Collecting Her Selves: Caroline Davis Speaks

Photo by Attis Clopton

by Stephanie Jones

In a few short years, Caroline Davis has taken her expression through many changes. In 2021, the alto saxophonist, composer, singer and poet issued Portals, Volume 1: Mourning, her cathartic and meditative nonet release. But even before then, she’d been examining relationships between the individual and the collective: how people share loss, how they grieve and how, together, they generate hope. Over the past several years, Davis has explored different musical concepts reflective of the human drive for collective spirit and physicality. Last week, she spoke with Jazz Speaks about her recent solo tour, her social-artistic activism and her new vision for Play Beings. 

The Jazz Gallery: This fall you had a brief but rigorous solo saxophone tour. 

Caroline Davis: I went to Boston and did a guest artist performance and workshop at Longy School of Music in Cambridge. Then I went to Western Mass; that was [an outdoor] park series with a bunch of musicians who were really great. Then I played in Keene, New Hampshire and Portland, Maine. And I came back the very next day so I could go to Jaimie Branch’s memorial at Pioneer. It was a long trip, but I’m really glad I made it because it was great to reconnect with all the Chicago people who came to the memorial, and to hear people talk about Jaimie and her legacy. It was just such a tragic event, so it was nice to be around people and process that. 

TJG: The Chicago scene is such a big part of your artistic experience; do you have specific history playing with Jaimie? 

CD: We played together a couple times in Chicago as side people on other people’s projects. But I met her there and we were respectful acquaintances. She was sort of an elusive character, always on the move. I would touch base with her every once in a while. But she had such an impact on the community and in life in general. She just lived so large. It’s impossible not to feel the impact of her death. 

TJG: In the past, you and I have chatted about creating these opportunities for shared grieving. 

CD: Yes, just those collective moments. The collectivity of identifying as a collaborative individual—a person who is not a separate being but a collective being. I’ve been thinking about that a lot for this music I’m writing and have written for The Jazz Gallery show. 

TJG: Should we jump into it now? I was saving that question for later. 

CD: Yeah, it’s sort of related, this idea of collective being and the collective experience of being together here. Here in our world, especially in the U.S. and in the industry here, everyone’s fighting for themselves. There’s this focus on everyone being separate beings, but we’re all connected in this very true way—the way we’re made up, anatomically, but also in the things we think about and deal with on a daily basis. How to survive, how to be happy. I really think that suffering, and the way that we suffer, is the belief that nothing will change. And the belief that we’re separate from each other—that’s also the cause of suffering. If we come together in those spaces and remember that we’re part of this collective, that we’re not alone, I think our suffering will dissipate. 

TJG: Your focus on collective grieving and suffering takes many forms. You’ve been focused on abolition work within your artistry. And you’ve been very engaged in the fight to bring home Keith LaMar who’s been incarcerated for many years. 

CD: 33 years. 

TJG: I’m curious to know how you became involved with the movement artistically, what you’ve been doing with your music to activate change for Keith and to help promote systemic change. 

CD: During the pandemic, when I had some time, I started writing to a few incarcerated individuals who I knew were either connected to friends of mine or were people who’d told me about their situation. One of them was a gentleman named Jalil Muntaqim who was a Black Panther and had been in a situation where a police officer had died and was accused of being one of the people who killed the police officer. So he was imprisoned for 49 years and was released in 2020. Many Black Panthers and other political prisoners have been kept behind bars and confined for too long for crimes they didn’t commit. 

Then, because I had been doing some work with different outreach programs, I became involved with the fundraising efforts of Die Jim Crow Records, [a label that brings] recording equipment into prisons and records people from inside the prisons. So I was involved in doing some benefit concerts for them. Then Albert Marques, who put together the Freedom First ensemble for Keith LaMar, got in touch. I met Keith through writing to him through JPay, which is the email system [that lets] you communicate with incarcerated people; you can also send short videos, but it all costs money. Then recently, my partner and I went to Ohio to visit Keith in person. We had five hours each day for two days to hang out with him. 

The 16th of November marks one year from the day the state of Ohio intends to execute Keith. So we’re tryna be all hands on [deck]. There might be a new firm signing on to Keith’s case; if that happens, hopefully they’ll have some answers for us. 

TJG: Your work for Keith, alongside the movement for abolition, reflects that focus on the collective that’s intrinsic to your output. This performance feels indicative of that focus. But I wanna jump back to that solo tour for a moment. The most compelling part of being out on the road, it seems, is feeling how the music enters new chambers and transitions as a result of how the artists approach it as individuals and collectively. All you had out there was you. So it was truly up to you alone to let the music change and grow. What did you discover? 

CD: I started to become aware of my surroundings more than ever before. When you play with your friends at a club, most of my energy is going into them, concentrating on them, and us together. When I was on my own, it was interesting to incorporate the elements of the space more so than ever. And it taught me more about doing that when I’m playing with other people, too. The vibration of the stage, I never really pay attention to that. But I was really paying attention to it this time. Or what’s happening in the room, who’s sitting where, who are the people in the audience—having more space to focus on them and how they’re sitting and breathing and paying attention. 

And then for each city, I was doing these hikes, which was really great—to be in the surrounding nature. [I was] trying to really feel where I was in each place, letting that inform what I was leaning into in the set, even though some of that stuff was prepared—leaning more into how the surroundings affected the material that I had prepared. 

TJG: Did you notice whether the natural surroundings of a particular area and their respective audiences had any parallel or similar characteristics? 

CD: That’s a great question. Keene, New Hampshire is a really small town. I went to a farmer’s market there, did a couple hikes and stayed in this bed and breakfast run by a person that was really involved in the community. New Hampshire feels a little backwoods to me, for some reason. At the same time, I was talking to different people in the audience and [thought], Wow, there’s this experimental music series that has been going strong in Keene, New Hampshire. It’s interesting that it’s here in this tiny little town. And I’m sure there’s a relationship between the surroundings and the place itself. I was just tryna feel it. 

TJG: You engaged different contextual ideas during these performances: playing solo saxophone—just you and your horn, looping with effects, looping your vocals. What was your initial vision for crafting your sets, and how did that evolve as the tour progressed? 

CD: You can go about playing solo in a myriad of ways, but my approach was just to share with people all of the influences of my musicianship and how they shape me. I opened the set with this intervallic idea that I had been working on for a long time, and I played that over and over as an opening. And then I was showing this relationship to the organelle, this little box of effects, and my relationship to this low-frequency oscillator and electronic waves. And then there’s a back and forth motion I use on the saxophone, sort of this Doppler effect, and its interaction with a faster melodic framework that turns into this harmonic progression. You’re in one key at the beginning of the performance, and then you transform and mutate through different key centers to get to a different place at the end.

And then there’s this piece where I came up with a very short idea based on this Emily Dickinson poem, and another where I’m using a speech from Barbara Smith who was one of the founders of the Combahee River Collective. And at the very end of the set, I’m bringing it all back home with this loop station to play “Barbara Allen.” Ending with a folk song. So there’s a lot going on with this set, but it’s my artistry. I’ve put a lot of thought into this set, all these elements of myself. It’s okay to have all these very disparate parts of yourself contributing to who you are as an artist. 

TJG: It’s so natural. Yet, it still feels taboo somehow for artists to feel that way about their expression, themselves, their tastes. And when you think about it, none of it is really disparate; it just seems that because of us, our perceptions. I’m sure folks are excited to hear how all these ideas you were actively or passively developing for the past couple months will emerge through Play Beings. How did this ensemble come together, and what’s your intention for this outfit? 

CD: I’ve been wanting to make music with these individuals for a long time. And it’s a very odd ensemble in that it’s piano and acoustic bass, and then Kengchakaj is going to be playing live coding, which is sort of a percussive element. And he’ll also be playing synthesizer.

The fifth component is my friend Selina Trepp who’s a visual artist and uses a platform to contribute visual offerings during the set. I’d seen her work for years when I went to see Jeff Parker at Rodin in Chicago. I never knew her personally, but she started coming up in my social media thread. And I love her work so much. I started checking out her stop-motion animations, and then I remembered she was the one who was doing these live visuals at Rodin.

The music that we’re gonna play is a lot less worked out than in my previous ensembles, which allows for more freedom for these players. They all have their own individual voices, and I wanna allow them all to play in the space. So in terms of the collective, I have to trust, more than I ever have, these people to be who they are in the space. 

TJG: Is there anything you’d like to add? 

CD: At certain times in my early childhood I wasn’t able to listen to my needs and wants because there was so much trauma happening. And I think this is the time. This is the music where I’m coming up with these really wild and silly and fun ideas that are from her. From this other being that just so happens to be me from another time. I’m getting to know her and getting to love her more than she was ever loved—getting these scribbles down on the page and really embracing that liberation. 

Caroline Davis plays The Jazz Gallery on Friday-Saturday, Dec. 2-3, 2022. The band features Ms. Davis on alto saxophone, Angelica Sanchez on piano & synthesizer, Chris Tordini on bass, Kengchakaj on live coding and Selina Trepp on live visuals. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. EDT, $30 general admission ($10 for members), $40 limited cabaret seating ($20 for members). Purchase tickets here.