It is difficult to keep track of the prodigious output of New York contrabassist, composer, and improviser Brandon López. A virtuosic and dynamic performer, López uses unorthodox instrumental techniques to create dense, unique sounds and unexpected polyrhythms. He may command the bass to screech like a subway train around curved tracks, building intensity with strange textures and layered percussion until the tension suddenly pops—and then, like snowflakes falling slowly through the air, the mood dissipates, and a new direction is sought.
Community is at the heart of these sonic endeavors, with notable musicians including Gerald Cleaver, Mat Maneri, Ingrid Laubrock, and, most prominently, poet and theorist Fred Moten serving as trusted collaborators. López and Moten first played together along with Cleaver, releasing two albums as a trio. Now performing as a duo, they’ve released Revision, a vinyl record combining affecting spoken word with unpredictable soundscapes—a powerful testament to Moten’s intellectual prowess and López’s clairvoyant attentiveness and mastery of his tools. Their sound could be considered a revival of “phonopoems” from the Black Arts movement, bringing to my mind Amiri Baraka’s collaborations with improvisational jazz musicians in the ’60s and Sun Ra’s Space Poetry. The work answers a need to assert incisive voices from the African diaspora in America, now more than ever.
I most recently saw Moten and López perform at a Sunday series in Brooklyn, a recurring event that they affectionately title “The Church.” It was a spiritually uplifting community gathering. Moten’s words spread seeds of thought, López guided the sonic energy, and their musical conversation was led by feeling, intuition, and something bigger than themselves.
ON MY MOTHER’S SIDE of the family, there is a long line of professional Latin musicians in both Puerto Rico and New York. Being constantly inundated with Latin music as a kid informed the way I think about time, sound, and their roles in shaping community. During the pandemic, I wanted to delve into that legacy and started learning rumba and batá drumming, studying under Manley López, a master Afro-Cuban percussionist. In a lot of Afro-Cuban music, the bass is always dancing, always syncopated, always occupying its own unique space. It’s not only dressing and announcing the beat but declaring its own independent voice. This altered the way that I treat the instrument itself. Not so much a soloist, I don’t want to be an instrument up front. I want to be a voice amongst equal voices.
That polyphonic quality is what grounds the album Revision. The project came together because Whit Dickey, a great drummer, friend, and founder of the record label TAO Forms, heard a performance by Fred and me at Property Is Theft in Brooklyn. He suggested we record as a duo for the label. We decided on using a small yet well-equipped studio called Greyfade, owned and operated by producer Joe Branciforte. Some really exceptional things happened in that studio. And while I love our trio recordings with Gerald Cleaver, the duet offers a more intimate interaction between two voices. I really felt like Fred and I were engaged in this conversation, not only between voice/word/sound/music but also this deep sense of feeling. We caught some lightning in the bottle, and I think the recording reflects this.
Improvisation is integral to the project. In improvisation, you are dealing heavily with the present. You have to be present with the materials and with your technique, your ears need to be open, and you need to be ready for anything. I find that when you introduce improvisation into composition, you are in a way also playing with fugitivity—a concept that pervades both Fred’s work and my own. This kind of play with the elusive, constantly changing, crumbling thing. This necessity to create in the moment and to collectively forge a space of possibility. For me, a lot of the best work has that quality to it; it opens paths of thought and gives space for reinterpretation. It’s like you can continually revisit it and get something different every single time.
I don’t see a difference between improvisation and composition. In fact, improvisation is a compositional method. If composition is essentially the construction of music, well, that’s what we’re doing in an improvisational performance. In my own compositions there is written material, there’s an idea of how to implement that material, and then there are the various heads bringing these specific ideas together in real time. That real-time collaboration evokes the tradition of jazz—this complicated history of hardworking people whose diligence and sense of community developed an incredibly complex art form. I think that less refined, more spontaneous creativity ultimately leads to a richer composition. There’s all this texture that comes from the dirt, the mistakes, the figuring out in the moment, which creates a more dynamic experience. So part of my compositional practice is bringing in people who I want to work things out with.
The idea of individual genius is a dangerous concept. There are certain people who are conduits for exceptional ideas. They have original takes on things, and they shift the way that we work aesthetically. But ultimately, I think we need to focus on the collective and communal aspects that lead to creative innovations. Beethoven wasn’t just Beethoven; he was the people in his midst, he was his culture, he was his family. Like him, we are each the product of many different elements, which all converge in our artistic output.
