Trumpeter Jordan McLean has been a core member of Antibalas since a few gigs after its inception in 1998. Along with the rest of the pioneering Afrobeat group, he’s helped introduce a new generation of music fans to a once overlooked form of Nigerian music. Antibalas’ early residencies at NoMoore Lounge and Wetlands blurred the line between politically active communal gatherings and traditional shows and, during the past decade, the members of Antibalas have grown into something of New York’s house band. (The Antibalas Horns, in different configurations, have performed with the likes of Phish, The String Cheese Incident, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Disco Biscuits, David Byrne, TV on the Radio, Mark Ronson, Wyclef Jean and Tony Visconte, among many others.)
Antibalas grew out of the same musical community that produced Daptone Records and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, and McLean also served as a charter member of Jones’ original outfit, the Soul Providers. In addition to his continued work with Antibalas, McLean keeps busy with a diverse mixture of projects, including the chamber band Ensemble Callada, the harder edge Directors! and The Sway Machinery, an outfit rooted in traditional Jewish cantorial music. More recently, McLean has formed a close association with Joe Russo and, after participating in “The Friday Night Jam” speaking series, has started to explore Antibalas’ music in a more stripped-down setting with Antibalas singer Amayo as Armo. Antibalas are currently putting the final touches on their first record since their 2012 self-titled release, and McLean hints that the album will have a new, conceptual twist. “The new record is being mastered and manufactured as we speak,” he says. “There is a theme, to be sure, and it will be unlike any Antibalas record to date.”
Let’s start by talking about your new “chamber Afrobeat project” Armo, which grew out of the Friday Night Jam speaking event I am part of. Can you describe your goals for that project and what you have learned about Amayo’s music by presenting it in a more stripped-down setting?
First off, thank you for giving us our start—a very happy accidental collection of players based on people’s availability for that particular gig. Our goals for Armo are to enter the heart of our listeners—to engage the jamband audience on the cerebral and booty level. I have been playing Amayo’s music as long as he has been composing it, and approaching it from the perspective of a “chamber” band, it demonstrates how strong the parts are while allowing for more space between the parts because we are only six instead of 12.
Your other new project is Ensemble Callada. Can you also describe how this chamber ensemble came about and how you decided to start working on material for this 10-piece group?
I have been studying the rarified music of Federico Mompou for almost 25 years and have been thinking about transferring the 10 fingers of his piano music to a 10 piece band for the last 20 years. I have performed orchestrations of his songs and the first book of Musica Callada (from where the band draws its name) for my piano/trumpet/cello trio for about 15 years now, so it really is a long-term relationship. The appeal is the elegant dissonance in his harmonic scheme and the simplicity of his transposed melodic gestures; it is a perfect marriage of peace and unrest which I think is what grabbed Miles and Bill Evans when they were working on Kind Of Blue.
You were recently part of Joe Russo’s presentation of Hooteroll? . How did you and Joe first come in contact, and what were your takeaways from that night of very free, jazzy music?
I was blown away by everyone’s soloing as well as the spirit of ensemble playing. Of course there was a long history between each person with Joe, but we were a new band. I was also really, really impressed with the audience that night; so open to this music that most people probably were not as familiar with as they are with the music of the Grateful Dead. Joe and I first met doing the “Complete Last Waltz” concerts [at the Capitol Theatre the evening before Thanksgiving], if I’m not mistaken. I have had the pleasure of doing two JRAD gigs and he has played with Armo once already now.
Antibalas has been part of the Dead world since the Wetlands days but always played a different style of improvisational music. What are your personal roots in the jamband world, and were you surprised that Antibalas was embraced by that audience?
My personal roots probably start with playing the Wetlands with my live drum and bass band Droid and a live hip-hop funk band called 10 Man. It was started by Jeff Krasno, older brother of Eric, in the late ‘90s. [Jeff managed Soulive early on and started the Velour label as well as the Wanderlust festivals.] I would go to Groove Collective shows there in the early-mid ‘90s and even shared a bill there with my college band Mama Joy and [Daptone founder] Gabe Roth’s college band the Dynomatics with Gabe on drums and Luke O’Malley of Antibalas and The Roots on vocals. I was never surprised the jam world has embraced Antibalas; we are all on a deeply explorative quest.
In recent years, The Antibalas Horns have become something of a house band for New York-area benefits and events at Carnegie Hall. Can you pinpoint a moment where you felt like the horn section started to take on this roll, and how do you think those ensemble performances have shaped the Antibalas sound?
The first time we were engaged as a section outside of Antibalas was on the MMW record Uninvisible. Playing with so many different artists as a section now, from The Roots to String Cheese, has given us a sense as a section that we can really count on one another to deliver in any setting.
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.
