Tag: Fay Victor

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The response to the release of my Herbie Nichols tribute project, Life Is Funny That Way, has been so beautiful. Thank you so much.

A work that’s been a deep part of my heart and artistic work for more than the past decade. It means a lot to get this music into the world and experience the beautiful reaction from so many.

Life Is Funny That Way spawned features in magazines such as DownBeat, JazzWise UK and most recently in the Jazz Podium in Germany.  Herbie Nichols MUSIC is in the ether and consciousness again and I hope that if folks haven’t checked out his glorious melodies that you please do! It was also a way; a strange and beautiful way to reconcile my jazz roots and bonafides with the improviser and conceptualist that I’ve become. And I am extremely grateful to have met in the musicians of Anthony Coleman, Ratzo Harris, Michael Attias and Tom Rainey, great musicians and humans that were open and willing to explore.  It takes like minds and non-competitive spirits to arrive at the choices we have. What more could I ask for?

Thankful for Tao Forms (Whit Dickey/Steve Joerg), for willing to bring Life Is Funny that Way to – Life! Thankful for the artwork of Bill Mazza (see above), the informative and fantastic liner notes from Kevin Whitehead, the permissions given by the Nichols’ Family for work on the album, Andy Taub’s meticulous work at Brooklyn Recordings for the beautiful and rich sound, the crisp mastering of Paul Wickcliffe and all of YOU that expressed your love for what we put down.

So MUCH LOVE for Herbie Nichols SUNG this year – a sample of the ❤️❤️ below

*Top 18 Jazz Releases on Popmatters.com

*Wire Top 50 Albums of the Year

*Top Tribute albums of 2024 from the New York City Jazz Record

*Jerome Wilson’s Best Jazz Albums of 2024 from AllAboutJazz.com

*Wall Street Journal’s Martin Johnson’s Top Albums of 2024

*Bandcamp’s Best Jazz Recordings of 2024 – Honorable Mention

We’re at the Winter Jazz Festival on THURS January 9, 2025
Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street NYC 
6:30 PM Doors | 7:30 PM Show 

Herbie Nichols SUNG performs at 8:15PM (ONE SET ONLY), opening for Aja Monet!

Get TIX at the link
https://lpr.com/ 

https://artsfuse.org/303017/music-feature-the-best-jazz-albums-of-2024/

https://www.yearendlists.com/2024/the-wire-top-50-albums-of-2024

https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/the-wire-s-releases-of-the-year-2024

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/jerome-wilsons-best-jazz-albums-of-2024

https://livingtolisten.blog/2024/12/

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Narrowsburg, NY – New Year’s Day

I’m welcoming in 2025.

Can’t wait until it arrives

Will I live to see it through

Will all I care about survive?

I’m anxious with anticipation

as this number of this year gets left behind

and the new beckons in my compartmentalized consciousness

separating numbers/dates as if it means a thing

yet I look forward to the existential leap into the future that starts now

at midnight

everywhere in the world that carries this colonial calendar.

It’s what I’ve got to give definition to the line of past/future

Seeing the future in anticipation, 

will I live to see it through

Will you?

will all we care about survive?
========== fayvictor

I am so grateful to be here, still on the planet with you all. Bringing in this new year

2024 was a mixed bag of kryptonite and joy. Deeply painful and deliciously precious moments. I had highs in 2024 that I’ve never known and had lows I never knew I could handle. Still I’m here, healthy and mostly whole.

I’m humbled by my own jaded sense of ‘understanding’ life to realize that there is yet so much for me to learn and experience. The gamut of life is endless, even when we’re no longer here. 

I move in 2025 with a milestone birthday in the mix, with beautiful work ahead with folks that I love and admire and the promise to take care of myself and those I love better and with deeper intention. 

We all move into this year anxious of what’s to come. I feel that building your community is key to whatever transpires and get a passport, if you don’t have one already. Please. 

May you all find the peace, prosperity and joy you’ve been seeking this year. Just don’t hurt nobody doing it. LOL

Photo by Brian Hartley – at GIOFest woth Gerry Rossi, Clara Warnaar and FV

Some Experiences that Blew My Mind This Year

*Traveling through the night to visit a dying friend. The days spent with him were precious.

*Traveling to Jamaica to celebrate my aunt’s 75th Birthday. We had a ball and it was well timed. Just 4 days earlier, Jochem had a serious panic attack that we first thought was a heart attack. 

The resort stay was what the Doctor of the universe ordered.  He’s OK now.

*Composing and premiering an 8 bassoon piece called NURTURE for Rebekah Heller’s Bassoon ensemble at the Fridman Gallery

*Learning and performing the Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. for Talib Rasul Hakim at the New York Performing Library/Lincoln Center with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Either/Or Ensemble

*Performing Bonita Oliver’s For Namesake, which asked the performers to search their own history around our names. This was a powerful work that took me on a journey through family history I didn’t know. especially about my great-grandfather’s successful shipping and design business in Guyana that spawned features in UK and American shipping magazines.  Bonita’s work spawned this discovery.

*Getting back out on the road for the first time since the pandemic. I was out for close to 2 months and it was amazing to be out there again and I want to do it more.  My body was yelling and screaming at me by the time I got home for Christmas, though. It’s clear I need to give my body more care if I want to keep performing on a touring schedule. Also, can we talk about how HARD travel is on our bodies? 

How lugging luggage causes us to twist our bodies in weird ways and the constant conforming to small spaces on planes (I don’t care WHAT class you fly in…) is truly a lot. Still, I want IN!

Performing Herbie Nichols Music at Dizzy’s and The Jazz Gallery in NYC + Industrie Salon in Berlin. Performing Herbie Nichols music IS a spiritual experience for me.

Working, performing and presenting a piece with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra! These are next level humans and great musicians.

Meeting and connecting deeply with vocal powerhouses Elaine Mitchener and Maggie Nicols.  These two vocalists made me feel seen and heard in a way I’ve never experienced before and singing with them both was a dream.

Artwork by Bill Mazza

Coming UP!

Herbie Nichols SUNG at the Winter Jazz Fest!

We’ll open up for Aja Monet on the opening night of the Festival at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC, yall. 
Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street NYC 
6:30 PM Doors | 7:30 PM Show 
Herbie Nichols SUNG performs at 8:15PM (ONE SET ONLY)

Get your TIX at the link
Herbie Nichols SUNG
Fay Victor – voice, words, concept
Anthony Coleman – piano
Michael Attias – saxophone (alto/baritone)
Ratzo Harris – double bass
Tom Rainey – drums

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Friends,

Hoping this posting finds you well. These are hard and trying times. It’s difficult to feel good about so much in the world right now and I’m not sure the ability to share music is the answer for the urgent, acute matters of life or death right now. Because that’s where we are. We are watching massive death unfold all around the world and I feel powerless to stop it.

So, I try to hold on to the joy, any joy I experience right now, especially if I can experience that joy with others. One of my utmost joys at the moment is the response to ‘Life Is Funny That Way’ Herbie Nichols SUNG, my current release (see last post), out on Tao Forms.

The response has been extraordinary (check below), the emphasis on joy in Nichols music was what I wanted to expose more than anything. Not just how great his compositions are as compositions, but that they harness something more that make them part of the essence of what jazz is, what it means to me. My ideas around this and how I arranged the songs to reflect this very fact has been resonating with press and seems to review new avenues to explore Herbie Nichols’ music.

Press for Life Is Funny That Way

Fay Victor is the rare singer who can demonstrate and interact with the deep vocal tradition while also delving into the daring freedoms that have long been the province of instrumentalists to explore. She does all of this while telling stories with her lyrics as well. To top it off, her vocal tone and control have never sounded better.This is Fay Victor’s best recording to date, not because it encounters “the tradition” but because it looks at a great composer from the past and reimagines the tradition as part of the music’s daring vanguard.—Will Layman, Popmatters.com (9/10)

An avant-garde Nina Simone with the performance punch of Betty Carter, Victor’s unabashed acrobatics mesmerize… 4 STARS—Andy Cowan, MOJO Magazine

“In 2013, Victor formed Herbie Nichols SUNG, the first Nichols repertory project led by a black or female musician. It’s very much her vision – and the arrangements are as inventive as they are tight. In an inspired move,  Victor has set lyrics to Nichol’s compositions, adding new layers of meaning”–Steve Smith, The Wire

“He (Herbie Nichols) was not well known in his lifetime, but today he’s considered one of the great unsung jazz composers. Victor started writing lyrics for his tunes, performing them with the Herbie Nichols Sung band she put together in New York City in 2013. She’s now recorded 11 of these compositions and they’re outstanding.“
4 STARS –J. Poet, DownBeat Magazine

There are several fine Herbie Nichols tributes around, but this one has a unique soul and earthiness created by Fay Victor’s otherworldly singing and the adventurous spirit of her band. This is a superb album, one of the most delightful releases of the year so far.”–Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz

“Victor with her unique vocal approach somewhere between straight and quite free …and the band, this is a real collective excursion, has shed a great light on a treasure that has almost been forgotten – or that was almost never remembered. Fay Victor – and Herbie Nichols – certainly deserve another round of attention.”–Thor Hammerø, Nettavisen

“Life Is Funny That Way” offers a rich portrait of Nichols, and it highlights the contemporary aspects of his music. Ms. Victor’s versatile band includes saxophonist Michaël Attias, pianist Anthony Coleman, bassist Ratzo Harris and drummer Tom Rainey. Their range is a good fit, and her vocals embrace straightforward singing, scat, vocalese and poetic recitation; it’s a style that enables her to explore deeper meanings in songs and broaden their cultural connections. Her influences include both classic jazz singers like Betty Carter and late 20th-century innovators like Jeanne Lee.—— Martin Johnson, The Wall Street Journal

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Album cover for Life Is Funny That Way – Artwork: Bill Mazza, Photography: Deneka Peniston

This project started the day I became acquainted with the music of Herbie Nichols. The day I heard his music for the very first time, especially the composition ‘House Party Starting’ I was floored, curious. I hadn’t heard anything like it yet but it was  familiar too. I knew nothing about Herbie Nichols. I happened to stumble on a compilation of his in my then boyfriend’s music collection and pulled the album out based on his face, a warm face with cerebral eyes. 

The music I heard that day connected to my heart immediately as if he were an old friend. A few years later, I had learned House Party Starting and set it to lyrics. The words came like a flash. the whole thing written with the low Amsterdam sun on my shoulder. I sang it with my band. We let go of Nichols intro, started right on the head and used guitar instead of piano. I came out of the box wanting to find my own way with his music, never interested in an archival approach.

Bit by bit, I connected to his music song by song, living with these compositions in my head and heart until I found the words to tell that song’s story as I heard it. This organic process took some years. Around 2010 I started thinking of what group sound would work? I tried tuba,. saxophone and guitar for the Jazz Vault project which performed the music of Monk and Mingus too. There was a period where Misha Mengelbeeg spoke about doing a Monk/Nichols recorded project. That never happened but I did get to play Nichols’ music with ICP (instant composers pool) on a few occasions. 

I was going for something else too. Something I didn’t hear as much as I wanted to hear. Nichols’ music is harmonically complex. The forms can feel strange. There has been an effort to sound out all of these elements in other projects dedicated to his music. This is important.  For example, Misha Mengelberg and members of ICP flushed out these harmonies across 10 players of brass and strings.  Misha felt that was the natural progression for Herbie’s music. I wanted to also focus on the joy in his music. I wanted to channel the cultural connection that he and I share, which has roots in the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad and Tobago where both our mothers are from.  How that impacts expression. 

Thanks and gratitude to Whit Dickey and Steven Joerg of Tao Forms. They both took on and deeply embraced Life Is Funny This Way from beginning to end.  The attention, care and LOVE for this release is something I’ve never experienced in my recording career. This project was carried with love! Thank you to the design/artwork of Bill Mazza and the beautiful photography of Deneka Peniston. Thank you to Kevin Whitehead for the amazing words on Life Is Funny That Way.

To the band – Michael Attias, Anthony Coleman, Tom Rainey and Ratzo Harris. The journey to this day was built organically, gig after gig. Thank you for your patience toward the immersion and your love of Herbie’s music. A joy to have built this world with you all.

Life Is Funny That Way – Herbie Nichols SUNG drops This FRIDAY, April 5, 2024
Double LP and Double CD options available!
Available on all music outlets – tactile and digital from the Tao Forms Label
or via Bandcamp!

From Martin Johnson at the Wall Street Journal (March 30, 2024)

“Life Is Funny That Way” offers a rich portrait of Nichols, and it highlights the contemporary aspects of his music. Ms. Victor’s versatile band includes saxophonist Michaël Attias, pianist Anthony Coleman, bassist Ratzo Harris and drummer Tom Rainey. Their range is a good fit, and her vocals embrace straightforward singing, scat, vocalese and poetic recitation; it’s a style that enables her to explore deeper meanings in songs and broaden their cultural connections. Her influences include both classic jazz singers like Betty Carter and late 20th-century innovators like Jeanne Lee.

The album opens with the title track, which stuns with swaggering confidence, layered improvisations, and a puckish vibe that feels emblematic of the entire Nichols catalog. Ms. Victor also revisits “House Party Starting,” here retitled “Tonight,” and it is highlighted by wry solos and clever interplay by the ensemble.  Her take on “Lady Sings the Blues” adds a chapter to the song’s evolution. The composition began as a midtempo instrumental piece, “Serenade,” but Holiday slowed it to a dirge, her lyrics capturing both sorrow and resilience. Ms. Victor slows it still further, making both elements more visceral, and the song becomes bracing.”

Read full review HERE.

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Fay Victor Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful

Fay Victor Announces Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful
Out August 25th on Northern Spy Records

“Breezy Point Ain’t Breezy” Now Streaming – via Bandcamp

Today, Fay Victor is announcing Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful – her 2nd album for Northern Spy – along with the first single “Breezy Point Ain’t Breezy,”  a first person story about accidentally getting lost in Breezy Point, a private enclave in Queens that is a bastion of Trump supporters in liberal New York City.

Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful is the very first solo record by Fay Victor, whose 30-year-long music career has covered everything from House, New Music, Jazz (Blues) and Free Improvisation. Her deep history with dance music, her genreless output, and her lived experience as a Black woman in the world shaped a brand new process she used to create this prismatic album which touches on all the decades of her life like diary snapshots. It’s a mesmerizing collection of composed work that could only be made by an extraordinary improviser. 

From hearing the raw, almost gospel vocal style over a heavy beat of Donna Summer and Sylvester, to obsessing over shows like Soul Train, Solid Gold, and Dance Fever on TV, to experiencing the sweat and groove, the freedom of bodies moving at NYC clubs like Danceteria, The Loft, and the Paradise Garage – her life changed forever. As she was developing as a jazz singer in Amsterdam in the 90s, she danced to trance music in clubs like Mazzo and The Soul Kitchen. She landed on the Billboard charts with a club hit “You Make Me Happy” in ’91. Stoned on the sacred dance floor, Fay found ecstasy in the moving body, the groove, the beat.

As she entered deeper into the world of jazz, she was attracted to the rhythmic qualities of Thelonious Monk, Eddie Harris, Eric Dolphy, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Betty Carter, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nicole Mitchell, Milford Graves, Julius Hemphill, Charles Mingus, Herbie Nichols. Their confrontational rhythm sends her soul leaping, connecting her back to her clubheadheart.

With Mavin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” as a template, Fay started thinking about how her solo album might unfold. She sang, played keyboards, added textures and further dimensions with no other humans, without electronics. That was her process. Thoroughly creative, composed with music and words straight from her spirit.

CREDITS

Fay Victor SOLO
Voice, Compositions, Nord 4 Keyboard + Processing
Recorded on July 30-31, 2022 by Chris Weiss 
for Northern Spy Records
at Birdwatcher Studios, Big Indian, NY 

photo by Deneka Peniston

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Greetings to you! It’s been sometime since I’ve connected on the site. It’s been a super intense Fall for all the reasons these times are intense for us all.

Thankfully, we’ve made it past Election Day 2020. WHATS??!! Stress induced days leading up to November 3rd including being part of a great work by musician and composer Darius Jones entitled We Can Save The Country just the day before. I present a small portion of my Mutations of Justice work earlier in October, a work that’s been chronicling the Trump administration since 2017. Look out for a new & dedicated website page devoted to that project coming shortly! Finally, I got to perform an amazing improvised Blues duo with guitarist Marc Ribot the day after Election Day – just the medicine we all needed that day.


Album Cover by Fay Victor/Jochem van Dijk

Personally, THE most important NEWS to share is I have a NEW record out! My latest album with SoundNoiseFUNK is OUT (Esp-Disk) called WE’VE HAD ENOUGH! Released at the end of October 2020, our new record goes into fresh improvisational territory compositionally and emotionally.  Nate Chinen selected one composition entitled “What’s Gon’ Wrong?” for his Election Day Special Playlist that included music by Dave Douglas, Wynton Marsalis & Khalil El’Zabar. Deep gratitude to Sam Newsome, Joe Morris and Reggie Nicholson for their amazing contributions to the music and to the connection we have as a band. Link via BANDCAMP

“Fay Victor is a vocalist and composer with a proud history of social commentary, and a fearless commitment to discovery. In her working ensemble SoundNoiseFUNK, she engages fully with an outright all-star team: soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome, guitarist Joe Morris and drummer Reggie Nicholson. Their second album, just out on ESP-Disk is plainly titled We’ve Had Enough. “What’s Gone Wrong” is an impassioned lament that finds Victor repeating its title phrase, along with a secondary clause (“…with the world?”). There is despair in her rhetorical question, which doesn’t seem to expect an answer — but there’s also clear determination in the way Victor and her improvising partners work through their development. Without putting words in their mouth, I’d suggest that their cohesive oneness is one answer to another open question: what’s going right?”

Sharp Visions of America by Wynton Marsalis, Kahil El’Zabar, Fay Victor and Dave Douglas by Nate Chinen (WBGO Election Day Special Playlist)

https://www.wbgo.org/post/sharp-visions-america-wynton-marsalis-kahil-elzabar-fay-victor-and-dave-douglas#stream/0

Tomorrow (11.14.2020) I’m presenting a video as part of the Jazz Gallery LockDown Sessions along with musicians John Ellis, Kweku Sumbry & Matt Stevens via Live Stream. Learn how to sign on and more on JG website. Thank you Rio for doing what you can to keep artists creative and working during this time. www.jazzgallery.org

NYC is on the uptick with Covid -19 cases, even after the Election, this tension surrounds us as the the death toll mounts. In these last few months since I’ve posted here I’ve been working more than I ever have and I welcome the distraction. Then some days it’s just too much. I try to find the balance, aiming to stay creative and active in ways that are healthy and safe. Trying to listen more deeply to myself and everyone else that I can. Trying to keep going when I can, grateful to have what I need. Please share here how you’ve been coping. I’d love to hear from you and know.The main thing I found is not to be too hard on oneself for not doing or being whatever we thought we should be.

What I want more than anything is to meet and play with friends in person again.  Hug people I haven’t seen in months then throw a big party to celebrate life.  Someday soon. Wishing you much love, health and safety until the next time.

✊?❤️??
Fay

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Hoping this message finds you all in peace and goodwill. I’m writing from the Marine Headlands in Northern California where I’m on residency at Headlands Center for the Arts. It’s an incredible place deep in nature, yet so close to San Francisco. I’m here for a couple more weeks to work on Mutations for Justice, a large work encompassing the current administration in the White House. There will be SO much more to say about that. For now, posting to send Autumn Greetings to you all and give a heads up on what’s happening this Fall. (Check the GIG section on the FV site to get specific details!)

This Fall is one of my busiest yet. While I’m out in the Bay Area – I’ll be performing the music I’ve composed and have been waiting to share with you all! Most of this music’s been written in the last 2-3 years and hasn’t been performed so I’m excited to make that happen while I’m here working with pianist Myra Melford (we have a bunch of appearances starting in October 2019 in the Bay Area, Vancouver & Seattle), Lisa Mezzacappa (double bass) and trumpeter Darren Johnston).

When I’m back to NYC, my first appearances are at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of Jason Moran’s STAGED, his 5-month long exhibition at the Whitney started on September 20, 2019. Just a week later, my SoundNoiseFUNK project hits Firehouse 12 in New Haven, CT to perform and we hope create a LIVE recording for future release. A release much closer in the future is BARN SONGS, my next album out as as leader coming on November 15, 2019 on the Northern Spy Label with cellist Marika Hughes and alto saxophonist Darius Jones. Thrilled for you all to hear it! I’ll be back on the West Coast in November as well for a 4 day Artist in Residence at UCLA on the invitation of Dr. James Newton. Finally a NEW Creative Improv Course starts at the beginning of November – November 5th to be exact (spots are filling up)

Sign up to save your spot

In other news: I won’t be back at the 55BAR for a few months due to travel and dates of the major holidays coming up. Will keep you posted about mu next date there so I’ll end my performing year doing a set for Arts for Art in DUO with the great drummer/composer Gerald Cleaver on December 15, 2019.

Thanks for reading – much love and music from here,
Fay

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Herbie Nichols SUNG as part of FV’s curated week at the Stone at the top of 2019, celebrating 100th birthday of Herbie Nichols…photo: Carlos Alberto Murrat

Happy 2019 dear friends!!

All the best wishes for this and every year.

Thank you and much love to all the musicians, students and friends that were a major part of my music making life in 2018. It was a transforming year for me starting the year as a Yaddo Fellow for 6 weeks that changed my artistic mindset completely. Seriously.  Those 6 weeks exposed me to some of the most brilliant artists I ever encountered in any discipline. The constant talks about process and development forced me to take a good look at how I viewed my own work as musician. I’ve spent the rest of 2018 ingesting these new perspectives, a true mind shift for me.

I upped my teaching game in – I taught more courses on Creative Improvisation and Improvising Strategies for Songwriters (w hubby Jochem van Dijk) and was a guest lecturer at Banff for the first time, I also continued to run the Jazz Vocal Summit at the New York Workshop for the 8th year in a row.

The We Have Voice Collective truly blossomed in 2018 (We started at the end of 2017) with the release of our Code of Conduct for the Performing Arts that created a wonderful flurry of discussion and discourse around sexual harassment and bullying within our performing arts community. This is the most amazing group of powerful women and non-gender conforming artists that I’ve ever had the honor of being a part of.  I’m in awe of them as individuals and the dedication they have shown to this Collective and to the cause.

2018 was an amazing year for album releases! Grateful to have been a guest on guitarist Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance Project alongside powerhouses such as Tom Waits, Steve Earle and Meshell Ndegeocello, I’m also singing on the brilliant composer/flutist Nicole Mitchell’s Maroon Cloud with Tomeka Reid & Aruan Ortiz in the mix.

After 5 years of no project out under my own name, I released Wet Robots on ESP Disk with my ridiculously incredible group SoundNoiseFUNK. Grateful that Wet Robots made some waves (including 4.5 stars in DownBeat magazine, being in the DB HotBox for the first time, a feature in a Norwegian newspaper and great reviews & words and outlets such as Popmatters, JazzTimes, The New York Times….and #4 on the Jazz Critics Poll for 2018 (tied with Kurt Elling) Wow!! I was floored by the attention the album received, and grateful.

I went back into the studio in 2018 (well a barn-like studio as it were) Upstate NY in September to record Barnsongs, Old & New and working on releasing that in 2019. A combination of old and new compositions of mine and Jochem van Dijk’s reconfigured for voice, alto saxophone (Darius Jones) and cello (Marika Hughes).

Last and not least by far – health became a focal point for me in 2018.  Had a health scare that required a major operation and an 8 week recovery just before Summer began. I’m OK now, absolutely fine. Although it was was tough and difficult to go through. Yet, there was an abundance of beauty too. So much love and community came to the fore, a deep trust that all would be OK prevailed. People showed up and showed who they were.  I learned about love in a deeper way than I understood it before. I don’t want to go through something like this again but I learned from it and I’m here! And the ultimate lesson I learned about myself… to quote a title from Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance album ”I ain’t gonna let nothing turn me around” for long.

Much love, make this a special 2019.

Fay

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS! (Photo taken in Mexico City, Mexico)

Greetings and Happy Holidays to you all! Wishing everyone a wondrous holiday season and a prosperous and positive 2019.  2018 has been some year on the world stage with a swift wind change right in politics around the world.  Watching the news makes everything seem grim or how it all is coming to a dismal end.  Climate change notwithstanding, there is still lots of positivity around the world.  People trying to enjoy and simplify their lives as best they can.  I spent most of the autumn in amazing cities: Seattle, San Francisco, Long Beach, Rome, Venice, Krakow, Poland and Mexico City. Everywhere the similar thread was so many homeless among the opulence. Affluent folk peering in at the lives of people either catering to their whims or somehow superficially related to outside perceptions. Yet I also met people happy with their lives as is. Content. At peace. No longer searching if they ever were.  Except for music, maybe, in time of need. I was amazed to discover in Mexico that anyone can sing with Mariachi musicians and people DO when they are sad or full of heartbreak over jilted lover. This is how normal folk come out to relieve themselves of the pain of loss and more, in community. One example of how it is still a big beautiful world out there and if you can, go out and taste it.

After all this moving around, I’m firmly planted back in NYC for sometime and so much good stuff is coming up.  January is chock full of goodies including the Herbie Nichols Centennial Celebration at The Stone that I’m honored to curate + my Mutations for Justice project is on the Winter JazzFest January 12th 2019 at SOB’s. Before we hit 2019, please join me at the 55BAR for the last performance of the year: at the 55BAR with Old Songs, New Skin. Come and join us for a toast to kissing 2018 goodbye!

DEC 27 Old Songs, New Skin
FV – voice, compositions
Marika Hughes – cello
Darius Jones – alto saxophone
55 Bar
55 Christopher Street
7-9PM
No Cover, 2 drink minimum

Old Songs, New Skin!(Marika Hughes, FV, Darius Jones)

Seriously though,  sending the best wishes for a safe, fun and rewarding holiday season + a spanking new and prosperous 2019. I am so grateful for everyone’s support this year of the music and projects I’m involved in and coming out to shows. I could not do what I do without working with and in front of great people.  Incredible to be on record with Marc Ribot, Nicole Mitchell and my own SoundNoiseFUNK in 2018, amazed that all of these projects were well received by music lovers as well as the critics.

Thank you, thank you friends!
In gratitude,
Fay

 

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Labor day weekend…for many a death knell to the end of summer.  Life gets back to its normal rigor. Well, I’m asking what IS normal anymore, if there ever was such a thing.  Seasons start to matter less as global warming creates a muddy connection. And American politics has flowered into a cruelty and blatancy not seen in my lifetime anyway. I’m not surprised at the reasons we’re here just surprised that we actually let it happen.  So going ‘back’ to normal seems nostalgic or maybe the want of a memory that didn’t exist anyway. And how normal can any world feel with Aretha Franklin and now Randy Weston gone?

Strange times to be and feel positive yet I have to try. Keep moving on into worlds and spaces that feel enriching and open possibilities for what might be possible.  This idea is at work this month with a new recording project of old material that Jochem van Dijk and I wrote when we began our writing life together at the end of the 90’s. Before the compositions for the Fay Victor Ensemble and back when our song forms resembled many others. Revisiting these songs with Darius Jones (alto saxophone) and Marika Hughes (cello) at the 55BAR the last few years has been a revelation in how much I still love these tunes and how now and within this sound world, they seem brand new.  I look forward to sharing this when it comes out in 2019. Here is a video taken by Gerald van Wilgen that captures the special 55BAR vibe…and some surprises:

Deeper into September I’ll delve into another sound world for a first time performance with pianist extraordinaire Myra Melford, performing both of our music as well as improvising with Marika Hughes joining us on SEPTEMBER 21, 2018 at the Greenwich House.  Back at the 55BAR on September 27th with SONGS We LOVE (w Sean Conly & Michael Vatcher), closing out the month on the InGardens in DUO with bassist Brandon Lopez – a first!

CREATIVE IMPROV WORKSHOP IV is coming up soon too, starting September 18 2018 for over 4 consecutive TUESDAYS at I-BEAM in Brooklyn, NY. Click the link HERE to learn more about the course and spread the word.  Or drop an email to lessons@fayvictor.com

*In other SEPT news, A new Marc Ribot record is coming out this month and I am delighted to perform three songs on Songs of Resistance, an album of old and new protest songs with guest artists such as Steve Earle, Meshell Ndegeocello, Tom Waits and more. This will be epic.

Wet Robots!!

The word is getting out about my latest release with SoundNoiseFUNK – WET ROBOTS (ESP-Disk) with some great feedback on the press front.  Fantastic that so far people not only dig the music but really get what we do as a group. after the quotes, checkout the links to purchase/listen and share this music.  Will add a clip from WinterJazzFest 2018 at the end.

Cover for the new Espdisk Release WET ROBOTS, design by Diane Kirschief

4 ½ STARS – Downbeat Magazine
“Wet Robots is a program of thoughtful particulars, but it’s Victor’s acrobatics that mesmerize. Unabashed when it comes to sound creation, one can hear the passion in every syllable she utters, whether manic or modest. With echoes of Lauren Newton and Meredith Monk, the singer builds a web of personalized pieces that boast exuberance, with each warble, shriek and roar crafting a ferocious identity. Informed by blues and politics, their cagey deployment is downright entrancing, especially when bolstered by this kind of collective clout.”
–Jim Macnie, Downbeat Magazine (+HotBox), October 2018

“Singer Fay Victor is the solution to so many “What is the role of the singer in jazz today?” puzzles. The role, Victor proves throughout Wet Robots, is anything at all, anything the imagination allows.
…On a third or fourth pass through this remarkable document—and what can only be called a narrowly focused part of Fay Victor’s art, as she has fronted many bands with many different instrumentations and approaches—I felt I needed to rethink what “jazz” singing really could or ought to be so many years after talents like Betty Carter, Nina Simone, and Cassandra Wilson had dared to begin redefining it. Victor is at another level of freedom and daring and creativity. Sure, this kind of music is at the arty margin, but Victor proves that this kind of abstract singing is also flesh and blood and heart and earth.
‘I sing to save my life / I sing to look human’, Fay Victor makes clear.”
–Will Layman, Popmatters (8/10)

“This record stands out from the usual free jazz gestures and credit belongs to Victor. It’s not just that this is her band, but her unique singing concept leads the way. She has a familiar toolbox of vocal sounds, but it’s the way she uses her notes that matter—she has exceptional intonation and it sounds like it comes effortlessly, so she improvises with pitches and melodically logical and coherent tonal phrases. On top of that, she manages the challenging high-wire act of improvising text while always keeping it interesting and fresh. It’s a measure of a first-rate intelligence— take that F. Scott Fitzgerald.”…As abstract as most of this is, the earth of the blues comes through almost every track, often with power…”
—George Grella, NYCJR, September 2018

Check out & Purchase Wet Robots
—www.espdisk.com
—bandcamp

Thanks for reading and see you out there!

Fay