The Antibalas lineup has shifted a bit over the years as different players have gone on to different projects. Do you feel that the band still has the fluid feel of an orchestra or has the group settled into a firmer lineup as you have worked toward a new album?

The lineup is pretty much set now and has been taking the current form over a couple of years. We are tighter and funkier than ever. It has been great seeing Kevin Raczka settle into the drum chair, and Will Rast evolve the sound of the keyboards. Not to mention the one and only Ray Mason on trombone and Morgan Price on tenor emerging as true stars in the horn section. At the same time, Amayo is playing vibraphone and adding a whole other dimension sonically to the group sound.

Of all the horn players in the Antibalas world, you, Stuart and Martin have perhaps the longest history together. Can you talk about how you met both Stuart and Martin and describe your connection with each player?

Martin and I met on a jam session not long before he started Antibalas. I had recorded for Gabe Roth on an early Desco record [Roth’s label before Daptone], and Martin called me for Antibalas on literally the second day of the band’s life. Stuart and I met through mutual friends in the “creative music/avant garde” scene that we all crept around in in the mid-late ‘90s.

Our connection goes beyond music. We are brothers that know as much about one another’s soul as any people who are not married or born into the same family can know.

These are two of the most original voices on their instruments of my generation. They have both come to the saxophone from the Afrobeat tradition where 99.9% of saxophonists come at the instrument from a jazz pedagogy. I like playing with them for that reason. I have a jazz background, but my approach to repertoire and improvisation is based much more in compositional mindset, and something we share is an approach to horns as a vocal and rhythmic instrument, rather than a single line outlining harmony and melody.

Though you are not of Jewish decent, you are a longtime member of Sway Machinery. How did you enter that world, and what struck you the most about playing that style of ethnic music?

One thing about the Sway to me is that it is not musically obliged to any musical tradition. We don’t play klezmer. When we play traditional Jewish music, it is Jeremiah Lockwood’s totally unique and completely genius recasting of that music. The world of the Sway Machinery owes as much to the musical lineage of Mali in West Africa and punk music as it does any element of Jewish traditions. The 30 or more songs that make up the core of the band’s repertoire is the most original music I have ever had a part in making.

I also see you are playing with a project called Directors! in the coming weeks. Can you explain that project and some of the players involved?

Directors! is “future pop” disguised as a hardcore-psych jamband—anthemic songs in the tradition of the Cars, New York Dolls, Talking Heads, Nirvana, etc. with heavy jams in and around the sets. We are born out of a duo with my musical/business partner, drummer Amir Ziv. We started as a film score percussion/brass/electronics ensemble and gradually added vocalist Sahr Ngaujah (of FELA! on Broadway) and guitartist/vocalist Ricky Quinones. The cherry on top was adding Antibalas bass player Nikhil P. Yerawadekar. We have a great time writing songs together and are about to release our first four singles on our way to an EP release on System Dialing this fall/winter.

It has been about 10 years since Antibalas got involved in FELA! How do you feel that experience shaped the band’s last decade?

We try to keep those entities separate as a matter of public discourse. When the show was in production on and off Broadway, there were five once-and-current members of Antibalas in the 10 piece FELA! Band, and members of the FELA! band have of course subbed in on Antibalas gigs through the years.

You worked with the great Ornette Coleman. Can you talk about the nature of your musical collaboration and friendship?

My relationship with Ornette was like anyone else’s at the start. He would welcome you into his home like family, even if you had just met. People who make too precious their relationship with him are curious to me. That said, there were many days and nights over many months and years even where I had the occasion to spend quality time alone with him. I was there when Barack Obama was elected. I asked him if he thought a black man would ever be elected president and he said, “No, never” without missing a beat. I told him when Freddie Hubbard died. What he gave so many of us in terms of ideas and phrases (musical and dialectical), is worth a lifetime of reflection and application. Once you have a mind meld (and believe me, the man was highly psychic) with OC, you are never the same. He would call you his Twin. He was not interested in hierarchy in terms of socialization. Or music, even. Anyone could come play with him. Not that he always thought it was burning music, but you could at least share yourself with him and he never played or spoke down to you. He might make jokes about people when they left, but he was a little trickster, too. Not an angel by any means. Kind of naughty, but funny as fuck.

We would play, talk, party, shoot pool, go out to eat, talk some more, on and on. Musically, we jammed with Amir for weeks and months, developing what we called a new vocabulary. All of this led to the incredible escapade that was the making of New Vocabulary. The legal issues are a matter of public record and the fact is that the record remains for sale and has been embraced by critics, fans, and—most importantly to me—musicians who know and love Ornette’s music.

You have also crossed paths with David Byrne a few times onstage and I believe in the studio. Do you have a favorite story about playing with him?

Playing with, there is not really a favorite story. He is a blast to make music with, as you might expect. I have treasured memories of seeing him in the Village with Grace Jones as a kid, running into him in the rain after he came to the first few Antibalas gigs in 1998, and mostly of hearing him at Carnegie Hall, during a Tibet
House concert. The stage was full of Tibetan monks, Patti Smith’s band, Angelique Kidjo—everyone going nuts—and the most present thing on stage was David Byrne’s voice, even though he was 20 feet from a microphone.

You were an original member of Sharon Jones’ Soul Providers. Do you remember the first time you met her and realized she was going to be a star?

I don’t remember the first time we met, nor do I ever recall thinking she was going to be a star. She and The Dap-Kings just worked so f-ing hard. The first time I knew something good was happening was seeing Up In The Air and hearing their rendition of “This Land Is Your Land” on the opening credits. Her power remains so great.

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