From Starving Artist to Tenured Professor

It's been a long and bumpy road, but I'm happy to say that this will be my first semester of teaching at LIU Brooklyn with tenure. And as itinerant musicians, the whole idea of being in one place for the rest of one's life can seem pretty scary, and downright unlikely--unless, of course, it's a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan.

When you're awarded tenure nothing magical happens like a halo appearing over your head or the dark clouds beginning to part, allowing the illuminating sun to shine. There was, however, a sense of relief that came from knowing that looking for employment was not something I was going to have to think about for awhile--especially considering how broke I was back in early 2000. I remember searching Craigslist for odd jobs as a part of my daily routine. It was during this period that I had to sell my tenor sax. Dark times, to say the least.

And the fact that I ended up as a tenured university professor after all of this, still leaves me scratching my head in disbelief. For most of my life I had done very little teaching. As a matter of fact, I took one education course while I was at the Berklee College of Music back in the 1980s, and I ended up dropping it after the second week; it was starting to conflict with my rigorous practice routine. As a young student who really wanted to play, the thought of ending up in a classroom with an overhead projector and a pointer stick, was unthinkable.

It really wasn't until the mid-1990s, after I had switched to the soprano that I taught with any regularity. And as you can imagine it was more out of financial need than the need to share my knowledge and wisdom with the youth of tomorrow. I actually used to wish I had a few soprano students. That would have been fun. At the time, I don't think I played it well enough that other sax players felt that they could learn something from studying with me. But most of what I did was teach little kids beginner saxophone at the Brooklyn College Preparatory Center. And that had it's benefits, too. Since I was newly discovering the soprano, I was also dealing a lot with the basics of playing the instrument. So I was able to relate to them in a way that I wouldn't have had I not recently started over myself.

In 2004, saxophonist Pete Yellin, the director of the jazz studies program at LIU Brooklyn at the time, contacted me about taking over his classes as well as directing the jazz ensemble. He was about to go on a well-deserved sabbatical and needed someone to cover for him. And I had almost refused his offer.  I would have been teaching in an adjunct faculty capacity, and  I only had a bachelor's degree. So the pay rate for someone in my position was very low. I wasn't sure if all of the work and preparation that the job would have required would have been worth it. However, with my wife's insistence, I agreed to take it.

During that time, I was actually doing a lot of classroom teaching. Back in 2003, I started working as a teaching artist for this organization called 144 Music and Art. They used to send out-of-work musicians and artists like myself to elementary and middle schools throughout the five boroughs to teach everything from beginner recorder classes to beginner band.  And I was fortunate enough not to have been one of the unlucky "schmucks" who had to teach in Staten Island. Can you imagine living in Brooklyn and having to be in Staten Island to teach at 9:00 AM recorder class? Yikes!

But besides from the steady money, one of the best things that came out of this experience was that they required all of the teachers to attend their monthly classroom teaching seminars, where they would instruct you on everything from developing lesson plans to classroom management. So after having spent a year or so teaching at two schools a day (at times) and attending monthly teaching seminars, I had some serious teaching chops by the time Pete Yellin contacted me. 

Since these were college students and I didn't have to tell them to sit down and shut up every five minutes, I was really able to put all of the techniques I had learned through my experience as a teaching artist. And as a result I was really able to hit it off with the students, personally and pedagogically. 

One year later, Pete Yellin decided to retire after having given over 20 years of service. And as you can imagine, I was eager to take the position. However, there was some concern. Since I only had a bachelor's degree, the chair of the music program wasn't sure if I would be eligible. But after a few meetings, the dean of the college told him that he would allow me to apply for the position, provided that I agreed to get my master's degree within three years of the date hired, if hired.

With a university position, even if the department heads like you, and want you there, they still by law, have to do a nation-wide search and go through the rigorous ordeal of sifting through dozens of resumes and interviewing numerous candidates. My first interview during one of the earlier rounds was horrible. I was so nervous that my mouth went totally dry. I felt like I had just returned from eating cottonball sandwiches in the Sahara Desert. Not to mention that everything I said was totally incoherent--at least it felt that way. Had they not known me and my work from having taught there, I feel doubtful that I would have advanced to the final round--fortunately I did. 

During the last round, the final three candidates, we had to demonstrate our abilities in the classroom. I felt more confident about this part of the interview process, since I had been doing this for the past two years anyway. We had to teach a twenty minute class, which could have been in the style of a rehearsal or a lecture. I strategically chose the teach a lecture. I felt that one, it would show my versatility as a teacher, and two, there were a few non-musicians on the search committee, so I felt they could more easily identify with something that was more along the lines of music appreciation than musical technique.

Besides from playing music, I worked harder on this 20-minute presentation than I had on anything else in my life. I felt that so much was riding on me doing well. Besides, I really bombed my first interview, so I knew that I had to redeem myself.  I must have practiced and tweaked it for several hours a day for almost a week. So it goes without saying that I was ready. Even minutes before I was about to present,  I was walking through the halls rehearsing what I was going to say. It reminded me of my earlier years of when I used to experiment with stand up comedy. After I finished my presentation, I looked at the smiles on some of the faces of the professors on the search committee and I knew I had knocked it out of the park.

Needless to say, I got the job. And now, after 4 cds, several published articles, a few European tours, numerous committees and meetings, countless final exams and badly written papers graded,  one master's degree, six grueling tenure and promotion processes,  a twenty pound weight gain, and numerous 5:30 AM subway rides to work, here I am. And being a archetypical workaholic, I'm already plotting on how to go up for full professor.

 But first things first. Boys and girls, can you

 say, "Sabbatical"?

The Soprano de Africana Suite

The following excerpt is from the liner notes of The Art of the Soprano, Vol.1 

When composing and performing this suite I used a variety of African folk instruments as sources of inspiration: the mbira, the thumb piano from Zimbabwe; the balaphone, a xylophone-like instrument common through out West Africa; and the countless flutes and double reed instruments from indigenous places throughout the African continent as a whole.

By design, West African instruments are made to play simple melodies, usually based on pentatonic scales, with the musical emphasis being on groove, strong rhythm and call and response—contrary to the instrumental virtuosity and harmonic sophistication aesthetic, which is revered in most Western music.

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins said in a recent interview that he finds himself in his later years moving towards an approach that’s more primitive and less conservatory training oriented--referring to his Calypso roots, I imagine. He’s describes it as approaching the instrument the way he did when he was eight years old--that childlike discovery in which you approach things with a certain curiosity, innocence, and fearlessness.  Pablo Picasso also spoke of this, saying how it took him four years to learn to paint like Renaissance painter Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), but a lifetime to paint like a child. As artists, it seems to be a natural evolution to return to our primitive, childlike beginnings.

This notion of approaching the instrument from a “primitive” viewpoint served as the basis for many of the tunes in this suite. When trying to come up with ideas, I often asked myself this: If some musician from a small, remote village in West Africa found a soprano, and had no prior knowledge about how it should sound, what would he do with it? And this is what I came up with.

This track is titled "Burkino Faso" from the Soprano de Africana suite.

The Sam Newsome / Ethan Iverson Duo

On Saturday, September 15, 2012, I’ll be performing with my comrade, pianist Ethan Iverson at the Greenwich House as a part of the "Sound it Out" music series curated by Bradley Bambarger. This will be our second duo gig together, not including the open rehearsal/mini recital we held at his practice loft in Brooklyn last March.

Ethan and I started to appear in each other's peripheries back in the spring of 2010, a few months after the release of my CD, Blue Soliloquy. While I was touring Romania with another piano cohort, Lucian Ban, I received an email from Ethan telling me how much he enjoyed my CD.  Of course, I was pleasantly surprised. My first thought initially was, “Hey, he’s the big Bad Plus guy, why does he know about my little solo saxophone CD?” And I never did ask him how he came across it, but I imagined it was the live review by Kevin Whitehead on NPR.  And let me just go on record to say that NPR rules! When they did the piece on my CD, I felt like the unknown author getting his book talked about on Oprah!

After a few email exchanges we got together to play in duo and to hang a bit. With Ethan being a big Mal Waldron fan, and my affinity for Steve Lacy, us collaborating seemed almost inevitable. Looking back on our first meeting, I don’t remember actually playing for that long.  We were kind of feeling each other out, seeing if there was something there worth exploring. After about an hour or so of trying out different songs and seeing what things he could come up with to go with the extended saxophone techniques I was experimenting with at the time, we mutually agreed that we had something that warranted further investigation.

Bowery Ballroom

Our first gig together, and I mean that loosely, was in the fall of 2010 when Ethan asked me to open for The Bad Plus as a solo act at the Bowery Ballroom, which was a monumental performance for the group as they celebrated their 10-year anniversary together. I must say that that was the largest and the most enthusiastic crowd I had ever performed for solo.

The following clip is from our first official gig together as a duo, which was at Cornelia Street Café on March 2, 2012. This may have been the first piece of the night and definitely one of the more special moments from the gig. And I’m pretty sure this is just one of many more to come.

We hope to see you at the Greenwich House this Saturday.

Enjoy!

Eight Ways to Give Your Soprano Sound More Presence

1. Develop your lower register: 

Without a developed lower register your soprano sound will never have much range nor depth. It’s comparable to listening to your stereo system with no bass, only treble; It always feels like there’s something missing. The lower register is the most masculine and the warmest part of the horn. So by not utilizing it, your voice on the instrument ends up being somewhat incomplete.  And I think a lot of this stems from the instrument being viewed and played as an extension of a much larger horn.

2. Integrate multi-phinics into your sonic vocabulary:

Playing multi-phonics is a great way to give weight to your notes. Keeping in mind, of course, that the brashness and harshness of the multi-phonic is not always suitable for more delicate musical settings. It may not always be pretty, but it’s presence will definitely be felt.

3. Alternate between extreme registers:

When you alternate between high and low registers during your solos, you not only play different levels of intensity, but different timbres. And this also keeps you from sounding predictable and monotonous. It can seem somewhat “schizo” in the beginning, but it’s very effective.

4. Utilize the Doppler Effect:

The Doppler effect is a technique where you sway the horn from side to side, or up and down to change the direction in which the listener is hearing the sound.  Doing this while sustaining notes in the lower register, especially from Bb1 –D1, helps the notes to sing in an almost surreal like manner. Jane Ira Bloom popularized this technique .

5. Listen to and emulate exotic wind instruments:

Checking out exotic instruments like the ney, musette, or shenai teaches you how to maximize each note.  Too often we only play notes as straight tones, not really exploring all of the nuances and timbres available within each note.  Since the aforemnentioned instruments are folk instruments, playing chromatic melodies and fast lines aren’t really applicable, which makes timbre exploration even more important.

6. Play without the octave key:

If you play without the octave key from D2 – C3, you can get more harmonics resonating in those notes. The sound, however, becomes a bit more raunchy, so it doesn’t work in every setting. When I'm going for something a bit more raw and organic, I often use this. When I hear Keith Jarrett play the soprano, it sounds like he's doing a lot. 

7. Substitute conventional notes with ones from the overtone series:

Practicing your scales using the overtone series is a great way to learn how to use the overtones in a melodic context. Not to mention, it’s great for sound control and intonation.. On the tenor saxophone, Joe Henderson and Michael Brecker used this technique quite a bit, and quite effectively, I might add.

8. Utilize the growl effect:

This is probably one of the first techniques I used when I first started playing the soprano. I think it had to do with the fact that my sound was so squeaky clean, and I desperately wanted to find a way to dirty it up a bit.  And since you’re actually growling through the instrument while playing, your sound becomes very intense, which is great for creating drama. I first heard Pharoah Sanders do this on soprano, and I said to myself, “Man, I gotta learn how to do that!”



Check out this track where I'm utilizing numbers 3 and 5.

 Blue Monk from Sam Newsome's Blue Soliloquy by Sam Newsome 

Living in a Post Scarcity Mentality Jazz Era

Author Steven R. Covey in his 1989 self-help book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People discusses the differences in the Scarcity Mentality and Abundance Mentality.

In Mr. Covey’s own words, he wrote:

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else. The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time-sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. The also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision-making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

The Harper Brothers

As someone who started his professional career in the early nineties, I came onto the jazz scene during what I consider the height of the Scarcity Mentality era.  During this period there were only a few ways that musicians saw themselves as being able to make a living playing jazz: One was serving an apprenticeship in the band of some well-established musician, the other was getting signed by a record label.

As far as apprenticeships, in the straight-ahead jazz world, the crème de la crème gig was with drummer Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Or as a lot of my peers would say, “the Buhaina gig. ” Sometimes his name was shortened to just “Bu.” And just to throw in a little jazz trivia: Art Blakey was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which was founded in 1889 in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. And after converting to Islam, Blakey’s muslim name became Abdullah Ibn Buhaina.

In addition to being a great drummer and bandleader, Blakey was known for launching the careers of many of the jazz greats: Hank Mobley, Bobby Timmons, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, and many others. And the former messenger who helped to restore Blakey’s popularity in the 1980s was trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. He was later followed by people like Terence Blanchard, Mulgrew Miller, and Donald Harrison--all of whom went on to having successful careers in their own right after having served their apprenticeships with the late the drum master..

Having only a handful of jobs around where players could get discovered and break onto the scene, created a very competitive environment, especially amongst the younger musicians. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t uncommon to get heavily “vibed” by some of the members of Blakey’s band if you happen to be a young musician in the audience with his or her horn. After all, they had to protect their scarce opportunity to build a career for themselves.

There were also a few other gig desirables that became known for nurturing young talent back then: Betty Carter, Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, Nat Adderly, and Tony Williams. And eventually some of the stars of the now defunct Columbia/Sony jazz label went on to bear the torch of giving young upstarts their first opportunity on the national and international stages: Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Terence Blanchard. And given the amount of musicians in New York at the time, these were not nearly enough opportunities, especially when you consider that it was in the pre-internet, pre-do-it-yourself era. And this fueled the Scarcity Mentality described by Covey where people felt that “there was only one pie out there.”

Getting signed to a record label was another means by which players got noticed by others. Back in those days, musicians had several major and independent label options. Some of the major labels around were RCA Victor, Blue Note, Verve, Warner Brothers, GRP, and Columbia/Sony, just to name a few. And indie labels were also in abundance--especially when you considered some of the active ones out of Japan, Germany, and France. Again, at first glance it seems like a lot of opportunities to get your music recorded. However, when you factor in all of the musicians, not just in New York, but Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, Boston, etc., it's still not enough to harbor all of the budding talent--and this is not even including musicians abroad. So when you put it in its proper perspective it proves to be a breeding ground for Scarcity Mentality. Because once again Scarcity Mentality is all about getting your piece of the pie, then protecting it from others.

Jeff Levenson

During this era, A & R executives and label heads were very powerful people.  After all, they held the pie that all of the musicians wanted a piece of--or at least they held the knife that divvied it up. They received numerous demo tape submissions and an equal amount of invitations to live performances. These were the go-to guys.

Now fast forward several years later to the year 2012, only a handful of those aforementioned opportunities for getting discovered and claiming ones stake in the jazz world even exist. The person who’s in a position to employ others is not necessarily the jazz legend who has paid his or her dues serving apprenticeships with the mentors of their time, but business savvy youngsters that have mastered the art of generating angles that draw attention to them.

And this is actually a good thing. Because now we’re in a more democratic era where a few, select gatekeepers do not regulate opportunity for the masses. With the advent of the internet, digital downloads, CD Baby, and the numerous social media networks, opportunity belongs to whoever has the vision and courage to cease it. We are now in an Abundance Mentality era, in which there “is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody.”

Abundance mentality fosters a much less competitive environment. Let’s take recording CDs for example. Now that all of the opportunities to record are not regulated by a few record company executives, most of whom have their own agendas, we are free to create our own recording opportunities as well as help others find their way. The more do-it-yourself musicians who breakthrough, creatively using today’s mediums to bring wider attention to their music, the more new paradigms are created for others to follow or at least learn from. Whereas during the Scarcity Mentality era, the people who were picked by record companies were looked at as the privileged—the haves in the world of haves and have-nots. Nowadays you can just pick yourself—provided you deem yourself as being worthy. You can even pick others.

Drawing from my personal experience: I could very well only talk about my own music on my blog, and that certainly would be justified. But sharing the music and ideas of fellow soprano players, makes my blog about something much bigger than myself.   Now, if I can get all Zen-like on you: “Its much better to see yourself as part of an ocean than just a mere drop of water.”

In conclusion, having experienced the jazz scene in both eras, I can say with certainty that I like being a jazz musician in the Abundance Mentality era much better. Not only are the feelings of competitiveness and envy not as prevalent, but also new opportunities have presented themselves for building strong communities and alliances, creativity, and most of all, happiness.

My Five (5) Favorite Steve Lacy Quotes

Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy not only gave us great music to appreciate and learn from, but he always had a very poetic way of speaking—filled with insight, wit, and wisdom. Here are a few wise words from Lacy, most of which addressing the importance of originality and doing your own thing. Many of these quotes are from the Jason Weiss book Conversations, a collection of interviews by Lacy.

1. You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good.

I totally agree with him. Getting to something really great or profound musically, doesn’t come without a lot of trial and error.

2. People don't want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately, and this is one of the biggest problems in the world.

I have witnessed this many times just hearing people practice. It’s as though they rather sacrifice improving than having a bystander hear them sound awful. Kenny Werner often says that we often play when we should be practicing, and we practice when we should be playing.

3. Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it. 

I've definitely seen this happen with bebop. When it first came into existence it received a lot of criticism because it created a new paradigm for how jazz was created and appreciated. Nowadays people are listening to Bird and Monk in the background while sipping on their Cinnamon Dolce Frappuccinos at Starbucks.

4. There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else's language. 

This is probably more prevalent today than at any other time in history. Many musicians don’t seem to be taking the extra step of after learning a language, personalizing it and making it their own. Here’s an interesting story. A friend of mine went over to Ron Carter’s place. I can't remember the reason. I think it was something to the affect that their wives were friends. But when he arrived he was surprised to find Ron Carter in his music room transcribing Paul Chambers. Apparently he does this a lot. I think this is a classic case of what I mean by taking it the extra step. Because Ron didn’t let the process stop at him playing Paul Chambers' ideas. And he certainly didn't choose to make a career out of it--which happens a lot today with many contemporary players. He used him as a way of getting to his own thing. And that’s what it’s all about. No matter what you're learning, never loose sight of the target you're aiming for--which is you.

 5. It starts with a single sound. If there's something in that sound, then it's worth continuing. 

I think many soprano players can relate to this. Many players that I’ve interviewed often spoke of being intrigued by a single sound, which sent them on a journey of a lifetime—myself included!

.

Punk/Jazz Soprano Saxophonist Kayla Milmine

Many NewYork jazz goers may not have heard of soprano saxophonist Kayla Milmine, being that she resides in Montreal,Quebec, not to mention she's currently pursuing her degree in jazz studies at Concordia University. She does, however, from time to time manage to make it to NewYork for an occasional improvised music soiree at avant garde musical hubs such as ABC Rio C.O.M.A., in the East Village or the  Dissident Arts Festival in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she'll be playing on August 17^th  with her group FASTER.

Kayla's musical journey with the soprano saxophone is a familiar one amongst fellow straight-hornists: Having started out on the clarinet then the tenor saxophone, soon finding herself falling in love with the new and under-explored sonic possibilities that only the soprano saxophone can offer. Since beginning her soprano centric journey less than a decade ago, she has developed a unique approach to the instrument that at times has the edginess and brashness of Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, yet the warmth and thoughtfulness that's reminiscent of Steve Lacy.

And unlike her aforementioned predecessors, she also doubles as a punk rock singer. She can regularly be heard exercising her punk rock singing chops when performing with FASTER, a duo that she co-leads with New Jersey-based guitarist Brian Abbott. The two of them have concocted a unique brand of punk/jazz, that she appropriatly calls "junk."

So Kayla, when did you first start playing music?

I began playing music as a child, I think I was around 7 years old when I began piano lessons. I took piano for about 4 or 5 years. After that, I played some clarinet in high school for about 2 years. Then after years of no playing, I started saxophone when I was 20 years old.  I am currently 28 years old.

What drew you to the soprano saxophone?

I was offered a spot in the concert band at my college, and they wanted me to read clarinet parts on soprano sax. So the first soprano sax I tried out was at school. I hadn’t given much thought to soprano sax before that, actually, but was very happy to be playing on a different horn, as my tenor sax at the time was a student model and starting to cause me problems. I loved playing the soprano from the first note I breathed into it…it was so different and so easily excited, and unpredictable. I liked the range of it, and it’s ability to be loved by some, and hated by just as many. I found it easier to make strange sounds on too.

     

When you first began playing the soprano, where there any hurdles you had overcome?

Well, like all sopranoists, the tuning issue…but I have grown to like it. I like working on it. I find the high register very difficult too, the palm keys; controlling that part of the horn is a struggle for me, maybe I prefer the low register a little more, but am still constantly trying to improve my high notes. Also, because I want to play ONLY soprano sax, people often remind me that I am totally un-hirable. Haha. As if all the “gigs” would appear if I played the tenor or alto?

What are some of the things that you practice that have been effective in helping you address the “tuning issue?”

I find that long tones with a chromatic tuner works. I try to practice them using different techniques. I’ll do them all as quietly as I can, or as loud, or I’ll crescendo/decrescendo, and now, because of the lesson I had with you, I’ve been doing a lot of note bending in and out of pitch, trying to match several pitches with just one fingering.  Also, just playing melodies while looking at the tuner to see where and when I’m in or out so that I can work on it in context.

I have a couple of sax geek questions. What kind of set up do you play on? Did it take you awhile to settle on what you have, or did you know right away?

My horn is a Selmer Super Action 80 Series II. When I was looking to purchase a soprano, every one of these models sounded good to me, and I preferred the tone of it and it just sounds and feels more fluid.  It felt pretty obvious to me right away that it was the model that I wanted to have. My mouthpiece is a Bari mouthpiece, and my reeds are Rico Jazz Select 2 medium. They are nice and soft. I used to have a different mouthpiece, I think it was some kind of a Selmer one, I can’t really remember, but it wasn’t that good. And my reed choice has changed a few times. I used to play on harder ones, but decided a couple years ago to go softer again. I think it simplifies things like multiphonics, and other contemporary techniques. I’m not completely attached to my set up, I can see myself changing reed and mouthpiece sometime in the next few years, but I hope my horn lasts a lot longer!

 Most saxophonists who play the soprano exclusively cite Steve Lacy as a major influence. What are some things you learned from studying his music?

Yes! The music of Steve Lacy is what convinced me to stick to the soprano sax. I remember clearly hearing him for the first time. I was a little confused, but couldn’t take my ears off of it! I was listening to one of his solo sax albums, and I had never heard any other saxophonist do a solo album before. He made me realize the potential of the saxophone. His raw, yet precise and angular playing made me think of music differently than I had before. His free playing is also completely unique, along with his compositions, I’m still trying to grasp everything he has done with music. There is so much to learn from this man.

I’m also curious what you learned from Roscoe Mitchell?

I was recently reading the book Forces in Motion by Graham Lock, which is about the life and ideas of Anthony Braxton, and it introduced some musicians to me that I hadn’t really known of. I knew nothing of the AACM, or the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roscoe Mitchell being one of the major musicians in that scene. I recently got into his music, and find musicians like him, or Braxton, who are multi-instrumentalists kind of fascinating, even though I may take the opposite approach and only play one horn, I can appreciate the versatility of these guys. There is just something about Roscoe Mitchell’s sound and playing that I find interesting. He is still new to me, but of what I have heard, his group improvisations, along with his solo improvisations have the ability to change feels so quickly and unexpectedly, but at the same time with such grace. Similar to Anthony Braxton, but still quite different. Also, he plays with toys during improvising too, which is great.

Is there much of an outlet for improvised music in Montreal?

There is a small scene here in Montreal. There are scenes for most types of music, but all pretty small, Montreal isn’t that big, especially in comparison to most major U.S. cities. There are only a couple of venues that I can think of that are exclusively for improvised music. But there are several venues that are open to any kind of music. There is a monthly jam session at one venue that is devoted to playing free, which is quite nice.  

Having started out traveling down a pretty traditional path--playing the tenor saxophone and being influenced by players like Dexter Gordon and Lester Young-- how was it making the transition to players associated more with free and avant garde music?

Well, I began playing saxophone because of my love of music, and in particular jazz at that time. I think of the transition from tenor to soprano, and from traditional through to avant garde music as part of my musical growth. I like listening to all sorts of music, and it just naturally happened. I wanted my own playing style to be experimental and being the rebel that I am, I felt a strong pull towards the avant-garde. I still listen to Lester Young and Dexter Gordon, and a lot of traditional jazz, but now I listen to the history; everything from New Orleans jazz to modern free improvised music. I kind of like the contrast. One day I will be listening to really free improvised music, like this band from NY ‘Mostly Other People do the Killing’ who are a great free jazz quartet, and be totally into it, but then the next day I’ll just want to hear some old punk albums from the 90’s, and then the next week I will listen to nothing but Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone. I am still influenced by Lester Young and those older jazz guys, but now I just have a wider range of people I draw from. I’d like to mix Steve Lacy, Lester Young, Anthony Braxton, Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman all into one bowl and see what kind of concoction that would make.

How did FASTER, the duo you co-lead with guitarist Brian Abbott start?

Brian Abbott & Kayla Milmine

FASTER started almost 2 years ago now. Brian was on tour with a punk band/dance troupe touring Canada with the Fringe Festival. I was working with a dancer, (Allison Burns) at the time. We had a soprano sax / dance duo for a good 2 or 3 years prior to that. Brian wanted to sit in on one of our rehearsals. We clicked musically, very nicely. After that, we played a few shows with Allison, and called ourselves  ‘Music Box Trio’. I visited Brian in NJ a few months afterwards, and we formed FASTER. We just came up with musical ideas together, and separately and just had a great time playing together. We both grew up listening to some punk, and we’re both very interested in avant garde music. Brian more so on the contemporary composition side, and myself more on the free jazz side. The mixture of the two is great.

Is there name for the kind of music you create? I find it very original.

I call it punk/jazz, or ‘junk’. Usually when we try to explain our music to people we say something like, ‘jazz/punk/free improvisation/performance art/parody’ music.

Being that the music of FASTER has such a strong theatrical component to it,  have you and Brian thought about making a video.

We have thought about it actually! We’ve been trying to figure out when to do it. It is sometimes hard to organize everything we want to do together, because we live in different countries! We have this song that Brian wrote on the album we recorded last year “These cats are burnin’!” The song is called “Anxiety at the Circus”, it sounds like a crazy circus gone wrong. The sax is supposed to represent an elephant, and the guitar is the killer clown who wants to kill this elephant that is driving him crazy with his crazy multi-phonics and high squeaks. So the music video would be a visual representation of this scene. Without the use of real animals, of course!

You might very well be the first punk-singing-soprano saxophonist.  Did you ever sing in a punk band before FASTER?

Haha! No, I never sang in a punk band, but it was always a dream of mine! I listened to and went to hundreds of punk shows growing up.  Ever since I began saxophone I had been thinking of ways to integrate punk and jazz together. I guess with the formation of FASTER, I was finally able to conceive of this idea. I remember years ago I used to talk about mixing jazz and punk together, and it was frustrating because I couldn’t figure out how, haha. It was almost like an epiphany when Brian and I began playing and all these new sounds were coming out. It felt like all that thinking and meditating on the idea of punk/jazz just allowed it to eventually appear at the right moment.

So what’s next on the agenda for FASTER?

 Well, we just recorded our 2^nd album, “Die FASTER”, and will be mixing it in a couple of weeks! We are also playing the Dissident Arts Festival in Williamsburg on August 17^th. 

I find it interesting that even though you already have a clear musical vision about the kind of music you want to play, that you’re actually in college in the jazz studies program. Why is it that you feel compelled to study jazz in a conventional academic setting at Concordia University?

I guess you could say it might be for the simple superficial reason of having a University degree. Although, I think it is important for anyone to have a variety of teachers and people around them in order to stimulate different parts of your musicality. I’ve had some great teachers, and I have learnt a lot about music since being in the jazz program. Also, I love jazz. Being a jazz student has made me frustrated with how professors sometimes teach jazz…I’m still a little unsure as to whether or not jazz is really “teachable”, in the sense that it should be based on self expression, and isn’t solely based on chord progressions. You can’t really teach people to have soul. I guess between having respect for the academic world and wanting a University degree, I opted to stay in school. I still feel there is so much to learn and will hopefully always feel that way! So I want to collect as much knowledge as I can.

Do you feel that having studied philosophy in what I assume was a former life, has shaped you musical philosophy as well?

Most definitely. Studying philosophy forces you to think for yourself. I realized during that time that one could read every philosopher who ever lived, and draw from as many sources as one pleases, but at the end of the day, everything is still just a giant question.  I went into philosophy wanting answers, but soon realized that no one has the answer, you need to choose your own answer. Therefore, playing music becomes easier once you figure that out, I suppose. I became less concerned with what other people were doing with music, and tried to play music based on my own intuition; using raw emotion over technique, playing with people who made me feel good, listening to people who inspire me, etc. That’s not to say I don’t work on technique or don’t want to get better at my instrument, I just think there are so many ways to express yourself musically, and artfully without trying to ‘up’ anybody. Once you realize that no one will ever sound like you, or you like anybody else, I think music becomes less of a competition and more of a personal growth. I think it is through that growth that life and the constant universal questions of life become less of a burden, and more of an adventure. And now instead of pondering the questions, and the confusions of life, I express them through playing music. I guess that is what I took away from philosophy. Starting my instrument later in life used to be a burden to me too, but I think because I had more life experience before I began, I was able to have a clear vision of my music fairly soon, which made things easier for me in the end.

What are some things you hope to accomplish on the soprano saxophone in the next 10 years?

I feel it’s hard for me to imagine what will happen, or where I’ll be in 10 years. I’d like to think I could come up with some way of integrating solo saxophone playing into what I already do. It is something that I’d like to explore more of when I’m done with school. I’d like to keep getting stronger on the horn and in music in general. I don’t think I’ll run out of things I want to learn, as there is so much to tackle with music, and even on soprano sax alone.

Check out Kayla's wild rendition of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo."

And to hear more of FASTER from the their CD, These Cats are Burning, visit HERE