Last week brought the good news of Tomeka Reid’s McCarthur Fellowship. The cellist, composer and improviser is a major force in contemporary music. I had the honour of interviewing her ahead of her trio performance with Nicole Mitchell and Alexander Hawkins at Counterflows 2019. We discuss her quartet, the string trio Hear In Now, her work with the late, great jaimie branch, and the importance of the AACM.
Tomeka Reid: Counterflows Q&A
A hugely inventive and versatile cellist and composer, Tomeka Reid can go from bluesy melodies and funky vamps to modernist angularity and out-there abstraction. Raised in Maryland, Reid found her voice in the Chicago avant-garde, performing at Fred Anderson’s legendary Southside club, the Purple Lounge, and working with AACM members such as flutist Nicole Mitchell, drummer Mike Reed, and vocalist Dee Alexander. She now lives in New York. Her playing has graced some of the most exciting new jazz recordings of recent years, from Jaimie Branch’s Fly Or Die to Nicole Mitchell Black Earth Ensemble’s Xenogenesis Suite. Her own Quartet, featuring guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara released their superb debut in 2015, with a second to follow later this year. In addition to a number of duo and ensemble projects, she co-leads the string trio Hear In Now with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi. She works regularly with Anthony Braxton and is a member of the expanded Art Ensemble Of Chicago. At Counterflows she will perform solo, and in a new trio with Mitchell and pianist Alexander Hawkins.
Can you tell us how you got into music, and when you started playing cello?
I would say thank goodness for public [US state] school. My mom enrolled me into to a public school that had a French immersion programme and music was the one class during the day where we could speak English. I always loved music, but I think I was really excited to be in this class because it was just exhausting to be in a school where I was just learning this new language but the other kids had been learning for four, five years. So I started playing there. I didn't know what cello was, I just knew other girls were picking flute and violin and I wanted to take something else because I was kind of a tomboy. So me and friend picked cello.
You’re classically trained: when did jazz come into the equation?
Jazz didn't come into the equation until I was a college undergrad. I took an improv class, but I was a very shy person, so I think it's funny that I play jazz where you're called on to improvise all the time and people are watching your process. I was very shy when I took that class, but I had a mentor, Sais Kamalidiin, who was like, ‘come on, you should try play other music besides classical with your cello.’ And so in my last year of college I got together with him and he would give me some Rufus Reid bass lines and I learned how to read chord symbols, the basics for that. So I started doing that more. Summer 1998 I spent in Chicago. That's where I met Nicole Mitchell and she'd come to be a best friend or sister or mentor. We were playing in this classical symphony orchestra that summer and she was also trying to get me to improvise, so I'd say between the two of them, that's when I was like, ‘okay let me try this.’
Although there’s a strong tradition of cello in jazz and improvised music, it’s perhaps not as widely recognised as it should be. When did you become aware of players like Abdul Wadud and Deirdre Murray?
My mentor Sais Kamalidiin told me about Abdul Wadud, and then a great bass player in Chicago let me hear a Abdul Wadud/Julius Hemphill record called Live In New York. I didn't really understand what he was doing at the time, but I was drawn to the sounds that he was making, so I started listening to his music more. I'm not sure how I learned about Deirde Murray, but from learning about the AACM I learned about Henry Threadgill and then I think somebody said ‘hey, Threadgill has a cello player in his band, Deirdre Murray.’ So I remember trying to find some information on her. I had those recordings, and then I had got her duo with Fred Hopkins, Stringology. We've since been in contact, I've been to her house a few times. She's great, a really wonderful person She's great, a really wonderful person. She stopped playing in the 90s; she's composing for theatre now.
Do you see yourself in that tradition?
Yes, I do see myself in that tradition. Hopefully in the same way that I've been inspired by the cellists that came before me, maybe some cellists might be inspired by my work, or at least encouraged to keep cello a vibrant force in jazz and improvised music. I think what appeals to me about the cello is that it's such a versatile instrument. It can be the lead instrument, it can be the bass, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic: it can fill all those different roles all the time, any time, or it can be just one of those roles, and strictly one of those roles. And it can be played pizzicato and arco, or prepared in certain ways. So I really love the versatility of the instrument.
You moved to Chicago in 2000. How did you become involved with the scene there?
I was obsessed with moving to Chicago because I had visited when I was about seventh grade, and then I had a high school friend who went to North Western for undergrad. So one summer I went to Chicago and I joined a community classical orchestra and I remember being really excited, because most of the time my orchestral experience has been where I'm the only black person, or one of two. In this orchestra there were around five. So I thought, gosh, I'm definitely moving to Chicago! I studied abroad in Austria for a semester and then I went back to the University of Maryland where I was an undergrad. But I knew I really wanted to move Chicago, so five days after graduation I moved there. I reconnected with Nicki [Nicole Mitchell] and was playing in her ensembles and getting more familiar with the scene. Going to Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge in the South Side, learning about the AACM.
What have you learned from working with AACM alumni like Mike Reed, Dee Alexander and Roscoe Mitchell?
Dee Alexander, she always talks about losing your inhibitions. I think her big influence was a great reedist and composer, 'Light' Henry Huff, who unfortunately left the planet at a young age. But he was a great influence on her life and she would always say how he said, ‘just let yourself go with the music.’ In playing in her ensembles, she would say, ‘you guys have total autonomy.’ She would never tell us what to do, or what to play, and I feel the same thing in Nicki's group or Roscoe's: no one tells you what to play, which for me at the beginning was a little bit frustrating because I was just so unfamiliar with the form. As a cellist, it felt like the horn players knew exactly what they were to do, or the drummer knew what their role was. I felt that I never knew what my role was and I feel that in each of these groups they gave me the flexibility to discover what my role was, or to create my own role. They were never strictly telling me what to do. In many situations that was really challenging because it was a lot of stuff to learn and I feel like I'm still learning. It's always an ongoing process, but they were like, ‘do it yourself, figure it out.’
Your album with Nicole Mitchell and Mike Reed, Artifacts, celebrates the composers of the AACM. How did it come about?
Artifacts Trio started because I wanted to pay homage to the AACM during the 50th year, but I was unable to make any of the scheduled events that they had. I've collaborated with Nicki closely from the beginning, and I joined Mike's group [Loose Assembly] five years after I played with Nicki. They've been really great supporters, always encouraging me, especially when I had many, many doubts about what I’m doing. And sometimes I still do and they just help me out there. So I wanted to pay homage to the ACCM and it was my thanks to them [Mitchell and Reed] too. We thought, ‘why don't we do pieces by AACM composers that we really love to hear?’ Maybe this would be an opportunity to bring more audiences to their music and for us to explore these pieces and try to build another canon of music.
You enjoy the combination of in and out playing, structured composition and improvisation: was the Quartet album an attempt to bring these approaches together?
Yes. I feel like a lot of people are surprised by the music that's on there because it's got a lot of tunes, and I often play in freely improvised situations, but I feel like it can all fit together, so I don't try to really separate it. Maybe it's an attempt [to bring them together], but it's also just what I enjoy. I like tunes and I like freely improvised situations.
Your music can really swing. How important is groove?
Very important. I have always loved dancing. When I was a kid I used to come home every day after school and dance for an hour before I started doing my homework. And I was not a trained dancer or anything like that, but I've always been into dancing. Which was hard in the free jazz/free improv situation because nobody wants someone dancing!
Can you tell us how Hear In Now came together?
I like to say that we were like The Monkees in that an Italian promoter knew about us three individually and thought that maybe we would enjoy playing with each other. We had our first gig on my birthday, December 5, 2009, and I thought, ‘oh this is a sign!’ I remember I was in the middle of grad school, sitting on the plane trying to write two 50 page papers, trying to go to this gig that was literally less than 48 hours - we flew there, played the gig, and flew back at 2am. At the time, I remember staying up with Mazz and listening to the recording and enjoying it. Then we just said, hey let's keep this going, and we flew Silvia to New York in 2010 and recorded the [first] record. I can't believe it'll be 10 years in December. We need to get another record out - we only have two - but it's just hard when we all have these different projects.
Why did you found the Chicago Jazz String Summit?
I founded CJSS because I remember my frustration in 2010 at seeing all these concerts in Chicago that featured the trumpet summit, the saxophone summit, the drum summit. I was like, ‘what about the string players?’ I know there's not a lot of string players, but there are enough, I think, to make a summit, or at least maybe if we started something it would encourage other string players to improvise more or become curious about it, or maybe other instrumentalists might be encouraged to include a string player in their ensemble. So I founded that in 2013 and then in ‘14 and ‘15 I really started touring a bunch so I wasn't able to fundraise, and those two years it was dormant. But in ‘16 I thought I don't want this to end, I think it's an important event and people seem to enjoy it, so I was able to get it started again. We've had one every year, so this year will be the fifth one. I think it's important because it highlights string players and the music. We pay homage to a legendary string player every year. Last year we did Didier Lockwood, the first year we did Stuff Smith. In 2016 I was able to invite Abdul Wadud to Chicago and have him be a guest. This year we're doing Akua Dixon. I do a slide show before so that people can see that we do have a tradition, we do have a legacy in this music, and also so that people can know about those who came before us, the legends in the music.
You’ve recently made two very different duo records: a jazz album with saxophonist Nick Mazarella, and a free improvisation with drummer Filippo Monico. What kind of challenges did each present for you?
When I think about it, both were made in the same year [2015]. Nick Mazarella and I have played together in a lot of different situations and we both loved the Abdul/Julius Hemphill duo records so we thought, ‘hey, this would be a cool duo thing to do, let's just try it.’ And for me, I'd been wanting to play solo, I'd been wanting to play a smaller context outside of the quartet, so this is my first foray into doing that and documenting it then releasing it. And then with Filippo, I know him through Silvia Bolognesi. That recording was done in Milano, and when I was basically needing a place to stay she said, ‘oh, you can stay at Filippo's house’, but she was like, ‘hey, he might wanna record with you’. So I'm like ‘okay’, I'm really down to collaborate and improvise with people. We recorded in the basement of his building. I saw him again in 17 and he gave me a flash drive of the recording. I listened to it and I really liked the sound I was hearing. I feel maybe with the drum record there's more equal contribution. I think we were going for that in the Mazarella-Reid record but sometimes I went into the bass player role.
You’re just off a tour with the great Anthony Braxton…
I really enjoy playing Braxton's music. I'm always bummed when I have to miss the gig. It's hard to be in contact with him in general, so those are moments to learn from him or just be inspired by his aura, his presence, his positivity. I feel like every time I do a gig with them, it's like you're going to a mini-school, mini-camp the few days you're together and really just going over the process and learning his method of improvisation, his musical concept. And he has such an amazing concept. His larger pieces, and how he incorporates improvised material in an orchestral setting: it all fits together because he has such a strong concept, and a clear way of delivering that concept. What inspires me about Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell is they're like, ‘you just keep going.’ Even at their age, they come to this music with the excitement that you have the first time. They're still super eager to compose, super eager to perform, and they just keep working. Those guys, they are really in it. There's no retiring, they love this and they just keep going. It's really inspiring to see that.
What might we expect from the trio at Counterflows?
I really have enjoyed playing with Nicole and with Alexander separately, so I'm excited about all three of us getting together. They're really incredible improvisers. I really like Alexander's approach. I feel that sometimes you can play with certain harmonic instruments and they continuously play, but he really is a great communicator and listener, so I've always enjoyed playing with him, and just having conversations with him, he's such a smart guy. I always look forward to the opportunity just to meet up and play or talk to him.
Stewart Smith