Screening Vision is a new digital venture digging deep into the Arts for Art and Vision Festival archives to highlight great performances and discussions from 25 years of programs. New videos are posted on our Youtube channel Tuesday through Sunday.
See the video schedule here and learn more about the performers in the first week of videos below.
Tuesday, April 7
Djassi DaCosta Johnson - dance
Shayna Dulberger - bass
Vision Festival 22, June 1, 2017, Judson Church, NYC
Djassi Dacosta Johnson and Shayna Dulberber's current collaboration for the Vision Festival is an exploration of what the foundations are for “a just future” in this country as interpreted through the tradition of American Anthems written in the 1950s. Their musical and dance synthesis will explore the structured improvisational forms born in the Harlem Renaissance, in the birth of Jazz, as well as seeped in the history of Judson Church and the modern dance movement. Their collaborations are inspired by the conversation between music and dance, sound and song, past and future, and the art and artists that laid the foundations for the art that is now.
Bassist Shayna Dulberger walked out to the middle of the floor, white tape over her mouth, and began playing. Above her images of America's past started to slide by. Union rallies, lynchings, civil rights marches, protests, up to present day Black Live Matters marches. Dancer Djassi DaCosta Johnson began slowly approaching the stage area, also with white tape over her mouth. Shedding an American flag cape, she began a free form dance. She removed the tape and began reciting the words to 'My Country tis of Thee,' and at some point, made a connection to Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit’ and then to a bull horn where she delivered a litany of protest phrases. The performance captured the anger and confusion in a country, whose country seems to be breaking up with them. It was a good performance and it will be interesting to see if the duo develops it further.
- Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog
Under_Line Salon, December 13, 2015, Broome St. Loft, NYC
Since his arrival in NYC in the early ‘90’s, Tony Malaby has become an integral member of the thriving improvised music community with his noted singular voice on the saxophone. Malaby was recently named one of Downbeat's "80 Coolest Things in Jazz". In recent years, Malaby has led and recorded many projects including the Tamarindo Trio with Nasheet Waits and William Parker, TubaCello with John Hollenbeck, Chris Hoffman and Dan Peck, as well as Palomo Recio with Ben Monder, Eivind Opsvik, Dan Weiss, Billy Mintz and Ben Gerstein. Malaby has lent his talents to such groups such as Paul Motian’s Electric Be-Bop Band, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Fred Hersch's Quintet and Ches Smith's These Arches. Born and raised in Tucson, Malaby's Mexican heritage permeates his musical life. Malaby remembers that, "being a kid, in 1970s Tucson, was very Mexican.
The atmosphere was filled with music and rituals -going to mass, funerals, praying the rosary, plumes of incense smoke ...all of these things have lingered. I really think that's who I am. And there's really strong imagery for me, from back then. I try to communicate those experiences, with my sound and how I play." Malaby's vivid improvisational work and his sparse, folklike melodies are part-and-parcel with his unique musical concept.
Panel Discussion: On the Internet
Vision Festival 24, June 15, 2019, Roulette, Brooklyn
Jean Cook is a program associate on the Technology and Society team at the Ford Foundation, working to support universal access, open systems, and clear protections for the public within the internet environment. For a decade prior to joining the foundation, from 2005 to 2015, she directed research, education, and advocacy initiatives for Future of Music Coalition, with a portfolio that mapped some of the most significant impacts of emerging digital structures on marginalized segments of the music industry. Her key areas of work included jazz and classical music metadata, data collection and musician payment infrastructure, and understanding how copyright and technology impact indigenous artists in places like Ethiopia, Tajikistan, and Australia. Also at FMC, she served as interim executive director of FMC from 2009 to 2010 and was a co-director of the Artist Revenue Streams research project, assembling one of the most comprehensive data sets on US-based musician income and copyright. As a musician, Jean has performed on over 100 albums and toured on four continents with various groups, including Jon Langford, Beauty Pill, and Ida/Elizabeth Mitchell. She served on the founding steering committee for the Cultural Research Network (USA), is a member of Women of Color in the Arts, and sits on New Music USA’s Program Council and the boards of directors for Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation, Future of Music Coalition, and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
Melvin Gibbs
Read this great JazzTimes feature and career overview to learn more about Melvin Gibbs.
https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/melvin-gibbs-isnt-looking-back/
Patrick Holmes - clarinet
James Brandon Lewis - tenor saxophone
Josh Werner - electric bass
Ches Smith - drums
Raza y Resistencia, Teatro LATEA, October 9, 2018
Listen to music from the band members, embedded here:
Patrick Holmes
Peter Brötzmann - tenor sax, tarogato
William Parker - bass, gimbri
Hamid Drake - drum set, frame drum
June 12, 2014, Vision Festival 19, Roulette, Brooklyn
Twelve years after their last performance, the power trio of reedist Peter Brötzmann, double-
bassist William Parker, and percussionist Hamid Drake reunited at the Vision Festival.