The day earlier than filming this dialog, I carried out the Piano Concerto by pioneering African-American composer Florence Value with the Philadelphia Orchestra in its live performance corridor just lately renamed after the legendary contralto Marian Anderson. I consider these two iconic ladies as my musical fairy godmothers; their barrier-breaking legacies have been important to my very own creative life. So the ability of feminine lineage was very a lot on my thoughts after I sat down with the sensible jazz harpist Brandee Youthful to speak about her musical journey, and the ladies who’ve impressed it.
The historical past of jazz harp begins within the Twenties, when Carlena Diamond toured the vaudeville circuit. Its practitioners make up a brief checklist, however amongst them, two figures, each Black ladies, stand out as innovators who pushed the instrument to new limits. Within the Fifties, Dorothy Ashby proved that the harp might bebop with the most effective of the most effective. And within the ’70s, Alice Coltrane developed a radical new musical language with roots in each African-American and Jap traditions as an expression of spirituality and self-healing.
Ashby and Coltrane had been foundational influences for Brandee — voices calling her to comply with their instance of unconventional, deeply private music-making that challenges the established order. She has succeeded. A lot in order that she was awarded the profitable 2025 Doris Duke Artist Award in recognition of her work “revolutionizing the harp’s function in fashionable music.” Her newest album, Gadabout Season, explores what her producer Rashaan Carter describes as an “Afrofuturist sonic palette,” showcasing her evolving use of digital textures and prolonged methods. Whereas her ancestors have helped form her personal distinctive voice, Brandee has come full circle to have fun her origins by recording the album on Alice Coltrane’s newly-restored harp.
Sitting collectively within the Blue Notice Jazz Membership, surrounded by the ghosts of numerous musical ancestors, Brandee and I gave due to the ladies who got here earlier than us, reflecting on our expertise of standing on their shoulders, feeling their power, and discovering the braveness to take off and soar.
