Anaïs Maviel
Without Great Black Music
there can be no Compassionate Community
Anaïs Maviel's Playlist
"Anaïs Maviel is a vocalist, percussionist, composer, music director, educator, curator and healer. Her work focuses on the function of music as essential to settling common grounds, addressing Relation, and creating utopian future."
Those of us in the process community Anaïs Maviel and artists like her. We like to talk about ecological civilization as the world's best hope. An ecological civilization is not just about the environment. It's about people and how they interact with one another in loving, compassionate ways. The building blocks of an ecological civilization are local communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. Martin Luther King and others spoke of these communities as beloved communities. We might also call them compassionate communities.
One thing is clear about these communities, They are not "white." Their color and ethnicities are multiple, and they cannot come into existence without great black music. Other kinds of music, too, of course: hispanic music and Indigenous music and Asian music and maybe even a little country music. But Great Black Music, too, and perhaps especially so, given its incredible power and influence in the world. We need to listen to this music, to be immersed in it, to let its power transform our imaginations so that we, like Anais Maviel, can imagine our way into new and hopeful futures. We need playlists.
Exorcism, Prayer, and Offering
Susannah Stubbs, artist-in-residence for Open Horizons and graphic designer for the Cobb Institute, points out that playlists can be exorcisms, prayers, and offerings. See her A Spirituality of Playlist Making.
In Without Great Black Music, Anaïs Maviel offers us all three. In combination with good intentions and acts of compassion, Maviel's playlist can help exorcise our imaginations of demons such as greed, hatred, arrogance, and presumptions of white supremacy. It can be a prayer for the healing of our individual and collective souls, so that we might help create societies that are just, sustainable, and joyful. And is an offering given us quite apart from our deserts, especially if we are not descendants of slaves. Yes, Great Black Music is an offering to America quite apart from the sinfulness of its history of slavery.
Beyond the Familiar
But be careful. If you're into popular music you’ll not find what you might expect: spirituals, blues, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, and rap. Obviously, much of that is great black music, too. But Maviel's playlist is a jazz offering. The sounds you hear will take you places, sonically, that evoke wonder to be sure, and also gratitude, playfulness, shock, yearning, pain, justice, and love. All part of humanity's spiritual alphabet.
The unfamiliarity is itself a gift. One of the features of jazz at its best is that it de-destabilizes our preferences for the familiar. Like science fiction it takes us into alternative worlds, in this case sonic worlds, so that we can see our own world with fresh eyes. In challenging our expectations it simultaneously invites us to imagine a different kind of future. One that is not dominated by whiteness. That's part of its beauty; it takes us into a post-white world in our imaginations, an Afro-futurist world. See, for example, the work of Moor Mother and Irreversible Entanglements, a liberation-oriented free jazz collective.
But let's be honest, if you're "white" by your own self-understanding, you may find it a bit difficult to admit that you're part of that white-dominating world. Your listening habits may be inclined toward the nostalgic: that is, toward music that makes you happy, that brings back good memories, that reinforces your sense of individual or collective identity. You can listen to familiar black music this way, too. You may love "soul music" or "hip hop" or "rhythm and blues" because it speaks to you, albeit from your position of privilege. That's one of my own sins. This is all the more reason you, like me, may need this playlist offered by Anais Maviel.
Post-Colonial: outside the colonizer's fantasies and interests
You’ll want to get to know her work, too. In collaboration with others, she creates works of art and performance that are post-colonial in the sense that they exist “outside the colonizers’ fantasies and interests.” In the words of Edouard Glissant, they are beautifully opaque. And who are the colonizers? Well, those of us who dwell in privilege, patriarchy, conscious or unconscious racism, dominating power, and elitism. If the shoe fits, we best wear it. Toward what end?
Toward the end of helping create communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. These are the building blocks of a truly ecological civilization, and it will take some imagination, some Afro-futurism, to get there. It might also help if we are nourished by cosmologies that stress the vibratory, interconnected nature of the universe, and that encourage us to see the whole of life, our own and that of others, as improvisational. Readers of Open Horizons find that in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. We also find it, much more concretely and artistically, in the art and work of Anaïs Maviel. Enjoy.
-- Jay McDaniel, June 15, 2020
Those of us in the process community Anaïs Maviel and artists like her. We like to talk about ecological civilization as the world's best hope. An ecological civilization is not just about the environment. It's about people and how they interact with one another in loving, compassionate ways. The building blocks of an ecological civilization are local communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. Martin Luther King and others spoke of these communities as beloved communities. We might also call them compassionate communities.
One thing is clear about these communities, They are not "white." Their color and ethnicities are multiple, and they cannot come into existence without great black music. Other kinds of music, too, of course: hispanic music and Indigenous music and Asian music and maybe even a little country music. But Great Black Music, too, and perhaps especially so, given its incredible power and influence in the world. We need to listen to this music, to be immersed in it, to let its power transform our imaginations so that we, like Anais Maviel, can imagine our way into new and hopeful futures. We need playlists.
Exorcism, Prayer, and Offering
Susannah Stubbs, artist-in-residence for Open Horizons and graphic designer for the Cobb Institute, points out that playlists can be exorcisms, prayers, and offerings. See her A Spirituality of Playlist Making.
In Without Great Black Music, Anaïs Maviel offers us all three. In combination with good intentions and acts of compassion, Maviel's playlist can help exorcise our imaginations of demons such as greed, hatred, arrogance, and presumptions of white supremacy. It can be a prayer for the healing of our individual and collective souls, so that we might help create societies that are just, sustainable, and joyful. And is an offering given us quite apart from our deserts, especially if we are not descendants of slaves. Yes, Great Black Music is an offering to America quite apart from the sinfulness of its history of slavery.
Beyond the Familiar
But be careful. If you're into popular music you’ll not find what you might expect: spirituals, blues, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, and rap. Obviously, much of that is great black music, too. But Maviel's playlist is a jazz offering. The sounds you hear will take you places, sonically, that evoke wonder to be sure, and also gratitude, playfulness, shock, yearning, pain, justice, and love. All part of humanity's spiritual alphabet.
The unfamiliarity is itself a gift. One of the features of jazz at its best is that it de-destabilizes our preferences for the familiar. Like science fiction it takes us into alternative worlds, in this case sonic worlds, so that we can see our own world with fresh eyes. In challenging our expectations it simultaneously invites us to imagine a different kind of future. One that is not dominated by whiteness. That's part of its beauty; it takes us into a post-white world in our imaginations, an Afro-futurist world. See, for example, the work of Moor Mother and Irreversible Entanglements, a liberation-oriented free jazz collective.
But let's be honest, if you're "white" by your own self-understanding, you may find it a bit difficult to admit that you're part of that white-dominating world. Your listening habits may be inclined toward the nostalgic: that is, toward music that makes you happy, that brings back good memories, that reinforces your sense of individual or collective identity. You can listen to familiar black music this way, too. You may love "soul music" or "hip hop" or "rhythm and blues" because it speaks to you, albeit from your position of privilege. That's one of my own sins. This is all the more reason you, like me, may need this playlist offered by Anais Maviel.
Post-Colonial: outside the colonizer's fantasies and interests
You’ll want to get to know her work, too. In collaboration with others, she creates works of art and performance that are post-colonial in the sense that they exist “outside the colonizers’ fantasies and interests.” In the words of Edouard Glissant, they are beautifully opaque. And who are the colonizers? Well, those of us who dwell in privilege, patriarchy, conscious or unconscious racism, dominating power, and elitism. If the shoe fits, we best wear it. Toward what end?
Toward the end of helping create communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. These are the building blocks of a truly ecological civilization, and it will take some imagination, some Afro-futurism, to get there. It might also help if we are nourished by cosmologies that stress the vibratory, interconnected nature of the universe, and that encourage us to see the whole of life, our own and that of others, as improvisational. Readers of Open Horizons find that in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. We also find it, much more concretely and artistically, in the art and work of Anaïs Maviel. Enjoy.
-- Jay McDaniel, June 15, 2020
Without Great Black Music
curated by Anaïs Maviel
reposted from ListN Up: Anaïs Maviel (June 12, 2020)
in I CARE IF YOU LISTEN on June 12, 2020 at 6:00 am
in I CARE IF YOU LISTEN on June 12, 2020 at 6:00 am
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Anaïs Maviel writes:
Without Great Black Music, many contemporaries and I wouldn’t have means of expression or healing. I am an improviser, composer and iconoclast thanks to African American music, which not only feeds personal freedom, but also catalyzes societal transformation. In such a time, let’s deepen our listening of a culture that let the whole world warm to its fire. As musicians, curators, and devoted listeners, let’s reflect on the impact of Great Black Music on our perception of ourselves in relationship to the world. How do we reverberate the tremendous power that has been gifted to us? I am pairing each track of this playlist with a recommended reading, for people who recognize “jazz” as one of their influences. I invite you to engage with listening, without the filter of my personal stories, but of a whole web of thinking. I hereby hold space for you to hear this music with new ears, and for your intellect and independent thinking to sharpen with some literary references that resonated with me. (Editor’s note: if you are interested in purchasing any of the titles listed below, we encourage you to support your local Black-owned independent bookstore, or a Black-owned online bookstore.) |
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AIRMAIL SPECIAL (LIVE AT THE NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL, 1957) BY ELLA FITZGERALD Reading: Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness
MARS BY JOHN COLTRANE Reading: Peter Mason, Deconstructing America: Representations of The Other
SYNTACTICAL GHOST TRANCE BY ANTHONY BRAXTON, PERFORMED BY TRI-CENTRIC VOCAL ENSEMBLE Reading: George E. Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
THE BLACK SAINT AND THE SINNER LADY (FULL ALBUM) BY CHARLES MINGUS Reading: Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdog
SPACE IS THE PLACE BY SUN RA Reading: Graham Locke, BLUTOPIA Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton
BLASÉ BY ARCHIE SHEPP AND JEANNE LEE Reading: Amiri Baraka, Blues People: Negro Music in White America
BLACK WOMAN BY SONNY & LINDA SHARROCK Reading: Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
MORNING MANTRA BY WILLIAM PARKER Reading: William Parker, Who Owns Music & Conversations
COIN COIN CHAPTER ONE (FULL ALBUM) BY MATANA ROBERTS Reading: Stuart Hall, Foundations of Cultural Studies & Identity and Diaspora
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Learning from Anaïs Maviel
composer utopian human choosing freedom
unconditional love & transcendent community
Quotes from Anaïs Maviel as interviewed
by Bruce Russell in "I Care if You Listen"
Collective Intuition
I have been very touched and inspired by the way the members of The Rhythm Method write for each other and for themselves. I find their process-based composition style special because it takes roots in a kind of sisterhood. One aspect of what one could call feminine musicality–although I want to acknowledge all identities and their open-endedness–is that ability to reveal collective coherence from deep listening (with and without referencing Pauline Oliveros here). When The Rhythm Method improvise together, each of their composer minds fuse into a collective intelligence, creating a multi-layered organism with a collective intuition that I find brilliant. I resonate with this organic way of bringing music together: collaboratively with the canons of string quartet music, yet born in a patriarchal society.
5 Questions to Anaïs Maviel (cross-disciplinary artist)BRUCE A. RUSSELL
on February 13, 2020 at 6:00 am
Opacity and Compassion
In the context of colonization, Edouard Glissant defines “opacity” as the right of indigenous people to exist outside of the colonizer’s fantasies and interests, and yet to be respected. Compassion–an essential ingredient to build ethics–is the ability to feel what the other feels without having walked in their shoes. Thus, the demand for transparency often claimed in activist communities and organizations, can threaten the precious trust equilibrium every ethical relationship builds itself off of (think of “assuming good intention” in non-violent communication). The right to opacity refers to that ability to relate without understanding, to cooperate without controlling. Out of trying to understand the other, we often fit them in our preconceptions and miss the opportunity to truly learn from each other.
5 Questions to Anaïs Maviel (cross-disciplinary artist)BRUCE A. RUSSELL
on February 13, 2020 at 6:00 am
Vibration and Connection
As a seeker of common sources of creation, I came across cosmologies that point to vibration. Whether one has a spiritual or scientific approach, vibration is that subtle intentionality that generates sound, movement, and color, preceding manifestation and matter.
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Vibration can feel abstract to some, but when we are gathered around music and something happens–that thing every artist, mystic, or iconoclast runs after–when what Albert Ayler calls the “holy ghost” appears, most of us will know it instantly. To me, the work I do is to facilitate this availability, sensibility, awareness, and reverence to that thing, which will work itself through our systems and expand our lives, individually and collectively in the same event. I find myself making people sing a lot, whether I write, perform, or teach music. I am inclined to join voices to learn about the power of connectedness in embodied sound, to learn from the above and the below.
5 Questions to Anaïs Maviel (cross-disciplinary artist)BRUCE A. RUSSELL
on February 13, 2020 at 6:00 am