The Living Collection: Lesley Mok Speaks
Album art by Aaron Turner, courtesy of the artist.
Brooklyn-based drummer and composer Lesley Mok returns to The Jazz Gallery on Tuesday to celebrate the release of her album, The Living Collection, available on May 5, 2023.
Mok has worked with artists including Jen Shyu, Myra Melford, and Tomeka Reid, and has had compositions performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and Metropolis Ensemble. Her debut record, The Living Collection features a 10-piece band that crosses musical communities—jazz, concert music, experimental electronics, and beyond. Earlier this week, Mok shared some reflections with us on the process and inspiration behind her work and the music on the album.
Inspired by Vijay Iyer’s thoughts on improvisation, I aspire to treat improvisation as a system of ethical relations—one in which everyone can express their ideas truthfully and fearlessly. I strive to make musical choices that not only respond to the propositions others make, but also establish a context in which everyone can participate in music as a necessary ritualistic function.
This intention is what guides the explorations in my debut record, The Living Collection. This ten-piece ensemble builds an ecosystem of its own, one in which each member activates compositional material and creates new forms and cycles as it unfolds. In the music, I ask each improviser to participate with equal force and weight, learning to find a center within multiple relationships, and opening up the possibility for multiple perspectives to expand and evolve over time. I try to highlight these relationships through the use of simultaneity and dissonance, making choices in the music that speak to the weight of each idea and its counterbalance, which constantly shift in tandem to maintain an equilibrium.
Rehearsing over the course of a month, I gave simple prompts to each musician: play loudly, play this pitch set, explore this motif, ask a question, respond emphatically! A prompt might ask someone to play in their lowest register, only to have someone else respond in their highest register. Another prompt might disperse a linear melody amongst the ensemble. The result: an intensely flowing phrase heard through a choir of sounds. A third prompt might call for an insistent string unison background to accompany a patient soloist. These exercises in juxtaposition and counterpoint ultimately honed our ability to contribute to an abstract whole and created a listening practice in which my compositional language could be fluently interpreted.
In a biological ecosystem, there exists a complex network in which different organisms are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flow. In Living Collection, new ideas may emerge, while at other times, they decompose, but all function together in synergistic, vibrant ways. In assembling this particular ensemble, my goal was to create an environment that is dynamic and rich as it is patient and introspective. I wanted to ask, “what if?” at each turn, curious about the ways in which individual decisions can foster a collective.
The Living Collection is an emblem of an inner world: one as profound as it is mundane, dark as it is humorous, soft as it is incisive, and sensual as it is rigid. The 53-minute album feels like one long rumination—one that creates a space for contemplative minds to wander and meditates on a vision that is hopeful, poignant, and tender.
Lesley Mok plays The Jazz Gallery on Tuesday, April 18. The group features Lesley Mok on drums; David Leon on alto sax, soprano sax, flute, & alto flute; Yuma Uesaka on tenor sax, Bb clarinet, & Bb contra-bass clarinet; Milena Casado on trumpet & flugelhorn; Kalun Leung on trombone; Elias Stemeseder on piano; Ledah Finck on violin & viola; Aliya Ultan on cello; Florian Herzog on bass; and Weston Olencki on electronics. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. ET. $20 general admission (FREE for members), $30 cabaret seating ($20 for members), $20 Livestream (FREE for members). Purchase tickets here.