Feed The Loas

Hello after a bit of a break from any updates. I wanted my interview with Ned Sublette (see below) to sit for awhile as the first thing people see when they visit this blog as I put a lot of work into the questions, Ned put a lot of thought into his answers, and the whole subject of New Orleans had weighed so heavily on my soul throughout August.

The whole experience of reading, researching, and brooding in order to prepare questions for Ned’s interview felt like an extension of the process of composing music. Actually, I can’t really tell you if there is any difference between one process as compared to the other. I’m not a gifted writer, but I do enjoy learning, studying, and sharing what I feel is important information with the world. So with all of that in mind, I decided to reach out to a couple more creative people I admire to see if they’d be agreeable to answering some questions for this blog. I’m happy to say that next up I will be posting an interview with saxophonist, composer, and writer Matana Roberts. Matana’s work – particularly her sound narrative Coin Coin (more on this soon) – takes a lot of inspiration from her family’s history as it unfolded in the Southern U.S. So her interview and Ned’s will more than likely compliment each other in significant ways.

In other news...I am working on a new piece for four guitars (electric or classical) and bass (electric or acoustic). After several weeks of getting a grip on the instrumentation and analyzing and refining a chord progression I had come up with without much thought at the piano, the piece seems to be writing itself. That doesn’t mean its writing itself QUICKLY. Just steadily.

As always, thank you for reading, commenting, and for just being cool and supportive.