Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Jane Ira Bloom [sound recording].

Author

Bloom, Jane Ira.

Publication

2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Pellegrinelli, Lara V.
• Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Description

3 sound discs (178 min.) : digital, stereo; 4 3/4 in.+

Summary

Jane Ira Bloom speaks with Lara Pellegrinelli about being born in Boston; growing up outside of Boston in Newton, Massachusetts; her parents: father, a camp director; mother, an accountant; having two older brothers, Charlie and Mark; starting to study saxophone at a young age with Joe Viola; Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble run by the New England Conservatory of Music; Frank Battisti and Joe Viola as musical mentors while growing up; her early attraction to musical instruments; beginning to study piano at age 4; picking up saxophone in third grade; getting recognized as serious and seeking out Joe Viola in Boston by 9th grade; having to relearn the saxophone working with Joe Viola; the Berklee College of Music; being eager for exposure and experience; New Haven marking the point when she started to develop as an artist and musician; Viola emphasizing the instrument rather than teaching a specific genre of music, and what lessons were like with him; learning to make her own fake books as she learned new songs; always enjoying composing and improvising; her interests in high school including academics and black and white photography; her interests in abstract imagery; taking photographs of what she wishes to paint; always having intense concentration and focus; the importance of having a voice and being yourself; how attending Yale was not planned; New Haven, Connecticut in the 1970s; hearing live music like Charles Mingus, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis orchestra, Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Viola's groups; various clubs and the club scene in Boston; the New Haven renaissance in the 1970s with people like Leo Smith, Anthony Davis, George Lewis; being exposed to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM); not waiting for record companies to document the music that was happening; sessioning with Mark Levinson and Kent McLagan; meeting Sonny Rollins at age 19; college in the 1970s including the rise of women's studies and the feminist movement; remembering classes with Willie Ruff and Maury Weston; issues of race while studying jazz at Yale; learning the history of black music; Ed Blackwell; feeling welcomed in the scene as a female saxophone player; studying jazz with David Mott; being a music major studying classical theory, history and composition; having no performance major; earliest exposure to electronic music through Robert Moore; composing original music with Kent McLagan at Yale; writing for quartets and larger ensembles; being part of the fourth class of women at Yale; getting her Yale school of music degree in saxophone performance; recitals being pivotal; "An evening of creative music" concert she gave in 1976 at the Education Center for the Arts being the point she realized she was a professional musician; moving to New York City in 1977; studying with George Coleman to explore harmonic complexity and to learn to play fast; trying to connect with musicians like Ornette Coleman and Toots Thielemans; Miles Davis always appealing to her; understanding that less is more; Miles Davis and the trumpet; the loop between human voice and the instrument like Shirley Horn and Miles Davis; her first album with Kent McLagan; starting Outline Records; learning everything from scratch; being one of the few people with a recording contract who was able to create and produce all of her own records; New Music Distribution Service started by Carla Bley; album "We are outline"; not knowing a first album of saxophone and bass duets was considered unusual; playing duos and how they are an exposed format with nowhere to hide; her second album "Second wind"; meeting vibist David Friedman, pianist Larry Karish, and vocalist Jay Clayton; her album "Mighty lights"; playing with David Friedman's quartet; her relationship with Matthias Winckelmann and Enja Records; picking her dream rhythm section: Ed Blackwell, Charlie Haden and Fred Hersch; recording "Mighty lights"; husband Joe Grifasi; Grifasi as producer; what it means to be married to a performance artist; the exposure to Grifasi's worlds of theatre and television; the response to "Mighty lights" as validation; getting signed to CBS; recording at Studio A; her use of live electronics; having the support and resulting momentum of CBS; effects processing units and improvisation; using electronic sound in conjunction with acoustic sound; movement related to playing; other musicians using electronics at that time; using velocity sensors; electronics versus the pure or traditional form of music; feeling the human resonance in electronic sound; her connection to Shirley Muldowney, how she was inspired and the resulting piece "The race"; being inspired by Torvill and Dean and the resulting piece "Ice dancing" ; being a visual thinker; being the first musician commissioned by the NASA Art Team and her concert at the Kennedy Space Center; her exposure and inspiration gained through her relationship with NASA; "Most distant galaxy" being inspired by a press release reporting on the furthest galaxy ever found; concerts in planetariums; NASA's influence on her playing; movement as a process, not a product; improvisers and their kinship to Jackson Pollock's paintings; fractal energies; spatial acoustics; the suite "Rediscovery" written in residency at NASA; translating movement techniques to a section of musicians to enhance or change the aural sensation; movement in jazz; awareness of stage presence and performing; the piece "Sixteen sunsets"; taking advantage of the balconies at Town Hall; how sounds bend and move; her album "The red quartets"; being a performance-oriented composer; getting looser and expanding ranges with age; playing with Fred Hersch, Mark Dresser and Bobby Previte; her ideas about ballads and old standards; passing sound around a quartet; the connection between idea and written materials; "Five full fathoms" inspired by Jackson Pollock; pre and post production sensory experience of movement; what is seen on paper for "Chagall" and "Five full fathoms"; her compositional process; her love of the rehearsal process; studying Bach chorales; the line-writing process; her passion for drums and drummers; "A more beautiful question" as stark melody to be followed, inspired by Laura Nyro and "New York tendaberry"; her work with dancers Richard Bull and Carmen De Lavallade; the Pilobolus Dance Company; the Improvisational Dance Ensemble; her collaborations with Carmen De Lavallade; commissions and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; presentation of the Duke commissioned work leading to her Guggenheim Fellowship; working with a new format; M'Lumbo and "Unconscious forces"; what is to come including moving away from the quartet and ambiguity leading to her next project; her interest in neuroscience and dream thought.

Series Statement

Duke jazz series

Uniform Title

Duke jazz series.

Subjects

• Davis, Miles > Influence
• Torvill, Jayne, 1957- > Influence
• De Lavallade, Carmen, 1931-
• Bloom, Jane Ira > Interviews
• Mingus, Charles, 1922-1979 > Influence
• Dean, Christopher, 1958- > Influence
• Yale University
• NASA Art Program (U.S.)
• Chamber Music America
• Muldowney, Shirley, 1940- > Influence
• Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
• Viola, Joseph > Influence
• Saxophonists > Interviews
• McLagan, Kent
• New England Conservatory of Music
• Hersch, Fred
• Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956 > Influence
• Dresser, Mark
• Previte, Bobby
• Nyro, Laura > Influence
• New School (New York, N.Y.)
• Battisti, Frank L > Influence

Note

• Interview with Jane Ira Bloom conducted in two parts by Lara Pellegrinelli in New York, N.Y., on Dec. 15, 2008, and Feb. 6, 2009.

Funding (note)

• Recording made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Call Number

*LDCO 550

OCLC

318536923

Author

Bloom, Jane Ira. Interviewee

Title

Interview with Jane Ira Bloom [sound recording].

Imprint

2009.

Series

Duke jazz series

Duke jazz series.

Funding

Recording made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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Added Author

Pellegrinelli, Lara V. Interviewer

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Research Call Number

*LDCO 550