Graham Haynes:
Conduction #18
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
7:30pm (doors 7:00pm)
at Nublu, 151 Loisada Ave., NY 10009
With: Arina Bagaryakova, Chris Bates, Che Buford, Miranda Daiagnew, Shakoor Hakeem, Key Hutch, Akiva Jacobs, Doyeon Kim, Shara Lunon, Eden Mastriani-Levi, Hani’el Mastriani-Levi, Vivek Menon, Mauro Refosco, Brandon Ross, Yuma Uesaka.
Starting in 1990, Graham Haynes was a conduit for the American cornetist and composer Butch Morris’ structured improvisation method, called Conduction®, a singular form of large-group improvisation in which conductors and ensembles “duet” using a system of signals and gestures. At Nublu, the club and label on Avenue C, Graham was an early member of an evolving, composite group of wildly varied musicians that formed the Nublu Orchestra under Butch Morris’ baton. Butch’s conductive language could manipulate musicians’ harmonies, rhythms, and phrasings regardless of their technical, theoretical, stylistic or cultural background. As an heir to and interpreter of the method since Butch’s death in 2013, Graham has introduced Conduction® to conservatory students, electronic musicians, and to players local to his home in Bahia, Brazil. In March 2024, he led two nights of Conduction® with the Nublu Orchestra as part of his multifaceted month-long residency at FourOneOne. On January 21, 2025, he returns for one night of Conduction®, primarily with musicians new to the form: Arina Bagaryakova, Chris Bates, Che Buford, Miranda Daiagnew, Key Hutch, Akiva Jacobs, Doyeon Kim, Shara Lunon, Eden Mastriani-Levi, Hani’el Mastriani-Levi, Vivek Menon, Yuma Uesaka, plus longtime collaborators Shakoor Hakeem, Mauro Refosco, and Brandon Ross.
Photo: Eva Kapanadze
On January 26 at Sultan Room, Graham will perform with Harriet Tubman, the raucous liberatory collective formed by guitarist-vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer JT Lewis in 1998. Harriet Tubman is widely regarded for their astonishing and transporting live and recorded performances, and for their wide-ranging musical collaborations, including albums with Cassandra Wilson, who collaborated with them on Black Sun; Pulitzer Prize finalist Wadada Leo Smith, on their album Araminta; and a forthcoming release with producer/composer/singer Georgia Anne Muldrow. Harriet Tubman and Graham Haynes will be joined by History Dog Trio (Shara Lunon, Lesley Mok and Chris Williams). Get your tickets.
Graham Haynes is a Bahia, Brazil-based composer, bandleader, and musician who expands and confounds what we understand as jazz and electronic music. Son of the drummer Roy Haynes, raised among the greatest figures in improvised music and art in New York, Graham’s work grows out of a keen sense of New York’s many histories of music and musical movements. His voyages span the 1980s co-founding of the seminal M-Base Collective; collaborations with performers in African, Arabic, and South Asian idioms; works with drum 'n' bass DJs; and, most recently, his opus Requiem for Young Black Men Assassinated by Police in America.