Pianist and composer Adegoke Steve Colson will take the stage alongside prominent and emerging voices at the annual Winter Jazz Fest (WJF) in New York City, which will take place from January 8-13. The New Jersey native artist, who is well known for his work as an early member of Chicago-based experimental music organization, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), will participate in a panel discussing his experience with the influential collective at 651 Arts in Brooklyn, on January 10, ahead of his performance as a guest of the Freedom Riders at Le Poisson Rouge on January 12.
“A lot of people associate me with Chicago because when I joined AACM, I guess I was about 21, and so for the next 10 years I was in Chicago and we were playing music,” Colson told the Amsterdam News in a Zoom interview ahead of the festival. “A lot of the musicians that were in the AACM started leaving, and the reason is that they needed more exposure, or that they wanted more access to communications, media, networks, and things like that. Chicago was really a great city, but New York had more opportunities.”
Colson, who was born in Newark, NJ, raised in East Orange, and moved to Chicago in the late ‘60s to pursue a degree at Northwestern, joined Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams’ AACM in 1972. Alongside players that included Anthony Braxton, Steve McCall, Roscoe Mitchell, and his future wife, Iqua Colson, the collective expanded on the language of jazz, reimagining the possibilities of their instruments and utilizing unconventional, and increasingly experimental approaches to making music.
Steve Colson in discussion with the Amsterdam News ahead of his performance at Le Poisson Rouge on Nov. 12 for Winter Jazz Fest.
Upon returning to the East Coast, Colson has released a diverse and storied body of work, including collaborations with poet Amiri Baraka, bassist Reggie Workman, who had recorded on landmark records with John Coltrane, and famed avant-garde drummer Andrew Cyrille. “Those are long-lasting relationships, I’ve been very fortunate,” said Colson. “I’m indebted to those guys; they are masters. In my book, Reggie Workman has got to be one of the top 3 bass players I can think of.” On January 12, Colson will join the Freedom Riders, “an all-star ensemble of youngish voices in creative music, dedicated to amplifying messages of social justice through sound,” comprised of Tomoki Sanders, Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Alfredo Colón, Milena Casado, Sasha Berliner, Carmen Staaf, Joe Dyson and “co-leaders” Luke Stewart and Ben Williams, who will perform alongside fellow special guests Arturo O’Farrill, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Samora Pinderhughes, and Mádé Kuti – the group will “share current songs born from their own activist practice, underscoring the ongoing struggle for equality and freedom,” according to the WJF website.
The event, titled “My Country Tis’ of Thee,” is one of many events being held as part of the festival that has hosted a slew of diverse talent since 2005, including a reimagining of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” on Feb. 13, and the festival’s flagship “Marathons” on Friday and Saturday Feb 9 and 10 that feature dozens of performances across 15 Manhattan and Brooklyn spaces. “It’s a blessing to be around this long and playing with these people, because they have their own outlook, or their own approach –– and composition-wise we have divergent ideas,” Colson told AmNews, regarding his feelings on working with diverse and emerging players in an improvisational environment. “It’s very interesting because you have to adapt, and hopefully what you’re adding to the music is constructive and supportive of what the other people are doing.”
Colson, who has long worked in experimental spaces, understands the value of free expression, especially in today’s increasingly divisive political climate, and attacks on artistic and educational institutions by the Trump administration. “We listen to these slogans like ‘it’s a free society,’ and ‘land of freedom,’ and so on, and that could be true depending on where you are situated in the society, in the culture — but for a lot of people these are just slogans, it’s not reality in terms of how they go day-by-day,” Colson explained. “For me, mainly, I would just like people to feel the essence of the pieces that we do —- they tend to have a direction. They’re not just ambiguous sounds, we usually have a theme, or an actual message we are trying to send through using the music as a vehicle…if a person can feel better or have a change of mood, a more positive outlook – that’s what we’re looking for.”
You can get tickets for Adegoke Steve Colson’s WJF performance, view the full lineup, and RSVP for the free AACM 60th Anniversary discussion at winterjazzfest.com, and stay up to date with Colson’s upcoming work at colsonmusic.com. Students can score discounted Marathon tickets at any WJF box office location on Jan 9 or 10.