Muhal Richard Abrams is to jazz like Ché Guevera was to revolution. He never stops moving and he never stops imagining and striving towards the impossible. It’s no wonder then that Abrams life work will be celebrated at this years Vision Festival. For the last 15 years the Vision Festival has celebrated jazz greats while at the same time creating a venue that encourages pushing the boundaries of what is possible in jazz performance. Over the course of his life, Abrams has worked as a performer, educator, composer and advocate for jazz music.
A dance installation by Jason Jordan & Stations at the 2009 Vision Festival.
For me, jazz stands as the paradigm for revolutionary performance. As Terry Eagleton notes, “though each performer contributes to the greater good of the whole, [one] does so not by some grim-lipped self sacrifice, but simply by expressing [themselves].” By becoming better at the thing [they] love, the jazz artist learns from and enhances the abilities of [their] co-performers. If this isn’t a model for revolutionary activity, I don’t know what is! A revolution occurs not because one person decides a revolution should occur, but because a group of people are driven to see the world as it might be, and not as it is. One person is pushed to take risks by others who are just as willing to take similar risks, and together the revolutionaries become better than they could otherwise be.
A portrait of Matthew Shipp, done by Jeff Schlanger, a sketch artist who creates many portraits like this, each year at the Vision Festival
Looking at the schedule of events, the Vision Festival clearly exemplifies this revolutionary spirit. Young, old, and new artists alike are brought together to explore and expand upon the avant-garde. As a performer and a performance scholar, I’m most excited about the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. The orchestra will perform in a new conception, as Little Huey’s Sextet. William Parker, the founder of the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra notes, “it is the role of the artist to incite political, social, and spiritual revolution, to awaken us from our sleep and never let us forget our obligations as human beings, to light the fire of human compassion. Sounds that enlighten are infinite. We can put no limit to joy, or on our capacity for love.”
Little Huey’s Sextet seems to be envisioned as an ongoing experimental project that looks at Jazz (with a capital ‘J’) as a developing character, essentially embodying the ethos of jazz. By adding a significant theatrical element, Little Huey’s Sextet doesn’t just perform jazz; Little Huey’s sextet envisions what jazz could be through what can best be described as a Boalian approach to community performance.
Peter Brötzmann's "Full Blast." Brötzmann is a fluxus artist turned jazz performer. The link from fluxus art to jazz performance is pretty solid if we think about it, yet there doesn't seem to be a strong precedence for this type of work. This image was form the 2009 Vision Festival.
What marks the free jazz movement more than the music is the fluid nature of jazz. Individual jazz performances flow from other performances, and entire movements will flow into and out of other movements, just as tributaries, bayous and canals flow off from their main source to influence and effect other parts of the landscape. With its focus not resting on either the old or the new jazz artists but instead on the possibilities that exist from a collaborative exchange between the artists and the community, the Vision Festival embodies the fluidity of jazz. As such, this year’s festival is aptly titled “the creative option.” In obvious contrast to the notion of the “corporate option,” this title suggests that the purpose of a festival like this is not just for people to hear music. Hell, that’s what we go to concerts for! The creative option is something that stands against the corporate option which means that the festival seeks to move us away from notions of corporate sponsorship and towards notions of community sponsorship. If you ask me, that’s a pretty big task, and I for one look forward to seeing how Vision Festival 15 will handle it.
Like any good festival, the Vision Festival is packed full of too much to do that you’re going to want to do. My suggestion is to simply go, and embrace the jazzness of the festival. Allow yourself to be pulled and pushed by whatever rhythm of the festival calls you, and don’t be afraid if you begin to feel the urge to create something new yourself. I think that’s the point.
Vision Festival 15 runs from June 20th through the 30th at the following New York locations: A Gathering of the Tribes, The Local 269, Campos Plaza Playground, Drom, Abrons Arts Center, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, and Le Poisson Rouge. For more information, check out the VF 15 website: http://www.visionfestival.org/
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Photo Credits: Ken Weiss
Video Credit: Nick Reuchel
Jazz is to music just like tap is to dance: a natural, free flowing, American expressionism. Oh, and like sidewinder is to missiles.
I like the “the creative option”. I wish that shit had been on the table before we went into Afghanistan.