social justice – FAY VICTOR

Herbie Nichols SUNG as part of FV’s curated week at the Stone at the top of 2019, celebrating 100th birthday of Herbie Nichols…photo: Carlos Alberto Murrat

Happy 2019 dear friends!!

All the best wishes for this and every year.

Thank you and much love to all the musicians, students and friends that were a major part of my music making life in 2018. It was a transforming year for me starting the year as a Yaddo Fellow for 6 weeks that changed my artistic mindset completely. Seriously. Those 6 weeks exposed me to some of the most brilliant artists I ever encountered in any discipline. The constant talks about process and development forced me to take a good look at how I viewed my own work as musician. I’ve spent the rest of 2018 ingesting these new perspectives, a true mind shift for me.

I upped my teaching game in – I taught more courses on Creative Improvisation and Improvising Strategies for Songwriters (w hubby Jochem van Dijk) and was a guest lecturer at Banff for the first time, I also continued to run the Jazz Vocal Summit at the New York Workshop for the 8th year in a row.

The We Have Voice Collective truly blossomed in 2018 (We started at the end of 2017) with the release of our Code of Conduct for the Performing Arts that created a wonderful flurry of discussion and discourse around sexual harassment and bullying within our performing arts community. This is the most amazing group of powerful women and non-gender conforming artists that I’ve ever had the honor of being a part of. I’m in awe of them as individuals and the dedication they have shown to this Collective and to the cause.

2018 was an amazing year for album releases! Grateful to have been a guest on guitarist Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance Project alongside powerhouses such as Tom Waits, Steve Earle and Meshell Ndegeocello, I’m also singing on the brilliant composer/flutist Nicole Mitchell’s Maroon Cloud with Tomeka Reid & Aruan Ortiz in the mix.

After 5 years of no project out under my own name, I released Wet Robots on ESP Disk with my ridiculously incredible group SoundNoiseFUNK. Grateful that Wet Robots made some waves (including 4.5 stars in DownBeat magazine, being in the DB HotBox for the first time, a feature in a Norwegian newspaper and great reviews & words and outlets such as Popmatters, JazzTimes, The New York Times….and #4 on the Jazz Critics Poll for 2018 (tied with Kurt Elling) Wow!! I was floored by the attention the album received, and grateful.

I went back into the studio in 2018 (well a barn-like studio as it were) Upstate NY in September to record Barnsongs, Old & New and working on releasing that in 2019. A combination of old and new compositions of mine and Jochem van Dijk’s reconfigured for voice, alto saxophone (Darius Jones) and cello (Marika Hughes).

Last and not least by far – health became a focal point for me in 2018. Had a health scare that required a major operation and an 8 week recovery just before Summer began. I’m OK now, absolutely fine. Although it was was tough and difficult to go through. Yet, there was an abundance of beauty too. So much love and community came to the fore, a deep trust that all would be OK prevailed. People showed up and showed who they were. I learned about love in a deeper way than I understood it before. I don’t want to go through something like this again but I learned from it and I’m here! And the ultimate lesson I learned about myself… to quote a title from Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance album ”I ain’t gonna let nothing turn me around” for long.

Much love, make this a special 2019.

Fay

Dear Friends,

In December 2017, I opened up the Evolving Series Festival (by Arts for Art) with a new project called Mutations for Justice (Mantras for Change). I wanted to write small pieces (composed and text-based) about the political reality we’re all in right now. As an information drenched society – I wanted the texts to be repetitive, like a meme. easily subliminal perhaps leading to change. This is ambitious of course but the fear of other words taking over makes me dream even bigger and feel even stronger that these words must be said. Simply.

That concert in December with bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Michael Vatcher was a great start – so many things went well. Our next outing is on the Vision Festival 23 adding to the trio trumpeter Jaimie Breezy Branch with a bunch of new music I’ve written for the occasion as well.

Mutation: the changing of the structure of a gene, resulting in a variant form that may be transmitted to subsequent generations, caused by the alteration of single base units in DNA, or the deletion, insertion, or rearrangement of larger sections of genes or chromosomes.

What is the Mutations for Justice Project?

Mutations for Justice are a series of small composition mantras or ‘memes’ out of the need to articulate political ideas in a minimalist repetitive framework further developed through improvisation. Chanting and utilizing protest music as a mutable entity to change how we see. Words and music written by Fay Victor, these pieces will mingle with a fantastic group of improvisors adding their personal spin on the Mutations. This performance is the beginning of a developing project for Victor, who plans to write Mutations for Justice pieces throughout the Trump Administration as a document to memory of living in this time. The culmination of Mutations For Justice will be a recording project of 40 pieces in 2020.

Mutations for Justice – Vision Festival 23
Fay Victor – voice, compositions
Jaimie ‘Breezy’ Branch – trumpet
Luke Stewart – double bass
Michael Vatcher – drums
7:00PM
SAT May 26 2018
http://roulette.org/
Tix: www.artsforart.org
Full ? here: https://youtu.be/z-PP0UrYIes