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Fay Victor Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful

Fay Victor Announces Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful
Out August 25th on Northern Spy Records

“Breezy Point Ain’t Breezy” Now Streaming – via Bandcamp

Today, Fay Victor is announcing Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful – her 2nd album for Northern Spy – along with the first single “Breezy Point Ain’t Breezy,”  a first person story about accidentally getting lost in Breezy Point, a private enclave in Queens that is a bastion of Trump supporters in liberal New York City.

Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful is the very first solo record by Fay Victor, whose 30-year-long music career has covered everything from House, New Music, Jazz (Blues) and Free Improvisation. Her deep history with dance music, her genreless output, and her lived experience as a Black woman in the world shaped a brand new process she used to create this prismatic album which touches on all the decades of her life like diary snapshots. It’s a mesmerizing collection of composed work that could only be made by an extraordinary improviser. 

From hearing the raw, almost gospel vocal style over a heavy beat of Donna Summer and Sylvester, to obsessing over shows like Soul Train, Solid Gold, and Dance Fever on TV, to experiencing the sweat and groove, the freedom of bodies moving at NYC clubs like Danceteria, The Loft, and the Paradise Garage – her life changed forever. As she was developing as a jazz singer in Amsterdam in the 90s, she danced to trance music in clubs like Mazzo and The Soul Kitchen. She landed on the Billboard charts with a club hit “You Make Me Happy” in ’91. Stoned on the sacred dance floor, Fay found ecstasy in the moving body, the groove, the beat.

As she entered deeper into the world of jazz, she was attracted to the rhythmic qualities of Thelonious Monk, Eddie Harris, Eric Dolphy, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Betty Carter, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nicole Mitchell, Milford Graves, Julius Hemphill, Charles Mingus, Herbie Nichols. Their confrontational rhythm sends her soul leaping, connecting her back to her clubheadheart.

With Mavin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” as a template, Fay started thinking about how her solo album might unfold. She sang, played keyboards, added textures and further dimensions with no other humans, without electronics. That was her process. Thoroughly creative, composed with music and words straight from her spirit.

CREDITS

Fay Victor SOLO
Voice, Compositions, Nord 4 Keyboard + Processing
Recorded on July 30-31, 2022 by Chris Weiss 
for Northern Spy Records
at Birdwatcher Studios, Big Indian, NY 

photo by Deneka Peniston

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As some of you know, composing on my own is a recent phenomenon for me. I began in earnest around 2014 and thanks to Amy Bormet inviting me as a special guest in 2015 on her wonderful Washington Women in Jazz Festival, commissioning me to write a piece for her group. the piece I composed, “In The Flow” received incredible feedback and that response kept me writing on my own although I had few opportunities to present the music that was beginning to emerge. This music was new and different from the music I was performing at the time. My writing varied instrumentations, approaches and structure – just based on what I thought might sound great together. I was excited for this new direction, deciding to just write, learn and study. Yet there was a moment when I wanted to know what this music would sound like in the hands of other humans. How would these explorations ever be heard? In 2018, I was invited to be a Yaddo resident as a Herb Albert Fellow in Composition and wrote a large work devoted to my mother, called ‘Faith, The Gift”. I was thrilled about this opportunity, how that six-week stay allowed me the space to write about my mother, and mourn her death properly for the first time. I’ve YET to present that large scale work. Like I said so few opportunities to present the music I was writing. But these last few years things have opened up, portions of my Mutations for Justice project has been performed as well as the pieces I’ve written for SoundNoiseFUNK. This year though the opportunities have started to come even more!

I closed out March 2022 performing a pared down Mutations for Justice set at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem (with bassist Luke Stewart and violist Melanie Dyer), just before a talk with Larry Blumenfeld of Trauma and Healing – What Does Healing Sound Like? Which also included musician and music therapist Noa Fort. At the Stone in early April, I presented different groups each night, where I could share my writing with audiences for the first time, especially the trio with bass guitarists Melvin Gibbs and Tim Dahl and the Black Poems performance, where I composed in a new way for me – sharing composed motives inside a tapestry score of poems, cues and other information for the amazing crew of Angelica Sanchez (piano), William Parker (bass) and Lesley Mok (drums). Fantastic to get to delve deeper into the works I composed for voice/bassoon with Rebekah Heller! Then recording a collective project based on James Baldwin’s novel, Another Country where we all contributed a composition to the mix with Dave Douglas (trumpet), Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Patricia Brennan (vibes), Darius Jones (alto sax) and yours truly. April ended at Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, getting to share the compositions I’ve written for FLUTTER, with Nicole Mitchell for flute, electronics & voice. It feels like my writing is finally finding the spaces to be heard and I am just so grateful and looking forward to more ways to get my composing voice out there into the world.

Next week Thursday – May 26, 2022 – is a really a BIG deal for me. In September 2021, I joined the esteemed new music ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble. What an amazing connection of my practice with all of the absolutely amazing and groundbreaking work that they do. I couldn’t be happier with the work and with my colleagues! As an ensemble member, we all get the possibility to perform works curated by the Ensemble (for example, this past weekend the Ensemble took part in a three-day residency at Brown University including a final performance of works by student composers and a work by George Lewis).

Ensemble members can also present works of our own to be performed. On May 26th, my piece Sirens and Silences premieres at Roulette alongside works of Kate Gentile and Peter Evans. This is the first time I will present a composed work of mine that I am not performing on at all but I will conduct. Sirens and Silences is a ‘memory document’ composition, created to reflect a specific, space, place and time: New York City from April-May 2020 when New York was the epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic, the global ground zero for the burgeoning pandemic.

It would mean everything it you could be there! Thank you to the International Contemporary Ensemble for representing these works, to the Jazz Coalition for Commissioning Sirens & Silences and the amazing players that will perform Sirens & Silences: Mazz Swift (violin); Marika Hughes (cello); Kalia Vandever (trombone); Patrick Holmes (clarinet).

Purchase tickets here and learn more here: https://roulette.org/…/international-contemporary…/

Thank you for reading this long-ass post of gratitude. I’m trying to spread Black Joy y’all, as long as I’m alive I will do what I can to spread Black JOY! Much love and light to you all. 💃🏽✊🏾🙏🏾❤️

Photo by Deneka Peniston! #steppingout

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The response to the release of my Herbie Nichols tribute project, Life Is Funny That Way, has been so beautiful. Thank you so much.

A work that’s been a deep part of my heart and artistic work for more than the past decade. It means a lot to get this music into the world and experience the beautiful reaction from so many.

Life Is Funny That Way spawned features in magazines such as DownBeat, JazzWise UK and most recently in the Jazz Podium in Germany.  Herbie Nichols MUSIC is in the ether and consciousness again and I hope that if folks haven’t checked out his glorious melodies that you please do! It was also a way; a strange and beautiful way to reconcile my jazz roots and bonafides with the improviser and conceptualist that I’ve become. And I am extremely grateful to have met in the musicians of Anthony Coleman, Ratzo Harris, Michael Attias and Tom Rainey, great musicians and humans that were open and willing to explore.  It takes like minds and non-competitive spirits to arrive at the choices we have. What more could I ask for?

Thankful for Tao Forms (Whit Dickey/Steve Joerg), for willing to bring Life Is Funny that Way to – Life! Thankful for the artwork of Bill Mazza (see above), the informative and fantastic liner notes from Kevin Whitehead, the permissions given by the Nichols’ Family for work on the album, Andy Taub’s meticulous work at Brooklyn Recordings for the beautiful and rich sound, the crisp mastering of Paul Wickcliffe and all of YOU that expressed your love for what we put down.

So MUCH LOVE for Herbie Nichols SUNG this year – a sample of the ❤️❤️ below

*Top 18 Jazz Releases on Popmatters.com

*Wire Top 50 Albums of the Year

*Top Tribute albums of 2024 from the New York City Jazz Record

*Jerome Wilson’s Best Jazz Albums of 2024 from AllAboutJazz.com

*Wall Street Journal’s Martin Johnson’s Top Albums of 2024

*Bandcamp’s Best Jazz Recordings of 2024 – Honorable Mention

We’re at the Winter Jazz Festival on THURS January 9, 2025
Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street NYC 
6:30 PM Doors | 7:30 PM Show 

Herbie Nichols SUNG performs at 8:15PM (ONE SET ONLY), opening for Aja Monet!

Get TIX at the link
https://lpr.com/ 

https://artsfuse.org/303017/music-feature-the-best-jazz-albums-of-2024/

https://www.yearendlists.com/2024/the-wire-top-50-albums-of-2024

https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/the-wire-s-releases-of-the-year-2024

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/jerome-wilsons-best-jazz-albums-of-2024

https://livingtolisten.blog/2024/12/

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Narrowsburg, NY – New Year’s Day

I’m welcoming in 2025.

Can’t wait until it arrives

Will I live to see it through

Will all I care about survive?

I’m anxious with anticipation

as this number of this year gets left behind

and the new beckons in my compartmentalized consciousness

separating numbers/dates as if it means a thing

yet I look forward to the existential leap into the future that starts now

at midnight

everywhere in the world that carries this colonial calendar.

It’s what I’ve got to give definition to the line of past/future

Seeing the future in anticipation, 

will I live to see it through

Will you?

will all we care about survive?
========== fayvictor

I am so grateful to be here, still on the planet with you all. Bringing in this new year

2024 was a mixed bag of kryptonite and joy. Deeply painful and deliciously precious moments. I had highs in 2024 that I’ve never known and had lows I never knew I could handle. Still I’m here, healthy and mostly whole.

I’m humbled by my own jaded sense of ‘understanding’ life to realize that there is yet so much for me to learn and experience. The gamut of life is endless, even when we’re no longer here. 

I move in 2025 with a milestone birthday in the mix, with beautiful work ahead with folks that I love and admire and the promise to take care of myself and those I love better and with deeper intention. 

We all move into this year anxious of what’s to come. I feel that building your community is key to whatever transpires and get a passport, if you don’t have one already. Please. 

May you all find the peace, prosperity and joy you’ve been seeking this year. Just don’t hurt nobody doing it. LOL

Photo by Brian Hartley – at GIOFest woth Gerry Rossi, Clara Warnaar and FV

Some Experiences that Blew My Mind This Year

*Traveling through the night to visit a dying friend. The days spent with him were precious.

*Traveling to Jamaica to celebrate my aunt’s 75th Birthday. We had a ball and it was well timed. Just 4 days earlier, Jochem had a serious panic attack that we first thought was a heart attack. 

The resort stay was what the Doctor of the universe ordered.  He’s OK now.

*Composing and premiering an 8 bassoon piece called NURTURE for Rebekah Heller’s Bassoon ensemble at the Fridman Gallery

*Learning and performing the Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. for Talib Rasul Hakim at the New York Performing Library/Lincoln Center with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Either/Or Ensemble

*Performing Bonita Oliver’s For Namesake, which asked the performers to search their own history around our names. This was a powerful work that took me on a journey through family history I didn’t know. especially about my great-grandfather’s successful shipping and design business in Guyana that spawned features in UK and American shipping magazines.  Bonita’s work spawned this discovery.

*Getting back out on the road for the first time since the pandemic. I was out for close to 2 months and it was amazing to be out there again and I want to do it more.  My body was yelling and screaming at me by the time I got home for Christmas, though. It’s clear I need to give my body more care if I want to keep performing on a touring schedule. Also, can we talk about how HARD travel is on our bodies? 

How lugging luggage causes us to twist our bodies in weird ways and the constant conforming to small spaces on planes (I don’t care WHAT class you fly in…) is truly a lot. Still, I want IN!

Performing Herbie Nichols Music at Dizzy’s and The Jazz Gallery in NYC + Industrie Salon in Berlin. Performing Herbie Nichols music IS a spiritual experience for me.

Working, performing and presenting a piece with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra! These are next level humans and great musicians.

Meeting and connecting deeply with vocal powerhouses Elaine Mitchener and Maggie Nicols.  These two vocalists made me feel seen and heard in a way I’ve never experienced before and singing with them both was a dream.

Artwork by Bill Mazza

Coming UP!

Herbie Nichols SUNG at the Winter Jazz Fest!

We’ll open up for Aja Monet on the opening night of the Festival at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC, yall. 
Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street NYC 
6:30 PM Doors | 7:30 PM Show 
Herbie Nichols SUNG performs at 8:15PM (ONE SET ONLY)

Get your TIX at the link
Herbie Nichols SUNG
Fay Victor – voice, words, concept
Anthony Coleman – piano
Michael Attias – saxophone (alto/baritone)
Ratzo Harris – double bass
Tom Rainey – drums

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Friends,

Hoping this posting finds you well. These are hard and trying times. It’s difficult to feel good about so much in the world right now and I’m not sure the ability to share music is the answer for the urgent, acute matters of life or death right now. Because that’s where we are. We are watching massive death unfold all around the world and I feel powerless to stop it.

So, I try to hold on to the joy, any joy I experience right now, especially if I can experience that joy with others. One of my utmost joys at the moment is the response to ‘Life Is Funny That Way’ Herbie Nichols SUNG, my current release (see last post), out on Tao Forms.

The response has been extraordinary (check below), the emphasis on joy in Nichols music was what I wanted to expose more than anything. Not just how great his compositions are as compositions, but that they harness something more that make them part of the essence of what jazz is, what it means to me. My ideas around this and how I arranged the songs to reflect this very fact has been resonating with press and seems to review new avenues to explore Herbie Nichols’ music.

Press for Life Is Funny That Way

Fay Victor is the rare singer who can demonstrate and interact with the deep vocal tradition while also delving into the daring freedoms that have long been the province of instrumentalists to explore. She does all of this while telling stories with her lyrics as well. To top it off, her vocal tone and control have never sounded better.This is Fay Victor’s best recording to date, not because it encounters “the tradition” but because it looks at a great composer from the past and reimagines the tradition as part of the music’s daring vanguard.—Will Layman, Popmatters.com (9/10)

An avant-garde Nina Simone with the performance punch of Betty Carter, Victor’s unabashed acrobatics mesmerize… 4 STARS—Andy Cowan, MOJO Magazine

“In 2013, Victor formed Herbie Nichols SUNG, the first Nichols repertory project led by a black or female musician. It’s very much her vision – and the arrangements are as inventive as they are tight. In an inspired move,  Victor has set lyrics to Nichol’s compositions, adding new layers of meaning”–Steve Smith, The Wire

“He (Herbie Nichols) was not well known in his lifetime, but today he’s considered one of the great unsung jazz composers. Victor started writing lyrics for his tunes, performing them with the Herbie Nichols Sung band she put together in New York City in 2013. She’s now recorded 11 of these compositions and they’re outstanding.“
4 STARS –J. Poet, DownBeat Magazine

There are several fine Herbie Nichols tributes around, but this one has a unique soul and earthiness created by Fay Victor’s otherworldly singing and the adventurous spirit of her band. This is a superb album, one of the most delightful releases of the year so far.”–Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz

“Victor with her unique vocal approach somewhere between straight and quite free …and the band, this is a real collective excursion, has shed a great light on a treasure that has almost been forgotten – or that was almost never remembered. Fay Victor – and Herbie Nichols – certainly deserve another round of attention.”–Thor Hammerø, Nettavisen

“Life Is Funny That Way” offers a rich portrait of Nichols, and it highlights the contemporary aspects of his music. Ms. Victor’s versatile band includes saxophonist Michaël Attias, pianist Anthony Coleman, bassist Ratzo Harris and drummer Tom Rainey. Their range is a good fit, and her vocals embrace straightforward singing, scat, vocalese and poetic recitation; it’s a style that enables her to explore deeper meanings in songs and broaden their cultural connections. Her influences include both classic jazz singers like Betty Carter and late 20th-century innovators like Jeanne Lee.—— Martin Johnson, The Wall Street Journal

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Album cover for Life Is Funny That Way – Artwork: Bill Mazza, Photography: Deneka Peniston

This project started the day I became acquainted with the music of Herbie Nichols. The day I heard his music for the very first time, especially the composition ‘House Party Starting’ I was floored, curious. I hadn’t heard anything like it yet but it was  familiar too. I knew nothing about Herbie Nichols. I happened to stumble on a compilation of his in my then boyfriend’s music collection and pulled the album out based on his face, a warm face with cerebral eyes. 

The music I heard that day connected to my heart immediately as if he were an old friend. A few years later, I had learned House Party Starting and set it to lyrics. The words came like a flash. the whole thing written with the low Amsterdam sun on my shoulder. I sang it with my band. We let go of Nichols intro, started right on the head and used guitar instead of piano. I came out of the box wanting to find my own way with his music, never interested in an archival approach.

Bit by bit, I connected to his music song by song, living with these compositions in my head and heart until I found the words to tell that song’s story as I heard it. This organic process took some years. Around 2010 I started thinking of what group sound would work? I tried tuba,. saxophone and guitar for the Jazz Vault project which performed the music of Monk and Mingus too. There was a period where Misha Mengelbeeg spoke about doing a Monk/Nichols recorded project. That never happened but I did get to play Nichols’ music with ICP (instant composers pool) on a few occasions. 

I was going for something else too. Something I didn’t hear as much as I wanted to hear. Nichols’ music is harmonically complex. The forms can feel strange. There has been an effort to sound out all of these elements in other projects dedicated to his music. This is important.  For example, Misha Mengelberg and members of ICP flushed out these harmonies across 10 players of brass and strings.  Misha felt that was the natural progression for Herbie’s music. I wanted to also focus on the joy in his music. I wanted to channel the cultural connection that he and I share, which has roots in the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad and Tobago where both our mothers are from.  How that impacts expression. 

Thanks and gratitude to Whit Dickey and Steven Joerg of Tao Forms. They both took on and deeply embraced Life Is Funny This Way from beginning to end.  The attention, care and LOVE for this release is something I’ve never experienced in my recording career. This project was carried with love! Thank you to the design/artwork of Bill Mazza and the beautiful photography of Deneka Peniston. Thank you to Kevin Whitehead for the amazing words on Life Is Funny That Way.

To the band – Michael Attias, Anthony Coleman, Tom Rainey and Ratzo Harris. The journey to this day was built organically, gig after gig. Thank you for your patience toward the immersion and your love of Herbie’s music. A joy to have built this world with you all.

Life Is Funny That Way – Herbie Nichols SUNG drops This FRIDAY, April 5, 2024
Double LP and Double CD options available!
Available on all music outlets – tactile and digital from the Tao Forms Label
or via Bandcamp!

From Martin Johnson at the Wall Street Journal (March 30, 2024)

“Life Is Funny That Way” offers a rich portrait of Nichols, and it highlights the contemporary aspects of his music. Ms. Victor’s versatile band includes saxophonist Michaël Attias, pianist Anthony Coleman, bassist Ratzo Harris and drummer Tom Rainey. Their range is a good fit, and her vocals embrace straightforward singing, scat, vocalese and poetic recitation; it’s a style that enables her to explore deeper meanings in songs and broaden their cultural connections. Her influences include both classic jazz singers like Betty Carter and late 20th-century innovators like Jeanne Lee.

The album opens with the title track, which stuns with swaggering confidence, layered improvisations, and a puckish vibe that feels emblematic of the entire Nichols catalog. Ms. Victor also revisits “House Party Starting,” here retitled “Tonight,” and it is highlighted by wry solos and clever interplay by the ensemble.  Her take on “Lady Sings the Blues” adds a chapter to the song’s evolution. The composition began as a midtempo instrumental piece, “Serenade,” but Holiday slowed it to a dirge, her lyrics capturing both sorrow and resilience. Ms. Victor slows it still further, making both elements more visceral, and the song becomes bracing.”

Read full review HERE.

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“Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful is the very first solo record by Fay Victor, whose 30-year-long music career has covered everything from House, New Music, Jazz (Blues) and Free Improvisation. Her deep history with dance music, her genreless output, and her lived experience as a Black woman in the world shaped the brand new process she used to create this prismatic album which touches on all the decades of her life like diary snapshots. It’s a mesmerizing collection of composed work that could only be made by an extraordinary improviser. 

From hearing the raw, almost gospel vocal style over a heavy beat of Donna Summer and Sylvester, to obsessing over shows like Soul Train, Solid Gold, and Dance Fever on TV, to experiencing the sweat and groove, the freedom of bodies moving at NYC clubs like Danceteria, The Loft, and the Paradise Garage – her life changed forever. As she was developing as a jazz singer in Amsterdam in the 90s, she danced to trance music in clubs like Mazzo and The Soul Kitchen. She landed on the Billboard charts with a club hit “You Make Me Happy” in ’91. Stoned on the sacred dance floor, Fay found ecstasy in the moving body, the groove, the beat.

As she entered deeper into the world of jazz, she was attracted to the rhythmic qualities of Thelonious Monk, Eddie Harris, Eric Dolphy, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Betty Carter, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nicole Mitchell, Milford Graves, Julius Hemphill, Charles Mingus, Herbie Nichols. Their confrontational rhythm sends her soul leaping, connecting her back to her clubheadheart.

With Mavin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” as a template, Fay started thinking about how her solo album might unfold. She sang, played keyboards, added textures and further dimensions with no other humans, without electronics. That was her process. Thoroughly creative, composed with music and words straight from her spirit.”

Blackity Black Black is Beautiful is ALBUM OF THE DAY on Bandcamp!

https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/fay-victor-blackity-black-black-is-beautiful-review

CD/Digital OUT NOW via Bandcamp

“This impressive album is a thoughtful, obviously personal journey of a unique and wise artist that trusts the power of music and knows that music can motivate people and bring positive change, even with one song.“
Eyal Hareuveni		https://salt-peanuts.eu/record/fay-victor/
EDITOR’S CHOICE!
“Fay Victor tells a first-person story about accidentally getting lost in Breezy Point, a private enclave in Queens that is a bastion of Trump supporters in liberal New York City, on “Breezy Point Ain’t Breezy,” the new single from her upcoming album, Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful.”		https://www.jazziz.com/jazziz-editors-choice-norah-jones-jon-batiste-antonio-adolfo-more/
“Governorship/Senate (for Stacey Abrams)”
From Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful makes the UK’s The Wire Playlist for August 2023		https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/on-air/phil-england-presents-adventures-in-sound-and-music-68943
One Man’s Jazz Playlist: Fay Victor, Tyshawn Sorey, Matthew Shipp & Jaimie Branch.
“Vocalist Fay Victor‘s new solo album, Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful, is one of the featured new recordings in this episode of One Man’s Jazz.”
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/fay-victor-tyshawn-sorey-matthew-shipp-and-jaimie-branch-fay-victor
ALBUM OF THE DAY – AUGUST 24, 2023// BANDCAMPhttps://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/fay-victor-blackity-black-black-is-beautiful-review?utm_source=notification

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❤️❤️❤️❤️

Didn’t know if I or you would make it here, especially those of us here in these United States. So I am grateful to be here still and in full acknowledgment of how many are not here now. I am grateful that you are here too and let’s continue to do all we can to see the other side of this damn pandemic. Being able to tell the stories of how it was to LIVE through. This is my New Year’s wish for us all.

One thing that’s drastically changed too is I’m not posting as much here, I’ve gotten downright insular. I’ve moved my more interactive online life to Patreon – where I’m giving talks and sharing all sorts of stuff not seen anywhere else. Even on the FV website, for now – which will remain a storehouse for keeping up on gigs and general announcements, but the nitty gritty is happening at Patreon – perhaps you’ll join me there!  

See, here is the thing. As monetary options are drying up for us artists, a place like Patreon helps us get and feel supported.  Many of us just give everything away online. No company is looking out for us as streaming music options proliferate more – thank goddess for BandCamp!  Please feel free to join me there. www.patreon.com/freesongsinger

First Gig of 2021

Arts for Art Online_Salon
THURS, JANUARY 7th at 8PM performance/ONE SET + Q&A
Fay Victor’s Chamber Trio
Fay Victor – voice, compositions
Darius Jones – alto sax
Marika Hughes – cello
https://www.artsforart.org/onlinesalon.html

Year End News for ‘We’ve Had Enough’

Will Layman over at Popmatters.com chose SoundNoiseFUNK’s WE’VE HAD ENOUGH as one of the top 20 jazz albums of the 2020. Wow and thank you!

“If Abby Lincoln were around during the last four years, I think she would sound something like Fay Victor, who is a pure jazz singer who happens to have freed herself of anything that might hold her back from total creativity. This is yet another “second recording” by a wonderful band, with Joe Morris on guitar, Same Newsome’s winsome soprano saxophone, and Reggie Nicholson on drums. “What’s Gone Wrong?” repeats the title phrase against a layered groove that grooves in a sophisticated way, setting up a simple counter-melody initiated by Victor and picked up by Morris. In contrast, “Ritual” and “I.M. Peach” are wordless and more abstract. But the genius of this date is that so much of it is filled with joy in the face of outrage. Fay and her band are always light on their feet, playing with each other—really playing. Victor improvises with lyrics as well as notes, often addressing politics, but even when she is singing “no air” in a song about climate destruction you are drawn in by the artful play of the band.”

—Will Layman
https://www.popmatters.com/best-jazz-albums-2020-2649470008.html

Thanks to Jim Macnie for choosing SoundNoiseFUNK’s WE’VE HAD ENOUGH as one of the top 20 jazz albums of the 2020 as well on his amazing blog, Lament for A Straight Line, link here:

This Year, Those Albums – 2020 Jazz You Should Hear

SoundNoiseFUNK will have a CD release show – remember those? Thanks to the amazing people at Roulette, we’ll perform a streaming concert from Roulette on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2021, thrilled to make music with Joe Morris, Reggie Nicholson and Sam Newsome once more. We haven’t played since the pandemic, looking forward to celebrate the release of We’ve Had Enough in person and that you’ll join us. The show is already UP (check link here) on the Roulette website.
https://roulette.org/event/fay-victor-album-release-for-soundnoisefunks-weve-had-enough/

OVERCOME by Dave Douglas!

Another release from 2020 was a remote recording of a project with famed trumpeter, composer and bandleader Dave Douglas. It was a wonderful experiment and joy to be a part of this amazing recording. Thank you Dave for asking me to be a part and work with these wonderful musicians like Ryan Kerberle, Jorge Roeder, Camila Meza, Rudy Royston and Dave Douglas of course. The album, a digital-only release on December 4th has already garnered great praise from Rolling Stone, NPR and more. Learn more about this project through Greenleaf Music: https://greenleafmusic.com/overcome-by-dave-douglas-featured-on-npr-morning-edition/

Thank you for reading! Fay

Closed on 2020 on the beach of Newport, RI. A great way to see the waves take out 2020 faaaaaaaar out to sea.
❤️

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Greetings to you! It’s been sometime since I’ve connected on the site. It’s been a super intense Fall for all the reasons these times are intense for us all.

Thankfully, we’ve made it past Election Day 2020. WHATS??!! Stress induced days leading up to November 3rd including being part of a great work by musician and composer Darius Jones entitled We Can Save The Country just the day before. I present a small portion of my Mutations of Justice work earlier in October, a work that’s been chronicling the Trump administration since 2017. Look out for a new & dedicated website page devoted to that project coming shortly! Finally, I got to perform an amazing improvised Blues duo with guitarist Marc Ribot the day after Election Day – just the medicine we all needed that day.


Album Cover by Fay Victor/Jochem van Dijk

Personally, THE most important NEWS to share is I have a NEW record out! My latest album with SoundNoiseFUNK is OUT (Esp-Disk) called WE’VE HAD ENOUGH! Released at the end of October 2020, our new record goes into fresh improvisational territory compositionally and emotionally.  Nate Chinen selected one composition entitled “What’s Gon’ Wrong?” for his Election Day Special Playlist that included music by Dave Douglas, Wynton Marsalis & Khalil El’Zabar. Deep gratitude to Sam Newsome, Joe Morris and Reggie Nicholson for their amazing contributions to the music and to the connection we have as a band. Link via BANDCAMP

“Fay Victor is a vocalist and composer with a proud history of social commentary, and a fearless commitment to discovery. In her working ensemble SoundNoiseFUNK, she engages fully with an outright all-star team: soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome, guitarist Joe Morris and drummer Reggie Nicholson. Their second album, just out on ESP-Disk is plainly titled We’ve Had Enough. “What’s Gone Wrong” is an impassioned lament that finds Victor repeating its title phrase, along with a secondary clause (“…with the world?”). There is despair in her rhetorical question, which doesn’t seem to expect an answer — but there’s also clear determination in the way Victor and her improvising partners work through their development. Without putting words in their mouth, I’d suggest that their cohesive oneness is one answer to another open question: what’s going right?”

Sharp Visions of America by Wynton Marsalis, Kahil El’Zabar, Fay Victor and Dave Douglas by Nate Chinen (WBGO Election Day Special Playlist)

https://www.wbgo.org/post/sharp-visions-america-wynton-marsalis-kahil-elzabar-fay-victor-and-dave-douglas#stream/0

Tomorrow (11.14.2020) I’m presenting a video as part of the Jazz Gallery LockDown Sessions along with musicians John Ellis, Kweku Sumbry & Matt Stevens via Live Stream. Learn how to sign on and more on JG website. Thank you Rio for doing what you can to keep artists creative and working during this time. www.jazzgallery.org

NYC is on the uptick with Covid -19 cases, even after the Election, this tension surrounds us as the the death toll mounts. In these last few months since I’ve posted here I’ve been working more than I ever have and I welcome the distraction. Then some days it’s just too much. I try to find the balance, aiming to stay creative and active in ways that are healthy and safe. Trying to listen more deeply to myself and everyone else that I can. Trying to keep going when I can, grateful to have what I need. Please share here how you’ve been coping. I’d love to hear from you and know.The main thing I found is not to be too hard on oneself for not doing or being whatever we thought we should be.

What I want more than anything is to meet and play with friends in person again.  Hug people I haven’t seen in months then throw a big party to celebrate life.  Someday soon. Wishing you much love, health and safety until the next time.

✊?❤️??
Fay

on by
FV at the 55BAR in New York City, where she’s held a monthly residency since 2012. Truly missing performing in that space. Photo by Kyra Kverno

Sending greetings of love, safety and solidarity. I wish that you view this post through healthy eyes that are safe. Grateful to share that my family is healthy and safe as of now. Hard to describe these times but to say that they are turbulent and troubling. So many of us do not feel safe.

I am soul searching right now, looking inward and coming across difficult questions and answers. Processing all that has gone down these past 12 weeks of self-isolation. 

12 weeks y’all.

One inspiration is seeing absolute and resolute outrage that the killing of George Floyd all whose lives have been snuffed out by the police have spawned. Non-stop protests around the world.  The Pope even said George Floyd’s name. Suppressed people around the world have stood up. It’s an amazing thing to see, it’s forcing change and that occupant in the white house looks more like the anachronistic prop he really is. Like a hollowed out Andrew Jackson screaming into the wind…

If you can, please donate what you can to these organizations.  People are starving and jailed protesters need to be let out asap.  We’re still in a pandemic, we still need to stay safe. Jailed protesters are being thrown into cramped cells and easy way to spread the Coronavirus. If you want to help those protesting for racial, gender and trans equity – you may consider these places for your hard earned money to go. Thank you for considering.

The Anti-Racist Fund: https://antiracismfund.org/
Black Voters Matter: https://www.blackvotersmatterfund.org/
The Bail Project: www.bailproject.org
The Movement for Black Lives: https://m4bl.org/about-us/
Black Lives Matter Global Network: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019
Brooklyn Community Bail Fund: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/brooklyn-community-bail-fund-inc/let-my-people-go

Patreon

I started a Patreon page. Oh Yes. as the the online universe opens up for shows, workshops and you name it – I found myself doing a few performances that were fun, some were even fulfilling.  Yet, as a concert in person seems further and further into the future, I’m going to develop my solo performance voice for starters through my brand spanking new Patreon page.  There will be more and when the time is right – I’ll do a proper launch. Still, check it out, look around and let me know your thoughts. I look forward to developing tone of content through that channel, looking forward to seeing some of you there. 
Here is the link: https://www.patreon.com/freesongsinger

New performances & workshops

June 21, 2020 – 3PM PDT/6PM EDT – ONLINE via YOUTUBE LIVE
Doing my talk EXPERIMENTS IN COMMUNICATING MESSAGE for the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of British Columbia, and in collaboration with Coastal Jazz & Blues Society, Western Front.  Talk will be about 45 mins with 15 minutes for questions. I feel at this critical moment, artists may want to know how to crystallize what they need to say through their art. Using myself, the great Bob Marley and more as examples of artists clear on what they want to communicate and how that process brings clarity to their artistic output.

July 8, 2020 – 1PM EDT–ONLINE
Creative Improvisation Workshop through LIVE from our Livingrooms. As part of their Creative Summit & Fundraiser, I’ll give a workshop on Creative Improvisation omg July 8th at 1PM EDT online. 

July 30, 2020 7PM EDT – ONLINE
FIRST Monthly Concert through Patreon – Happy Birthday to me.
This year – I’ll being saying Happy Birthday, giving a social distancing show from home on the same day the annual birthday hang would have been at the 55BAR. I hope you will stop by and raise a glass with me. We can all use something to celebrate. Further details about this show in early July.

August 9, 2020 at 4:40PM – ONLINE
Performing a concert presented by One Breathe Rising, the concert will focus on the beauty and glory of Black Lives.

Thank you for reading. Wishing you all peace, strength, health and love. People that have been kept down too long are fed up and tired. Whatever else is wrong with this country at this time, we still have the right to protest the government that is supposed to serve us. Every American has the right to lift our voices and state our needs plain.  Human rights over property rights. Hearts and souls are hurting, some are dying. May all who read this post have what you need to keep going. Stay safe!

I’m rooting for you. I’m rooting for us all.
In solidarity,
Fay