Kris Davis: defining jazz's vanguard

Transcript

LP: I'm curious about, and I promise you we'll spend the majority of the time talking about the new live album, but I wanted to get some context about your background. Growing up, did you have any forays into popular music, or were you a serious kid in terms of your classical training, moving into jazz? Can you talk a little bit about your evolution as a listener before I talk to you about being a player?

Kris Davis: None of my family were musicians, so I grew up listening to light radio, and then I heard my cousin, she came over and played a piece, and I thought, "Oh wow, this is amazing that you can connect ideas and share feelings and ideas with others through this instrument."

I started taking lessons when I was about seven. I was like a pianist, just a church pianist down the road, and she started me on this. In Canada, they have a program called the Royal Conservatory. It's like a graduated classical program. You know, play music, play the classics, and then you take these exams where you do theory, scales, sight reading, and all of that. I started that program when I was about seven and did it all the way through high school. That was my entrance into classical music, but I never actually listened to classical music. It was all through reading the music and learning it through the scores.

LP: What music would you have called yours when you were a young person and into your young adult life?

Kris Davis: The first concert I ever saw, my mom took me to see Stevie Wonder, which was very exciting. I was a huge Stevie Wonder fan. Amazing. Yeah. I don't know. It was just '80s pop music. Billy Joel, The Beatles, Michael Jackson. Yeah, like popular music.

LP: If it's not too much to interpolate a thread onto that, well-crafted pop music is the theme that I hear emerging there, not throwaway music. That's all very literate and, I don't know, I don't want to make it highfalutin, but you serious-minded pop, craft music.

Kris Davis: I love the harmonies, like how those composers would shape harmony. I think it is connected to the piano. In addition to playing classical music, I started seeking out sheet music for some of the pieces I liked from various pop musicians and started to learn them.

LP: And so, what's the connecting tissue that introduced you to the world of jazz and improvised music?

Kris Davis: It was a couple of things. I had some friends who were getting into the jazz band in middle school, and they just loved it. They loved the teacher, and so I sought the teacher out and auditioned. He was a huge jazz fan, and he gave me a bunch of records. It was a Harry Connick Jr. album, and then there was the Miles Davis "My Funny Valentine/Four & More" box set. For some reason, when I heard that, I just thought this was the greatest thing I've ever heard. That piano playing and the connection between the drums and the piano, in particular, really struck me.

Yeah, I just started listening and trying to figure out what was happening, doing some transcribing. I took some lessons with a jazz pianist and tried to figure out what chord symbols are and how they work — a long, ongoing process. At first, I thought it was improvisation; I didn't know it was made up. So I thought, "Oh, if I get the score, I can play that. And I can play just like that. No problem." I had no idea that it was improvised. Yeah. It slowly revealed itself. Those are the kinds of experiences you have when you don't grow up with musicians in your household. You find your way, and there are often these blank spots where you don't have the information, and you might never have the information in your development.

But I think, after learning more about the AACM, who, like artists like Anthony Braxton or Muhal Richard Abrams, created their pathway and discovered the music in their way, they didn't really have a teacher, or they decided not to have a teacher and figure it out on their own. And there's something about that makes musicians individual and unique. I've just always been conscious of not doing the same thing that everybody else is doing. Everybody is studying with this person. I'm going to find someone else because — it's silly to say, but — you are what you listen to and what you're exposed to. So yeah, I've always dodged around these more obvious clear pathways and tried to find my own way and find, react to, and respond to the things that are inspiring to me.

When I was playing classical music, I think I was about 15 or 16; I started to play, I found a piece by Bartók, and I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. I was like, this is so much; it's not in a key; it's in a mode, but it was really more about rhythm and form and this kind of atonal ideas. And my first teacher's name was Melody. My second teacher was very strict; her name was Miss Savage, so she lived up to her name.

LP: You could write a children's book.

Kris Davis: I know, right? Of course, Melody was the sweetest teacher ever and super supportive. Still, at some point, I needed a teacher who was stricter so that I could understand some issues I was having and understand the music in a different way. But yeah, I brought this Bartok piece in, and she was like, "Oh, this is, she's just like, 'stop playing this.'" So, of course, as a kid, you're like, "Oh yes, I'm on to something good."

LP: The forbidden fruit.

Kris Davis: Absolutely. And then I would come in and explain Bach in terms of chord symbols, and she would freak out. "That's not what it is. It's a C triad in second position," I'm like, "No, it's just C over G." So there are all these overlaps, different ways of talking about it, depending on what scene you're a part of.

LP: Yeah. Your cultural tradition. There are a few things you said in there that really resonate for me. And one of them was, to badly paraphrase you, the idea that you are what you listen to. That notion of context and intentionality has been rattling around for me lately, both in creative fields and in relation to things that go on in our world and media consumption and platforms. It's a very important notion, and we really do become what we surround ourselves with, where we invest our time, and who we invest with.

It's a very powerful principle that I wish I were exposed to at a younger age. It's also very exciting because if you can find the people who are doing the things or living the life or exhibiting the qualities that you aspire to, it makes it much more attainable. It's fascinating the way that works.

Kris Davis: Totally. I teach at the Berklee Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice with Terri Lyne Carrington, and that was not really a passion of mine when I started the job. Just being exposed to the ideas of Black feminist thought, the issues that women face in jazz, and the idea of patriarchy and all these things, I was really focused on the music. Suddenly, I'm thrown into this context, talking more about the social justice issues around music and jazz education.

And it's been a real learning experience for me. I see the world totally differently now, after four years of being part of that Institute. Yeah. It's another example of just being exposed and putting yourself in certain situations and being with certain people that are going to affect the way that you think and work.

LP: I wanted to talk to you about your work at Berklee. I had planned to come to it a little bit later in our conversation, but since you brought it up, one of the questions that was gnawing at me was this idea of the people that come before on the one hand, and then this sort of scarcity mentality on the other. If you have something, I have less, or if this group emerges, then my group is threatened. How does the work fit into the jazz lineage? Do you find that some who came before are turning around and extending a helping hand, or is it much more of a fight for space and attention? Because if there's one piece of the jazz story that's always been so beautiful in my mind, it's been a place for, at least for a period of time, or certain strands of its history, for people who maybe didn't have access to other channels to be able to have a very creative free place.

And as a white man of a certain age, I don't know how to metabolize a lot of what I see happening. And I'm curious, and I'm not asking you to be a representative of women in jazz by any means, but I'm curious as to what the work that you're doing there at Berklee is.

Kris Davis: There's work within the Institute, which is to say that it's open to all students, regardless of all genders, of all races. So that already opens the door. Growing up as a woman in jazz, I never wanted to associate myself with that side of the music and the programming. That's something I always avoided. I just wanted to be known for my music. And so these kinds of "all women" in jazz festivals or opportunities were things that I really avoided and tried to stay away from.

And so when Terri asked me about joining the Institute, I was so happy to hear that this was a program for everybody. It was for people and for young people who are interested in social justice issues and in correcting the issue, and we need everybody to do that. So that's the first part, that it's open to everyone, and we create. Mostly, we're teaching ensembles, and so the ensembles are populated based on gender balance, and they're also populated on various abilities and ranges of experience. So everybody's there to learn from each other and help each other, and we're not trying to create this kind of hierarchy of levels in any way.

This is all happening within the Institute, talking about ideas of erasure like you were saying. What is the work? And it's not that we're saying that whoever, like Dorothy Donegan or like these artists who maybe you're not familiar with, that they have changed or they're part of the history that has then influenced others, but just that they've been erased from the history. They didn't really get a chance to play a part in influencing the next generations because people didn't know about them.

It's talking about those kinds of issues. This is something that we want to change, and we want it to be more diverse and equitable in terms of how we present the history and what's available. And so to do that, we put together this new standards book of compositions by 101 women composers. It was released last September, and a lot of schools have taken it on as curriculum to teach to address the jazz canon and make it more equitable and gender-balanced in terms of the jazz canon that they're teaching. So that's just one example, but you'll see those names in the book and go, "Oh, I wonder, we should check out more of this person's music."

LP: And knowing how people that are interested in music, whether as a player or as a listener, how musically inclined people operate, that's exactly what would happen. You would see a name, and if that name were associated, it would resonate for you. No doubt you'd go down the rabbit hole. That's what we all do as enthusiasts. And ultimately, if you play it out, it has financial repercussions as well because if more people are performing the music and start recording it, income streams are generated. That's just so practical. It's like direct action.

Kris Davis: Yeah, exactly. It's significant because Berklee released these aria books in the 1970s. The students transcribed a bunch of songs and put them in this book, and they were illegal because they didn't have permission from the composers, and those books were important to me. Growing up in Calgary, Canada, we didn't know, well, what are the tunes people play. What are some of the vehicles for communication here? And those books were really important. And eventually, they did get permission, and they were legitimized and legal to have. But there were no women included. There was one woman, Ann Ronell, who wrote "Willow Weep for Me" in that first book.

Significantly, Berklee is now releasing this book of 101 women composers as corrective work to those books from the 70s.

LP: Yeah, it's something I like about that as well is that it is an institution choosing to do it because there's so much, there are so many examples today where our institutions are not always reflective of our values, or it's hard to get, we're in this weird moment where institutional failure, there are plenty of examples of that. And it's so nice to see a counterexample of some positivity and growth and recognition. That's exciting. Thank you for doing that work. That's really something else.

Kris Davis: I'm learning so much, and I'm along for the ride just as much as the students are.

LP: Are there any composers that you were surprised to learn about?

Kris Davis: Geri Allen was one of the composers and pianists that I knew a little bit about. I think the one album I had when I was a kid was a record on Blue Note called "The Nurturer." I was really into Herbie Hancock at the time, and I thought, "Oh, she sounds like Herbie. Okay." And then I just dismissed her whole catalog in my brain, just like that. Now I look back and think, "God, that was so dumb. Why didn't I dig around a little more?" But when I met Terri, she was very close with Geri Allen, and she passed away in 2017, just a few months after I started working with her. And so Terri wanted to pay tribute to Geri, and she put together a bunch of concerts where we played her music for a few years.

So, I got some real experience learning her tunes, listening to her music, and diving into her catalog. Some of my favorite albums are the first couple she put out, "The Printmakers," and "Home Grown," a solo album. And now, even on this new album, "Live at the Village Vanguard," we recorded one of her pieces, "The Dancer," and are working on another one of her songs for another project. It's just wonderful music. Again, it was just ignorant of me to write her off at that time. But I was in that mindset of, "Oh, people want me to listen to Geri Allen because she's a woman." It deterred me from listening to Mary Lou Williams or other women that I saw playing and could have learned a lot from, but their gender was so tied up in their music and their legacy that it caused some issues for me.

LP: And ultimately, that denied them listeners. One more question about your progress or your evolution when you came to New York. There's a theme in some of the other discussions I've read with you and writings about you, which is a bit stereotypical, but like this straddling the line of uptown downtown or tradition and new music or avant-garde. Which New York did you set out to go to? What did you know going in versus what you learned once you got there?

Kris Davis: I have to back up a little bit because, a year before I moved, I went to this program called the Banff Center for the Arts, which is in Western Canada. It was a program with a lot of musicians who are great players now, and they point back to being at Banff as a really important moment in their musical evolution. And I can say the same. I went twice, when I was 17 and then when I was 20, a year before I moved to New York. And I met Tony Malaby there, and Angelica Sanchez, Kenny Warner was running the program, Ben Monder was there, a lot of really great improvisers. Joe Lovano and Judi Silvano were also there, and they were focused on playing improvised music and talking about what that was conceptually.
And it was totally new to me. I came from a more traditional jazz background. I had learned a lot more; I was playing a lot of standards gigs, and connected to more of the more traditional jazz world at that point. I was so intrigued by the music and the passion with which these artists were talking about the music and the way they played the music. And there was some communication going on, but I couldn't quite identify what was happening. And we were there for three weeks playing improvised music. And I thought, "This is one of the reasons I want to go to New York next year. I want to seek out some of these players and learn more about what this music and practice is."

And so that's what happened. I moved to New York, and I called Tony Malaby, and he said, "Come on over, we'll make some food and play some music." And yeah, and I was playing with some other young players who were interested. So we'd go over as a group and play, and he'd give us some ideas about conceptualizing improvisation. And he suggested that I start composing for free improvisation and blending written material with improvisation. So, I started working on that process and playing with the group there. So, really, my entry point into New York was improvised music. I wasn't seeking out the more traditional straight-ahead scene at that point. I played all sorts of gigs. I played with a cabaret group and with vocalists. And I was doing all sorts of things—church gigs. And I was playing in a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan tribute band, playing harmonium. So I had really interesting musical experiences in New York. But the free improvisation and composition really swept me up. I felt like I could really be myself in that music. I could bring in those influences of all those experiences and use them as tools to create conversations, structures, and frameworks for improv with the groups I was playing with.

LP: Hearing you say all that, it makes me wonder how many times I may have seen you over the years and only would now be able to piece it together in retrospect because I was probably at a lot of those places.

Kris Davis: Did you go to Barbès in Brooklyn? Was that a spot for you?

LP: Everywhere. Yeah. Even before I moved to New York in the mid-nineties, I used to come down from Connecticut and go to the old Knitting Factory and see Sonny Sharrock and the early Zorn ensembles. And I used to see pretty much I would see Zorn. If he were going to open a car dealership, I'd go if he was going to play the opening of a car dealership. (laughter) People who listen to this podcast have probably heard me tell this story. I saw a run of shows he did for his 40th, 50th, and 60th birthdays. And I just dropped my son off at art school in San Francisco. On one of the first nights out he had, he said, "Dad, I'm going to see Electric Masada for Zorn's 70th." And I was like, "I did something right as a parent." (laughter)

Kris Davis: Yes, you did! When I moved to New York, I moved two weeks before September 11th, so I got to see the Knitting Factory, and then you couldn't access it at that point. Yeah, after September 11th, everything changed. The Knitting Factory was open for a few more years after that, but I remember all the levels, or four levels of music, happening. And it was just so exciting and so cool to go there and be like, "Oh, let's go check out four different bands and run up and down between the floors and see what's happening." So a lot of good things.

LP: There was a Knitting Factory before that one at Lafayette and Houston. That was, it was basically a storefront. Incredible. There is just so much music. Zorn's impact on modern music in New York still needs to be reckoned with. He's such a towering figure that it blows my mind. And the volume of music is… forget it. It makes no sense.

Kris Davis: I know. I had a chance to work with him on the Bagatelles project, and we became friends. We would go and have lunch and talk about Tzadik and the label and how he just prioritized like he's putting out so much music. It's like an album every two months or something. And there's this sort of idea of okay, you put an album out, and then you got to wait three years with the next one out cause you're not going to have any attention on it or reviews and things if you put things too closely together and you just. He doesn't give a crap about any of the things, let me put the music out, and people will find it. So I really appreciate that about him and that mentality.

LP: Yeah, he's a dream guest for this, for what I do here, and I keep very low expectations about that because he doesn't do a lot of this, but I'll never stop trying. (laughter) There's a lot that struck me about this record. By the way, it's such a great record. One of the first things that stands out, which I've since noticed other people have latched onto, was the opening number being a Ronald Shannon Jackson tune. Not someone who I see getting a lot of attention, unfortunately. How did you come to his music, and how did you choose that song?

Kris Davis: One of my favorite top ten Desert Island albums is the Ornette Coleman album called "Dancing in Your Head," and Ronald Shannon Jackson plays on that. So that was the first time I'd heard him and heard his name. Then, I also worked with a producer, David Breskin, who worked with Ronald Shannon Jackson and produced some of his albums. When I was thinking about putting this new album out, "Diatom Ribbons," in 2019, he was encouraging me to check out his group, The Decoding Society. So I went on a deep dive into those records, and I really liked the album "Mandance," and this tune "Alice in the Congo" was on there. David Breskin was putting together a concert in Texas and was bringing Craig Taborn and me down to play a two-piano concert. He said it would be really cool if you could play a tune of Ronald Shannon Jackson since he's from Texas and just as a tribute. So Craig and I both transcribed a piece and "Alice in the Congo" was the piece I chose. I thought it would be really challenging to make this piece work for two pianos. It's all like guitars and drums and rocking-out horns, but it worked well. Then I just thought, this is a great tune for this band. So, I brought it in and made some adjustments to make it work.

LP: Your piano work on it, behind Julian's playing, it's just so different, and I'm really hung up on it. (laughter) Yeah, it really got me that. And is it "Nine Hats?" You refer to it being Dolphy-inspired.

Kris Davis: Yeah, it's an amalgamation of a Dolphy tune and a piece by Nancarrow and maybe some other things. I can't remember, but there's some material directly connected to "Hat and Beard" and this player piano piece of Nancarrow's.

LP: The record is very much an achievement because it sounds evolutionary. It's a modern sound, not least of which because of the incorporation of the electronics. If you presented me with a score for the sheet music for any of these pieces, how do you notate what Val's doing?

Kris Davis: I don't notate what she's doing, but I give her little stems of things. Like in that piece, "Nine Hats," there are stems of me playing some prepared piano that she's manipulating, and there's some trumpet. I had a trumpet friend record some parts, and I overlaid them into harmonies, and Val manipulated those. Also, in the piece "Bird Call Blues," similar to that, I took little clips of interviews and things, and she manipulated them in different ways. So it's never written out. And that was the fun part because I'm such a visual person, as I mentioned. I learned all my classical music by looking at the scores. So everything is very notated and written out. When Val joined the group, I thought, "Oh, this is going to be interesting." She reads music, but not super well, and I don't think she even really needs to. Yeah, it was all about these clips and thinking about spatially, like, how she would interact with the group.

LP: Is there more to be explored there for you?

Kris Davis: Yeah, I think so. We've been playing the music for a couple of years now, so when we go on the road this year or play shows, we'll be incorporating some different music to keep the evolution happening. It's the tip of the iceberg with what we've explored. This one piece, "Parasitic Hunter," on the album has all these little clips from Karlheinz Stockhausen speaking about his intuitive music from this lecture. And I cut that up. It was very cool to play to the rhythm of your intuition and these kinds of directives that work with this piece that's based on bird calls and repetition and different kinds of rhythms that the group explores and develops. And so those clips that she uses are ways of directing or not directing or framing for the audience. What is one way of thinking about this one moment in the improvisation? I like the idea of using words to be suggestive but not necessarily prescriptive in any way.

LP: It relieves you of the burden of becoming a lyricist.

Kris Davis: As a thing, I would love to have a vocalist and write lyrics, but I don't, and I don't think I could ever do that.

LP: One of the last passes through the album, I went for a walk and was listening to it in earbuds. And I'm curious: do you vocalize while you're playing? Because there are so many unidentifiable textures in the music. Do you make noise while you're playing? I thought I heard the sound of a person.

Kris Davis: No, that's not me. It's hard to say. Recording a live album at the Vanguard with five people on stage and electronics had its challenges. The sound is great. Our engineer, Ron Saint Germain, did an incredible job, but there are things like buzzing in the amps and some valve speakers, and I'm sure you've heard some buzzing from one end or something.

LP: Yeah, either that or it's the ghosts. Because I'm sure, the Vanguard's packed with them. You said something somewhere else about the dryness of the room and how having multiple nights there really helped you not only explore the music but tune to the room.

First of all, the album is, it's so well-engineered, like the separations and everything. It's a great-sounding record. So, hats off on that. But there is this sort of unmistakable Village Vanguard-ness.

Kris Davis: Yeah, it is. It's a dry room, and that poses some issues. For drums, it's great. And sometimes, for piano, it can be very revealing if you make a mistake or there's not this singing to the notes.

LP: You're not hiding behind the pedals.

Kris Davis: You can't hide behind any reverb at all. It takes a second, but with a band that size, it's helpful to have it in a dry room.

LP: I know this is incredibly nerdy to ask, but the synth that you play on the album, and I'm asking specifically about it because you name what it is in the credits.

That to me, I was like, as somebody who sees meaning everywhere, I was like, "Oh, that's important." And so, I Googled the gear and read up a bit on it. And now, of course, I want one. (laughter)

Can you tell me a little bit about your use of a synthesizer? Some pianists don't go there. My musical hero is McCoy Tyner and one of the things that's very noteworthy about him is he never really went electric in a world when all of his contemporaries very much did. His innovations are more around arrangement and instrumentation, maybe composition. I'm curious about your use of synthesizer.

Kris Davis: I bought it during the pandemic just because I was bored. Like I need some kind of outside influence, something new to learn. And Craig Taborn, who's a dear friend of mine, is someone I play with a lot. He's also incredible at electronics, and I've always felt that or had a hunch that his experience with electronics and sequencing effects has influenced the way that he plays.

I thought, "I'm gonna check out this keyboard and try a little bit of programming ideas and see what that's about." And it was really interesting. This little keyboard, it's under two pounds. I tried to manipulate the sounds or change them and make them individual, but I really had no idea what I was doing.

But the sequencing part was really cool because you only had two options to sequence things. And there were all these limitations around the way that you could transpose things. And it wasn't so intuitive. The piano is cool because I've been playing it forever, but there were just certain things you couldn't get around; you could only sequence two ideas. So you'd go back and forth. And when you bring in the second idea, it just interrupts the sequence of the first one. So not like you're starting again from beat one. And I don't know, I just, I love limitations. That's something I work on and use a lot in my composition and improvisations, and all these different kinds of limitations that brought up some new things. And so that piece, "Nine Hats," is a lot of it is me exploring the keyboard and just the little limitations of that, what that little keyboard has.

And I have no idea why I labeled it. I should have just put, like, "Synthesizer." (laughter)

LP: It was so intriguing to have the name of it. I was like, "Oh my gosh, there's something here."

Kris Davis: I know. I was trying to be thorough, and I was being super geeky, and I don't know. It's there for everyone if they want to check it out.

LP: Yeah. Were you previously a gearhead? Do you know gear?

Kris Davis: Not at all! And I don't know if I'll ever be. But it was a learning experience, and I like the way the keyboard sounds. I've used it on gigs, and I like that I can sustain pitches and alter the sound. Like on the piece, "The Dancer," Julian and I are playing this melody in unison. It's really nice to have that sustaining element to the keyboard.

LP: It winds up serving the recording well, too, because of the room. It gives a little texture. One of the last shows I saw at the Vanguard before I moved was Donny McCaslin's band, and I love seeing people bring modern equipment into that place or into places like that. It's not in any way sacrilegious, but it's fun. It's easy to be to treat those places as like holy relics that then it would go to die. It's exciting to just see experimentation.

Kris Davis: Yeah, exactly. And I was on the road with Dave Holland this summer, and we were talking about recordings. He was like, "I don't know how you feel, but when I look back, and I listen to all these records I did, it takes me right back to the moment of what was happening in my life and what I was thinking about musically and otherwise, and I just thought that's exactly how I think of it too. That all the things on this record, there's a lot of information. There are a lot of influences, but it's that moment in time that I was looking at these artists and ideas and figuring out how to bring them all in. It'll be different a couple of years from now, whatever happens, but I'm so glad I've done so many records. I did maybe one or two a year since I was in my early twenties. And I'm so grateful to have those now as these sort of markers of thoughts and relationships and what was going on at that time.

LP: That's really interesting because that contrasts so interestingly with other artists I've spoken with who have, not a cavalier, but they have much less connection to some of the work. Especially artists who are prolific or play a lot of sessions, or they lose the place in time, and they're still trying to figure out what record was that on? Or don't even have the interest or the appetite to talk about the body of work that way. It's really interesting how artists relate to their work.

Kris Davis: I know, it can get blurry, but yeah, for me, it's, I don't know, I hear it and I go, "Yeah, like I know, it takes me right back to that moment."

LP: How do you think about repertoire then? You have a body of work now, both your compositions and things you've recorded. Are there opportunities to take older works and put them into newer musical contexts with different players, or do you keep going?

Kris Davis: I'm grappling with that right now. I'm playing another week at the Vanguard with Jonathan Blake and Robert Hurst, and I have a lot of trio music. So, I was trying to bring that in, and it's hard. I don't know the answer yet, but it's something I'm thinking about. I'd like to revisit some of my old music. When I was out with Dave, he brought only old tunes in. It inspired me to do the same. I also heard a concert by Bill Frisell, and he was playing some old music. I've written a lot, so I can try to bring things in and reformat them in some way. But, I don't know. It's tough. I've been trying to get it in, and I'm not sure yet.

LP: Too many ideas. Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you a little bit about being a label owner. I'm curious about the impetus to do that and which if any, models you were looking toward. And most importantly, what is the unique thing? What's the difference between business models? Is it because it's artist-driven?
I would love to know the story of what you're doing there.

Kris Davis: I had put out a lot of music on different small labels before I started this label. I was working with a foundation at the time that was supporting many of my projects. I owned the recordings and the projects outright, and it didn't really make sense to give those projects to a small label that would profit from them because I had already paid for them to be made.

I was thinking about starting this label, and I'm also driven to be in the service of others, particularly in supporting the community. The label was a way I could do that for my community of composers in New York. The mission of the label is to support adventurous and non-commercial artists in the recording and dissemination of their work.

That was the impetus for starting the label, those two things. I turned the label into a non-profit in 2019. I spent some time with John Zorn, who has done that for Tzadik, and I thought this might be a sustainable model because I had seen so many friends start labels that ended after a few years.

So, I was looking at John's model and also at Dave Douglas's model on Greenleaf. I was living close to him at the time, so we would meet and talk about different approaches for the label. But yes, John's approach was really inspiring to me. I started the non-profit, and it supports the work of the label. Now, I think we have 29 releases for 21 artists, and it's going strong.

LP: Does that mean that the non-profit fundraises?

Kris Davis: It can. We haven't. We rely on the board, which contributes a certain amount every year for operation costs and recording and printing CDs for artists. We also recoup whatever we put towards an artist's album. Those funds also go back into the label to continue supporting the work we're doing.

LP: In the context of this music, what does a label do? Does an artist deliver a finished master? Are you funding recordings? Do you manufacture physical products? What does it mean to be a label in 2023 for non-mainstream music?

Kris Davis: The main thing it provides is an umbrella for like-minded artists. Now that we have quite a few artists, if you're a fan of Angelica Sanchez, Craig Taborn, or Ches Smith, their albums are available through the label and the website. So that's first and foremost what it does.

It supports the printing of CDs and getting the music out there to distributors. Most importantly, we have a wonderful publicist who works with us and ensures the albums get noticed, recognized, and out in the world. That's the biggest thing we do for the artists.

A lot of artists now pay for publicists, and they cost a lot of money, between four to six thousand dollars per album. It's a big undertaking after you've made a record, paid the musicians, and covered recording costs. That's something we provide to the artists. Some of the artists come with finished masters.

It varies. Some artists come with an idea, and we support some of the recording costs. It depends on the situation. We can only put out six albums a year, so that's limiting. I receive submissions at least a couple of times a day. It's hard for me sometimes because I want to say yes to everybody, and there's such great music. But we're looking at some different models of how to address that issue because we want to support artists, and sometimes we can't. Since it's a non-profit, there might be ways we can do good and help support the community without actually putting all the money into releasing an album.

LP: Do you sign artists, or do you sign their individual projects?

Kris Davis: Just their individual projects. It's a licensing deal, so once the period ends, the artists get their masters back. There's no kind of ownership involved in that way.

LP: That's neat. Thank you so much for spending time with us. One of the joys of doing this is not only getting to speak with artists but also getting turned on to a steady flow of music. This record's in heavy rotation, so thank you for your work on it.

Kris Davis: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Lawrence. It was great to chat.