Interview with Amy Denio: That improvising helps us survive evolutionary challenges: Video, new CD cover

Jazz interview with jazz musician and composer Amy Denio. An interview by email in writing. 

JazzBluesNews.com: – First let’s start with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music?

Amy Denio: – My family moved from Boston to Detroit Michigan when I was three months old. My father became Headmaster of Brookside School Cranbrook, so I grew up on the grounds of Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, just north of Detroit.

My family is musical. Both my mother and father played bass ~ and met while playing in a local  orchestra in their youth.  My mother continued playing in classical and jazz ensembles for many years. She serenaded me with bass tones while I grew in her womb, very helpful for my musical aptitude!

In our house there was always music. My mother rehearsed with her jazz quartet, my father listened to his vast collection of jazz recordings after dinner, and my elder sister played Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninoff on the piano.  I started piano lessons at age 6 and excelled at the Orff music program in my elementary school.

JBN: – How has your sound evolved over time? What have you been doing to find and develop your own sound?

AD: – By the time I was 12 music was clearly my most significant language, and I decided to follow the path of musician. I had no interest in being ‘normal’ or fitting in.  I quit piano lessons, and taught myself guitar.  I learned chords from a songbook of Beatles songs and began exploring the instrument, finding new ways to play boring old chords and writing strange songs on the guitar.  In high school I was a prolific singer songwriter. I played the 12-string guitar and also had a Guild acoustic-electric guitar which was eventually stolen.  That was my folk stage, though at 15 I played rhythm guitar in Elysian Fields, a rock band playing Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.  I developed a taste for progressive rock. I explored strange rhythms and chords on my own, and became a big fan of bands like Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Gentle Giant.

At Hampshire College I began arranging my songs for chamber ensembles. Though I never studied directly with a composition teacher, at Hampshire I enjoyed mentors like Roland Wiggins (a teacher of John Coltrane) and Ray Copeland.  I compose by ear, influenced by all that I hear. Along with my lifelong interest in the more dissonant harmonic modes (minor, diminished, augmented, hijaz), I have always enjoyed hearing and identifying rhythms other than 4/4.

I transferred to study at the Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado at age 21, where by chance I discovered free improvised music through an innovative musician and instrument inventor named Bob Tudor who accompanied dance classes.

For years I had been wondering what was ‘wrong’ with me, since I always preferred doing my own thing.  I knew about jazz solos, but had not learned about free jazz and improvised music.  I was delighted!  You can do whatever you want in music?! Perfect.  My nature has always been to improvise and innovate.

Shortly after graduating from college I made the philosophical decision to develop my skills as a multi-instrumentalist.  Each instrument brings out a different aspect of my musical voice. began collecting other instruments ~ bass, percussion, saxophone.  I spent long hours working in my home recording studio.  I had (and still have) no interest in following conventional rules in order to succeed.

JBN: – What routine practices or exercises have you developed to maintain and improve your current musical proficiency, in terms of both rhythm and harmony?

AD: – I’ve developed my sense of harmony and rhythm by learning songs by ear.  I have settled into teaching music privately as a career.  I used to think that teachers were frustrated musicians who had somehow failed.  But now I see that teaching keeps me fluent on my instruments. Not only that, but I learn from each student in ways that I never would on my own.  These days I transcribe songs for musicians who don’t know how to read or write music.

Also I participate in a local ‘lodge’ of the Immersion Composition Society; a group of peers chooses a day in which to compose as many pieces as possible in the course of one day. That evening we meet to share the results.  It is fascinating to hear how each person creates and experiences music in their own unique way.  This has been a very inspiring activity for the last ten years.

JBN: – How do you keep stray, or random, musical influences from diverting you from what you’re doing?

AD: – Whether I want it or not, all sound influences my creative output.  The Tuning of the World by R. Murray Schafer was a seminal influence in my deep appreciation of sound, noise and music. Whether it’s a dishwasher that creates a tone and rhythm, the hydraulic brakes of a bus resembling a snare drum, or car tires resonating the metal grate of a bridge, I always hear it as music.  For example, I composed a sax quartet from my transcriptions of the blasts of distant train horns in Seattle.  It’s called i Klaxon della Notte.

JBN: – How do you prepare for your recordings and performances to help you maintain both spiritual and musical stamina?

AD: – It depends on the project.  In Kultur Shock and the Tiptons Sax Quartet & drums, the material requires rigorous preparation to be able to play the complex rhythms and melodies. I play long tones to build up the endurance, since often rehearsals are eight hours long!

As an improviser, I prepare by doing my best not to intellectualize or justify what’s going on ~ in other words, to silence my composer’s urge to control.  I clear my mind of judgment and expectation.  Improvising is the most powerful when I have no memory of what just happened; that’s a sign that I’ve entered ‘the Zone’.  This can be true when I’m creating music in my studio as well.  I try not to overthink when creating music.

JBN: – What do you love most about your new album 2022: Chapel Sessions, how it was formed and what you are working on today.

AD: – In late 2021 I was commissioned by Right Brain Records to create a new album of improvised vocals & electronics.  We debated where and how it should be done ~ in a professional studio or at Spoot Studios in my home?  Or how about at the Chapel Performance Space, one of my favorite places to improvise?  They gave me permission to produce a recording session there for one evening, last November.

I love this album because of its overall simplicity.  I sang through one mic which went through my Line6 DL4 Delay Modeler which went mono into a Fender Princeton guitar amplifier.  I recorded everything using my Zoom H5 stereo field recorder.  In true improvising spirit, I decided not to prepare specific ideas, though I ended up doing a ‘cover’ of a piece I composed in 1984.

Currently I am settling into my new abode in the countryside outside Seattle. I have my own wing, and the acoustics are excellent.  I have three requests to add music to the songs of colleagues from Spain and the US.  I have been working on a commission to compose the soundtrack for Pat Graney Dance Company’s next work, Attic.

JBN: – How did you select the musicians who play on the album?

AD: – I sang solo 🙂

JBN: – In your opinion, what’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?

AD: – The intellect simply creates noise and feeds the ego.  If you want to feed the soul, abandon the intellect and all of its trappings.

JBN: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; are you okay with delivering people the emotion they long for?

AD: – I often experience that uncanny synchrony where the music fits the thirst of the listeners’ spiritual state.  In my various groups we do our best to play well, with focus and passion.  The sound goes out to the audience with the intention of love and playfulness, the audience absorbs all that’s going on, and in turn sends that love back to the musicians.  This interplay creates a circle of love that evolves into something greater than all of us.

JBN: – Can you share any memories from gigs, jams, open acts and studio sessions over the years?

AD: – I am currently writing a book on all of this ~ in Italian and in English. Here are a few examples.

Origins of Spoot

Bob Tudor is an improvising musician in Colorado Springs. I’d go to his house for long sessions playing freeform music.  One time I grabbed a Band-Aid box, and began riffing on the printed text. ‘Absorbs wound fluids… Wound fluids…wooden flutes…’ Others joined me in choral cacophony, then suddenly we all stopped.  In the silence, someone said ‘Spoot’.  We all laughed. Spoot became the word for my musical philosophy ~ to listen actively and practice empathy in the musical sphere.

Playing with Chuck D

One of my favorite spontaneous concerts was being asked to improvise in a horn section backing up rapper and poet Chuck D (Public Enemy) in his side project the Fine Arts Militia. An improvisng ensemble, the musicians were all well-experienced and had excellent listening skills.  Not a note was out of place ~ we all gave each other space to create, and at the same time feel an uncanny sense of telepathy.

Billy Tipton Memorial Sax Quartet Bus Horn Concerto

I received a grant for my all-women sax quartet to research and create music for four saxophones and three city buses.  We made field recordings of the buses beeping their various horns, stop bells, hydraulic brakes etc, and then composing music based on the tonal centers.

We auditioned bus drivers, and stood on top of one of the buses for the performances.  I conducted.  Sometimes the windshield wipers set the tempo, other times the brakes sounded like jazz drums.  People said that the buses came alive, and that bus rides transformed from monotonous daily drudgery to inspiring musical adventures.

Years ago I rented a house that had a very noisy dishwasher.  It pulsed and groaned. I was facing the end of a relationship and feeling blue, so I decided to cheer myself up by recording the dishwasher.  After that I laid down for a nap, but silly words started coursing through my head. ‘I’m in the kitchen, I’d like to kiss a chicken’ kept repeating.  Ah! These could be the words to my dishwasher song!  I added a bassline to the pulsing and groaning, sang the words, and my mild depression lifted.  A year or two later, this audio attempt to cheer myself was included in the John Cage Exhibit at the Venice Biennale, and the piece became a staple in my solo concerts.

The Billy Tipton Memorial Sax Quartet & Ne Zhdali in Tallinn, Estonia

My all-women sax quartet finished our first European tour in Amsterdam.  We were sick and exhausted, but agreed to take on an extra concert playing at a squat opening for the Russian/Estonian band Ne Zhdali.  It was a match made in heaven, and we swore to collaborate again.  After various failed grant writing attempts, the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet’s proposal to travel to Tallinn Estonia was accepted.

We flew to Tallinn in February, 1996 (the coldest month in the coldest winter in 30 years) to make an album in collaboration with those crazy guys we’d met three years earlier.  I remember landing at the Tallinn airport after a brutally long flight. We all stared at each other, wondering how we’d pull off this project.  But in two weeks time we created, recorded and mixed material for ‘Pollo d’Oro’.  The studio was in the Olympic Center next to the ice hockey arena.

JBN: – How can we get young people interested in jazz when most of standard tunes are half a century old?

AD: – By creating new arrangements, finding new ways to interpret the melodies and structure, by expanding and developing ~ or simplifying ~ the harmonic structure, by creating new beats in the rhythm section.  To wit, listen to this version of Summertime.  The ensemble was thrown together, and some musicians were complete strangers.  After deciding on the key and tempo, we launched into the song.

JBN: – John Coltrane once said that music was his spirit. How do you perceive the spirit and the meaning of life?

AD: – Spirit is the essence of who we are, and music is spirit’s language.  Anyone can benefit from the magic of music if they can listen without judgment or preconceptions, keep a playful approach, and appreciate the beauty of occasional perfect moments.

JBN: – If you could change one single thing in the musical world and that would become reality, what would that be?

AD: – Destroy the performer/audience dichotomy.  Music creates community, and that power can help us transition away from the hierarchical ‘dominator’ culture that’s been troubling civilization for many thousands of years.

JBN: – Whom do you find yourself listening to these days?

AD: – To be honest, I don’t listen to much music.  But I appreciate Any music that is created with an independent spirit.  Carla Kihlstedt, Carla Bley, anything ‘innovative’.  I grew up with and adore Motown, and have been thirsty for world music for most of my life.  I listen to the app Radio Garden and listen to radio in Lebanon, Turkey, and to WFMU.

JBN: – What is the message you choose to bring through your music?

AD: – That music creates community, that playfulness is essential, and that improvising helps us survive evolutionary challenges.

JBN: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine: where and why would you really want to go?

AD: – I want to experience music from ‘the Fertile Crescent’ 6,000 years ago!

JBN: – At the bottom line, what are your expectations from our interview?

AD: – Years ago I trained myself not to have expectations.  But my hope is that people will check out my music on amydenio.bandcamp.com !!!

Interview by Simon Sargsyan