INTERVIEW WITH BRANDON ROSS
Guitarist, composer, singer, songwriter Brandon Ross has worked with everyone from Muhal Richard Abrams, Don Byron, Bill Frisell, Leroy Jenkins, Oliver Lake, Arto Lindsay, to Joan Osborne, Henry Threadgill, and many others. Self described as “Future-folk music”, Ross’ music is at once pastoral, dissonant, intimate and avant-garde. On February 16th at Roulette, Ross will present Blazing Beauty, his acoustic-based ensemble with Stomu Takeishi (acoustic bass guitar), JT Lewis (drums), and Brandon Ross (guitar/banjo/vocal).
ROULETTE: Tell us as about the work you’ll be doing at Roulette.
BRANDON ROSS: The work I’ll be presenting at Roulette on the 16th is an extension of a long-standing excitement about and interest in string bands and string-percussion based “folk” music ensembles. As a guitarist and an improviser, I find myself a part of a continuum of musical process that is ancient, ubiquitous, and (it would seem) infinitely varied. Stringed musical instruments present themselves in cultures around the world. Perhaps after the breath/voice and the percussion of the heart beat, strings (even as vocal cords) bring us pitched percussion along a fixable discernible scale. Blazing Beauty has grown out of my curiosity and appreciation of those ideas/observations.
I met Stomu Takeishi and JT Lewis in New York City in the mid-90’s: JT at a recording session of Kip Hanrahan’s, and Stomu at a live concert he was performing in with composer/cellist Michelle Kinney and violinist/composer, Jason Hwang. Shortly following both meetings, I recruited JT and Stomu to join a new band that Henry Threadgill was forming called, Make A Move. The 3 of us played together in that band on my recommendation to Henry, and their musicality and musical insight into Henry’s process at that time. Along with accordionist, Tony Cedras, it was a truly great band.
Blazing Beauty is usually a quartet with brass (cornetist, Ron Miles); acoustic bass guitar (Stomu); drums (JT) and guitar/banjo (myself). I started the band under the current name officially in 2004, though I have been exploring other ensemble configurations since 1989, driven by the same basic principle, though “updated” so to speak, by the sonic palette and technologies of the time. Ensembles with tuba/cello/percussion/drums/accordian/guitar; (Brandon Ross’s The Side Show) guitar/drums /tuba (The Side Show); guitar/electric bass/clarinet(s)/drums/poetry-percussion (Brandon Ross’s The Overflow); acoustic guitar/cello (“Spank”). Essentially, I am looking at a vocabulary, and interaction that is true, if you will, to the character of the instruments in the ensemble, while addressing ideas of form and harmonic/melodic approaches evolved from a pan-tonal premise.
R: Are there working artists today with whose work you identify, or rather, who do you consider to be your peers?
BR: The musicians I perform with and confer with, are generally those people who have been my mentors, which makes them more my colleagues than my peers. They would include Henry Threadgill; Lawrence “Butch” Morris, even though their work is very different from my own. Peer-wise, I would have to mention Melvin Gibbs (with whom JT Lewis and I co-lead a collective trio called Harriet Tubman); Graham Haynes; Timothy Hill; JT Lewis; Myra Melford; Sadiq Bey; Ron Miles; Stomu Takeishi.
R: What are some defining characteristics of the musical scene you would fit yourself into? What elements of your scene differentiate it from what has come before, or what is happening now?
BR: I don’t know what scene I would be a part of. What to call it or how to identify it, which has always been my experience, though an observer might easily answer that question in terms that might then seem obvious.
R: What was the last music you listened to?
BR: The last music I listened to (and was excited by) was a recording of “Bray Harp” music from Ireland; and a kind of contra-bass Kora music from Ethiopia
R: What is music?
BR: Music is the dream of humanity.
R: Do you consider yourself more a composer or a performer
BR: I consider myself both – and yet, as an improviser, performance is where that happens.
R: Who do you see as instrumental in your development as an artist?
BR: That would have to be … all the artists I ever encountered whose expression left an impact. Too numerous to go into here, however there are some key people, some friends, and some only through their work: Ornette Coleman; Henry Threadgill; Leroy Jenkins; Wadada Leo Smith.
R: What is interesting to you about your own work?
BR: What I find interesting about my own work is that on some days I wonder why I bother and yet on other days, I completely see the inherent order and beauty in it.
R: Do you do other things aside from music?
BR: Not as an artistic expression. Not so far anyway…
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