Brandee Younger will long remember her first concert in Montreal at the invitation of the FIJM: the composer, harpist and professor at New York University will play at Studio TD at 10 p.m. on July 2, the day after her 40e anniversary. “We should arrive a day or two earlier, I can’t wait! » gets excited the one who introduces herself as « born and raised in New York City — hip-hop is part of my DNA, while the harp, I had to learn it”. On the program of his recital, the material of Brand New Lifealbum released last April with which she retraces the influence of the work of Dorothy Ashby on hip-hop music.
Miles Davis is obviously recognized as a mythical figure of the trumpet because of the influence he had on the sound and development of jazz, but he is not the only outstanding figure in the history of this instrument. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd or Don Cherry, to name a few, have also marked its evolution. Ditto for the piano or the saxophone.
What about the harp, an instrument that has carved out a shy place for itself in jazz formations? There are only two names, those of two black women: Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby. Together, they defined the blue contours of the instrument mostly associated with the world of classical music. It is therefore difficult to escape their comparisons, especially if a contemporary musician like Younger adds a layer of them by recalling their influence in her own work.
” And you know what? It doesn’t bother me at all, retorts Brandee Younger. First, when I was younger, I had no role models. Me, I wanted to play the harp on rap songs, but I didn’t hear that anywhere. I needed to be able to identify with my instrument and, in return, for my instrument to resemble me. It was hard to do it when no one else was doing it. »
Except Dorothy Ashby…by proxy, says Brandee. “A lot of hip-hop songwriters/producers happen to have sampled her work, except she died before they could see how much her work influenced hip-hop. »
Ashby, a composer, pianist and harpist from Detroit, died in 1986. “It seems to me that one of the first to have sampled his recordings was Pete Rock, in 1992”, recalls the harpist. Pete Rock, one of the composers who defined the jazzy New York rap sound of the 1990s, collaborates on his recent album (on the song Livin’ And Lovin’ In My Own Way), as did producer 9th Wonder and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, who in turn invited Younger on his album The Omnichord Real Bookpublished last week by Blue Note.
But, continues Brandee, “from 1992 to today, Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Flying Lotus, 9th Wonder, Kanye West and many others have composed music with sound clips from the funkiest albums that Dorothy Ashby recorded, in the late 1960s”, the classics Afro Harping (1968), Dorothy’s Harp (1969) and The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby (1970). “These are albums on which Dorothy transformed her game: everything she did then was super groovy and funky. »
“These composers used this material to build the foundations of hip-hop, to imagine the beats with whom I grew up in the 1990s, abounds the musician. Discovering that in their productions was like a breath of fresh air for me… but also a disappointment, since these great musicians were not recognized at their fair value, both in the world of jazz and in that of the harp. So I make it a point at each of my concerts to play at least one composition by Alice Coltrane and one by Ashby, since I want the public to discover their music. »
Trained in the classical harp, Brandee Younger turned to jazz, meeting her accomplice Makaya McCraven (drummer, composer, bandleader)which beats time on Brand New Life — the title of the album refers to Ashby’s compositions that Brandee covered and which had never been recorded.
“When I finished my studies, loaded with my background in classical music, I was still trying to define my sound; very early on, I worked with Ravi Coltrane”, saxophonist, son of John and Alice. “I then asked him how he would like me to play the harp. He replied: can you combine a bit of the spiritual side of my mother’s music, a bit of the be-bop side of Ashby and a bit of the classic color of Carlos Salzedo”, the eminent and influential harpist French that dad and mom Coltrane admired? “That’s how I molded my sound,” sleek, dynamic, groovy like Ashby’s was, and hip-hop culture.
Becoming the first African-American artist to earn a Grammy nomination in the Best Instrumental Composition category in 2022 (for Beautiful is Black), Brandee Younger has often been sought after by modern rap composers, affixing the sound of her instrument to recordings by John Legend, Moses Sumney, Drake, Bilal and Kanye West, among others. “The harp is an all-purpose instrument and, above all, no one is obliged to always play arpeggios”, she comments, specifying the use of effect pedals to modify the sound of her instrument during her concerts.
“The only pitfall for a harpist in jazz is that you can’t change keys as easily as a trumpeter or a guitarist can. Play fast chromatic phrases, not possible; conversely, harpists excel in modal jazz. We can’t play Giant Steps [de l’album du même nom de John Coltrane, 1960] at full speed! »
Brandee Younger will perform as a trio on July 2, 10 p.m., at Studio TD, as part of the Festival international de jazz de Montréal.