Out now: STILLPOINT

Awadagin Pratt, piano w/ Roomful of Teeth & A Far Cry: click here to listen

“Perhaps the finest album of his career…STILLPOINT offers much to wrestle with — six distinct new pieces that, each in their own way, try to teach us how to balance contradictions in our lives, to find the still point. That makes for one endlessly engaging recording. Let's hope we don't have to wait 12 years for the next one.” — Tom Huizenga, NPR

In 2016, I was invited to speak at the 21CMposium at Depauw University, a symposium of forward-thinking musicians, administrators, academics, and other stakeholders in the messy world of music that we all occupy. There was a lot going on at the conference, with performances, talks, master classes, and as much mingling and socializing as could be mustered in a small midwestern college town, including a trip to Marvin's, one of the more impressive late-night fry shacks I've ever encountered.

The highlight of the conference, for me, was unquestionably what followed our trip to Marvin's. For most people, the trip to the fry shack marks the end of an evening out. It takes a special kind of disregard for one's well-being to go out for another round of drinks after the grease has settled, but in 2016 — on what was probably one of my first trips away following the birth of my first daughter — I found myself making just that decision, and with none other than the legendary pianist Awadagin Pratt.

Looking back from my 2023 perspective, and having become Awadagin's friend in the intervening years, nothing feels more natural than the two of us going out for a number of whiskies between 1 and 4 AM. At the time, it was a remarkable turn of events, given that this was a musician whom I held in the highest regard, and felt fortunate to even be meeting at this conference. But it wasn't just me fan-boying out — we were having an epic conversation about music, history, and where things were going — just the sort of conversation that Mark Rabideau, Awadagin's old friend and the mastermind behind the 21cm conference we were attending (and, probably, the trip to Marvin's), was hoping to promote.

What happened next, over the years that followed, was that a conversation became a question, a question became another set of conversations, and before long, Awadagin and Mark were visiting our farm in Massachusetts and we were all making plans to produce a new album together. We listened to a lot of music, had a lot of deep conversations, and kept listening and talking for more than a year after that.

Today, the product of those many conversations is finally out in the world. It's called STILLPOINT, and it's like nothing else I've been a part of. Awadagin built the record around a passage from T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton, from the Four Quartets, challenging 6 composers to respond to that text without setting it or, for the most part, even using the words themselves in the composition. The composers are a remarkable group, individually and as a testimony to stylistic diversity: Jessie Montgomery, Paola Prestini, Alvin Singleton, Tyshawn Sorey, Peteris Vasks, and myself. Awadagin is joined by Roomful of Teeth and A Far Cry, two of my favorite ensembles, with different composers writing for different combinations of the available instruments.

I wore many hats in the development of this project, and in the end, as one of STILLPOINT's producers, I can say that I'm as proud of this record as I am of any art object I've been a part of making.

Merely getting to work with these composers and musicians, and to have their artistry under one "roof" of an album, could have been enough — but it wasn't enough, in fact, for any of us, and we challenged ourselves to make the album cohere as a unified statement despite the differences in the sounds of each piece, the varied styles at play and differences in orchestration. What results is a musical statement that puts Awadagin himself at the center, with all of us circling in a series of musical orbits, as Eliot's text floats overhead. It's a rich tapestry of sounds that rewards deep exploration, and I hope you'll take it upon yourself to give it some time.

Thanks to everyone involved for making this such a journey to remember — Mark Rabideau, a true visionary even though he won't admit it, Jesse Lewis, the only person who could have pulled this all together, the Art of the Piano Foundation that made this dream a reality, and of course, Awadagin, the Copernican center of this musical system. It's been a wonderful journey with all of you, and in some ways, it's only just beginning today.