, but more recently, Bush’s No Child Left Behind act worked to disincentivize arts education, as teachers were incentivized to “teach to the test”, which only covers reading and math. In a study by the Council on Education Policy just six months after the bill was enacted, 71% of school principals surveyed attested to the fact that they were forced to take focus away from at least one subject, and 22% had already witnessed a direct decline in art or music instruction .

Perhaps I’m biased by my own experiences. I’ve repeatedly noticed friends and acquaintances growing interested in the music through exposure to my music collection, and virtually all of them have been thankful for the introduction. Through my steady work at The Feve, an Oberlin mainstay that is kind enough to pay us to present whatever kind of music we want twice a month, the growing and loyal audience—composed of students and faculty from the College and Conservatory and residents of the town of Oberlin alike—is a testament to the enduring relevance of this music. These trends are not unique to Oberlin, however; I’ve have seen the same results in venues throughout the east coast and in the mid-west during the two tours I completed last spring, and have encountered it in abundance before arriving here through performances in North Carolina and New York.

Regardless of how we interpret these numbers, an obvious conclusion is that, as young musicians, we should be working to broaden the exposure of the music, even when the conditions aren’t ideal. One avenue is clearly the public education system, but there are undoubtedly others. We need to find a way to leverage the existing infrastructure for creative music in parallel with that for social outreach to create opportunities when there are none—a tradition that has been fundamental to the African American experience and to creative improvised music (just look at the AACM). After all, in a time where there aren’t many other opportunities for growth through performance, the answer may be to develop ensembles while developing the future audiences for them.

posted November 12, 2009 by Rafiq

Jazz Isn’t Dead; It’s Just Invisible

August 27, 2009 by Rafiq

For those of you who have been following the interviews I’ve been conducting over the past year, I’d like to direct your attention to a very relevant conversation that has been threading its way through the media lately.

In early June, the National Endowment of the Arts released a report concerning the declining health of American participation in the arts. Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout zeroed in on the jazz numbers, igniting a rift amongst the community by penning the controversial article “Can Jazz Be Saved?”.

Anyone concerned with these issues should check out the audio from yesterday’s edition of WNYC’s Soundcheck, where Teachout was debated by Pi Recordings artist Vijay Iyer.

posted August 27, 2009 by Rafiq