Home » Jazz Articles » Interview » Bobby Zankel: The Inside Story of 'A Change of Destiny'
Bobby Zankel: The Inside Story of 'A Change of Destiny'
Courtesy Michele Lyu
Bobby Zankel and the Wonderful Sound 8's powerful new recording A Change of Destiny (Mahakala Records, Sept. 22, 2023)) once more illustrates his remarkable ability to bring together top musicians with a creative idea and a distinct focus, while giving each of them ample room for individual expression. The band for this album consists of musicians of diverse backgrounds and experiences but all familiar to Zankel: alto saxophonist
Jaleel Shaw
saxophone, altob.1978
Robin Eubanks
tromboneb.1955
Diane Monroe
violin
Sumi Tonooka
pianob.1956
Lee Smith
bass
Pheeroan AkLaff
drumsb.1955
Ruth Naomi Floyd
vocalsPartly because of its origin in story, photography, and dance, this album is rich with musical ideas, images, and metaphors. It provided ample opportunity for All About Jazz to get together with Zankel and ask him to share how the album came about, and what it meant to him inwardly as he seized the opportunity to put it together at a studio near Philadelphia. What comes through is his gratitude for producer
Chad Fowler
saxophoneb.1974
Wayne Shorter
saxophone1933 - 2023
Herbie Hancock
pianob.1940
All About Jazz: It's been several years since the music for this recording was composed and performed. What made you decide at this point to come back to it and make an album?
Bobby Zankel: Actually, I was originally looking at a recording that I did in 1997 with the great pianist
Marilyn Crispell
pianob.1947
William Parker
bassb.1952
Hamid Drake
drumsb.1955
Chad Fowler
saxophoneb.1974
So then, as I was going through the music in my library, I rediscovered the dance piece. It was a recording of the music that was made during the actual dance performance. It was incredible. But because it was accompanying a choreographed dance, we musicians didn't stretch it out the way we would have if we were just playing the music on our own. I thought to myself, "This could be a great album!" I thought of what would be my dream band for such an album, top of the line musicians I've worked with, and I approached Chad about it, and he was willing to cover the cost and allow me to pick the studio I wanted. So Chad is the man who made it happen.
Putting It All Together
BZ: The recording site I chose is in Conshohocken, just outside of Philly. It's called Elm Street Studios and is owned by the guys from the Hooters band from back in the day. Our pianist Sumi Tonooka had recorded there with a large group a couple of times.I took the original pieces from the dance and reworked them. I reshaped the music to express where my mind is now musically, creatively, and spiritually. I let go of all the constraints that tied it to the dance piece.
AAJ: Could the music on the recording still be used for the dance?
BZ: I don't see why not.
AAJ: How did you go about choosing the instrumentation and the specific personnel?
BZ: In the original dance version, the instrumentation was drums, bass, and piano, and the front line was trombone, me playing alto saxophone, and a tenor player. For the recording, I preferred another alto player, and I went for
Jaleel Shaw
saxophone, altob.1978
John Coltrane
saxophone1926 - 1967
Dave Holland
bassb.1946
AAJ: Jaleel is great. I've heard him a few times with you. How old is he now?
BZ: He's about 40. 41. So that was Jaleel instead of the tenor. My first choice for the trombone was definitely Robin Eubanks, whom I've known since he was in high school, and we've practiced Buddhism together, which has kept us connected. The only time we performed together was at a special event in Town Hall where he played my music. Robin is one of the top first-call trombonists in the world today. He was a member of
Elvin Jones
drums1927 - 2004
Steve Coleman
saxophone, altob.1956
Diane Monroe
violin
Ornette Coleman
saxophone, alto1930 - 2015
Don Cherry
trumpet1936 - 1995
Sumi Tonooka has been my favorite pianist for a long time, and we're really hitting new heights playing together. She was one of the people I first met when I moved to Philadelphia in 1975. She played on my first record (Seeking Spirit (Cadence Records, 1992). Like Diane, she has a way of playing my music that's wonderful.
Lee Smith
bass
Odean Pope
saxophoneb.1938
Jymie Merritt
bass1926 - 2020
Drummer
Pheeroan AkLaff
drumsb.1955
Cecil Taylor
piano1929 - 2018
Henry Threadgill
woodwindsb.1944
Finally, vocalist
Ruth Naomi Floyd
vocalsWe also had arranged for Monette Sudler to be on the record, but sadly she passed away while we were beginning to rehearse, which was a great loss to us and to all of jazz.
I think that covers the whole band.
The Implications of Washington's Slave Quarters
AAJ: The dance piece and the album both relate to the story of the slave quarters in George Washington's Philadelphia home as President. From what I understand, Washington's conduct of his slave quarters goes against the grain of the Declaration of Independence and the Enlightenment philosophy that the country was founded upon. Tell us about how that comes into play in the recording.BZ: Shortly before I conceived the dance piece, excavators had recently discovered the slave quarters in Washington's house. My own interest began with the great photographer and graphic artist John Dowell who at the time was telling me that he had taken photos of the excavation site. He was in that big office building near Independence Square and was doing photos around the house and slave quarters, a couple of which will be on the CD cover. He's a very spiritual person and was really touched by the lives of the slaves.
AAJ: How did you personally get interested in this subject matter? Obviously, slavery was part of the society at the time, so why did it receive your attention?
BZ: Well, this was a particular situation. First of all, George Washington was the first President of the United States residing in Philadelphia. Philadelphia was a "free city" at the time. You had to set your slaves free after three months in the city. And he would get around that by bringing them to his farm in Virginia and then after two months bring them back to Philadelphia! That was very devious! That's certainly not the usual picture we get of George Washington. Who cares that the chef could sell his goods and had beautiful clothes! Slavery was oppressive, unconstitutional, and an abomination. What is very incredible and inspiring to me are myriad forms of resistance. There were of course far more uprisings and rebellions than we know. The development of a singular magnificent African American culture from the large numbers of tribes and ethnic groups with distinct languages religious practices, music, dance, diets, agricultural customs is maybe the miracle of this continent. We need to remember and celebrate those fathers and mothers of our country. AAJ: Jefferson had slaves, but he freed some of them. What you're saying is that Washington valued slaves so much that he didn't free them when he was legally obligated to do so.
BZ: Right. And they were real people with real names, hence my piece "Naming Names." One of them was Ona Judge, and she escaped to New Hampshire. She was Martha Washington's handservant. And for twenty years after she escaped to New Hampshire, Martha Washington was still trying to bring her back from her family there. It's a little known and horrible part of our country's history. Germaine Ingram, John Dowell, and I were all trying to use our respective art forms to make a statement about it.
Buddhism and Human Destiny
AAJ: How does the album title, A Change of Destiny relate to those events?BZ: For me as a Buddhist, my desire is to make the world a better place. I felt that this work should have a vision that can see something bright in the darkness. So each of these people in the story has a life, a destiny. Buddhism says that every moment of this life is part of the endless flow of life, not just this life but those that came before and will come after.
For example, Wayne Shorter, who was himself a Buddhist, just died. He was very sick, and he said, "I will die and get a new body so I can continue my mission." He emphasized carrying his purpose into a new life. So that means that whatever circumstances a person is in, he or she created it in some way. That might seem cruel. It sounds like a random world but if it wasn't true then the universe would be upside down in my opinion.
But at the same time, that means that in every present moment you have a chance to change your circumstances! You can have "A Change of Destiny." So the issue is that if you look at the present you can see it as the result of what happened in the past, but you can also see it as an opportunity for change. The future is unlimited, and I can do something good and expect my circumstances to improve. Originally, I wanted to call it "Parallel Destinies," but the last phrase of the first track "Destiny" as sung by Ruth Naomi Floyd says, "My destiny belongs to me." But then there's a coda, the most beautiful part, and it says, "A change in the destiny of a single man can change the shape of a nation or even the world. Each life so grand, winning the battle inside, live with the hope of peace for mankind." That's from the writings of the Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda in a multi volume work, (The New Human Revolution (30 volumes), Santa Monica, California: World Tribune Press, 1995). A change in the destiny of a single person can change the world. In Buddhism, everything and everyone is interconnected. And we try to live that way.
AAJ: Even in the worst conditions there is still hope.
BZ: Yes. And people feel so disempowered and hopeless. If you don't have hope, you have misery.
The Tracks on the Album
AAJ: Let's talk about the music itself.BZ: Let me pull up something to read to you. It's from the press release I wrote for my website.
"The opening track 'Destiny,' based on a Jymie Merritt-inspired cross rhythm, asks the question 'Why have we been brought here?' and proclaims, 'My destiny belongs to me!' 'Spirits Break to Freedom' is an epic journey from rainforest hocket rhythms to Afrobeat groove, 21st-century urban angularity, and freedom. 'Naming Names' is an Ornette Coleman-influenced praise song in which vocalist Ruth Naomi Floyd intones the names of 'our nation's nine founding mothers and fathers whose forced labor made the President's House functional. The gospel ecstasy of 'Ring Shouting' and the Billie Jean groove of "Rituals of Resistance" express two cultural revolutionary modes of joyful freedom, while 'To Be a Human Being,' constructed over a 14-beat rhythmic mode, features the powerful self-declaratory words of Malcolm X."
I've been composing for a long time, and I've really developed a harmonic language, a rhythmic language, and an orchestration language. Others including yourself have written or spoken about the consistencies in my style. All I can say is that they are my own ideas coming from what I learned from
Dennis Sandole
b.1913AAJ: The story about Washington's slaves of course goes back to the late 1700s.
Suzanne Cloud
producer
Dave Burrell
pianob.1940
BZ: I had one piece, which I didn't put on the album, called "Market Street Rag," which had a lot of that kind of early influence. And the one piece on the album, "Ring Shouting," is clearly based on church music that goes back a long way.
AAJ: Do you have some other things you'd like to share about the recording.
BZ: The recording engineer was a wonderful guy named John Senior. He was so supportive, so present, and so skilled. Working with him was really a pleasure.
AAJ: As William Parker says introducing his interview with you in his book, (Conversations IV, RogueArt, Paris, 2023), you've had a long and incredible career as a saxophonist, composer, and band leader, interacting with some of the best progressive and avant-garde musicians, making groundbreaking performances and recordings, and always going your own way, maintaining your independence and your own sense of things.
BZ: When I look back, what stands out to me is just the variety of the people that I played with and the diverse approaches to the music that they each brought in. I'm aware that I've been very blessed to have had these people and these experiences in my life. The other day a group of us drove back to Philly from Erie, PA, where we had a gig, and on the long trip back, they wanted to hear some of my music. I have a lot of what I've done stored on my iPhone, so I plugged it in and we listened for a couple of hours on the way home. I have stuff going back to my performances with Cecil Taylor in Carnegie Hall in 1974. I felt some of it was great, and some of it was a real long time ago and I didn't feel that good about it.
Ornette: "Music is Not a Style; It's an Idea"
AAJ: Your career goes back fifty-plus years. Your music seems to transcend categorizing. Do you have any way of putting a label around it?BZ: I can't say what others might think, but I had my own experience of it, writing and playing and so on. My wife often says to people who comment on her, "You don't know me." A critic might hear one of my records and comment on it in a certain way, but they can't come close to what I heard as the composer, leader, and improviser. And the musicians in my groups take the music to such a high level.
AAJ: I agree. There's certain collective beauty in what you do. Sometimes, like the best of all music, it reaches the level of great poetry, sounding great but also communicating something important and universal.
BZ: The good point is that my music doesn't fit in anybody's pocket. It's hard to a say just what it is. To me, that's quite a compliment, but the critics and the fans often favor particular genres and schools, like "I like these guys, but I hate these guys." But my music includes all the guys, but it doesn't fit into any one of them or any specific approach. Ornette said, "Music is not a style; it's an idea." That's very deep. I don't come from a specific style of music. I am trying to develop certain ideas within a framework and vocabulary that I've developed over time.
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Interview
Bobby Zankel
Victor L. Schermer
Terri Hinte Publicity
United States
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
Jaleel Shaw
Robin Eubanks
Diane Monroe
Sumi Tonooka
Lee Smith
Pheeroan AkLaff
Ruth Naomi Floyd
Chad Fowler
Wayne Shorter
Herbie Hancock
Marilyn Crispell
William Parker
Hamid Drake
John Coltrane
Dave Holland
Elvin Jones
Steve Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Don Cherry
Odean Pope
Jymie Merritt
Anthony Davis
Cecil Taylor
Henry Threadgill
Monette Sudler
Dennis Sandole
Suzanne Cloud
dave burrell
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