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Vancouver jazz festival: Q&A with Artifacts' Nicole Mitchell

Acclaimed flute player Nicole Mitchell talks about keeping avant-garde jazz going.

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Artifacts

When: July 2, 10:30 p.m.

Where: Streaming

Tickets and info: Coastaljazz.ca

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Artifacts is a trio of esteemed Chicago jazz musicians dedicated to exploring the compositions coming out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM).

Since its founding in 1965 by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams and others, the non-profit AACM has pursued its mission to encourage jazz players, composers, teachers and others to continue to expand the range and scope of the genre. The membership numbers include legends such as drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist/conceptualist Anthony Braxton and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith to such rising stars as guitarist Jeff Parker, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed.

Reid and Reed are two thirds of Artifacts. Flutist/author/composer Nicole Mitchell rounds out the group. She also straddles generations of the AACM, where she was a former organization chairperson.

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A recipient of the top jazz flutist award from the Jazz Journalists Association and DownBeat Magazine from 2004-2009 and then 2010-2019, Mitchell has led the acclaimed Black Earth Ensemble for two decades. The group has recorded 10 albums and showcased around the world, and Mitchell has been tireless in her pursuit of expanding the legacy of black experimental art and African-American culture.

She spoke to Postmedia in advance of the Artifacts performance at the 2021 TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

Postmedia: If the AACM was established, in part, to break with tradition, how does Artifacts keep moving the music forward while also honouring its past?

Nicole Mitchell: The idea of experimentalism and Afro-futurism has really been embraced by a lot of younger musicians lately, and the legacy of original AACM’s music has very much been a part of that from the start. So what people are doing now, finding their own voice and experimenting can also mean embracing this rich tradition and moving forward with it. Tomeka was really the visionary who brought this album together as part of the celebration of 50 years of AACM in 2015. It’s been fun and exciting since.

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Q: How does one even begin to decide what material coming from AACM members to choose to perform. The recorded legacy must number — literally — thousands of sessions?

A: Exactly, which is what makes it so hard to choose. Every piece you select to record or perform means others were left behind. But the three of us have such a long history of collaboration that we are well aware of what we do best together. There is no band leader, so we all kind of bring in tunes we like and see what happens. There is so much diversity of compositional ideas coming out of the AACM to celebrate, we can just keep going.

Q: None of the compositions coming from AACM artists are likely to ever be considered “standards” in the same sense as classic Duke Ellington or Count Basie tunes. But in time they could be. Is it liberating to be able to approach the material as you see fit, rather than giving people something familiar?

A: Well, that’s the beauty of jazz and creative music isn’t it? Nothing, not even those instantly recognized standards, are ever stuck in one arrangement, or one approach. We can play the same set of the same songs so differently every night that each audience is getting something very different out of the experience and we are coming at it with different emotions. Both Tomeka and I have a long history with the Vancouver jazz festival and playing with local musicians and it’s always special and different. Ultimately, the AACM was about exploring and celebrating the diversity of blackness and black identity.

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Q: How did you find your way to the flute, which isn’t a super common instrument in jazz?

A: The sound of the instrument came first, because I loved it. Then I discovered improvisation and was like “wait a minute, why didn’t anyone tell me that I could do this?” Now, I consider myself a conceptualist. Projects such as Mandorla Awakening were a sonic interpretation of working through the question of whether Western Culture was hitting a dead end and losing the idea of raising human life across the planet and living in harmony with nature.

Q: How do you store all those flute player awards?

A: It’s just for the moment, so I enjoy it while its here. I still have so much to learn on the instrument, and there are so many great flute players out there, so it’s always an honour to be recognized. But my hero, James Newton, won the same award 21 years in a row. I don’t think I’ll ever come up to that.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

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