Elvira Faltermeier
Mitchell: “My job as a musician is to deliver the highest form of the music that I can.”
Given that he has recorded and performed prolifically for more than 50 years, one would think we have enough data to describe who Roscoe Mitchell is.
He is a musician. He is a composer. He is a multi-instrumentalist. He is an educator. He is avant-garde, jazz, classical, and free time.
Mitchell is something of a musical astronaut, and he defies description precisely because, at age 77, he is still moving at the frontier — the very limits of soundscape — constantly revising what he is and what you thought he was.
And yet for all the mystery of locating Mitchell, at least in tonal space and time, he can be found in Fitchburg. Although he has taught in California for the past 12 years, he makes a habit of returning to his Fitchburg home during the summer.
Not a fan of big cities, Mitchell moved to Madison in 1976 to be near his parents, who had recently returned to Chicago. Mitchell grew up there and launched a music career in the 1960s as part of the Chicago scene. His work with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the Art Ensemble of Chicago would eventually propel him into rare air as an icon of creative music.
“He’s a visionary, and probably one of the most creative people I’ve ever met,” says Madison saxophonist Anders Svanoe, who has often played with Mitchell since meeting him almost 20 years ago. He points to Mitchell’s work with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2019: “Those guys created this sound. They originated that sound that everybody is trying to copy now.”
Mitchell is a master of improvisation, and he’s quick to correct the notion that it is about freestyling. After all, he is also the Darius Milhaud Chair of Composition at Mills College in Oakland.
“All the great composers were improvisers,” he says. “I get people from all different sides of music and they want to know how it happens. I know how it happens. You study composition and improvisation as parallels.”
Mitchell points to Bach, Coltrane and Charlie Parker as he describes his concept of improvisation. A deep understanding of composition helps develop the language and structure to improvise meaningfully. And Mitchell is constantly studying and writing.
“There’s no such thing as a free thing,” he explains. “Not for me in my studies, not for as hard as I work. What I’m doing is honing my skills so I can make these decisions in real time.”
Mitchell will offer an expansive view from the frontier in a performance presented by Arts + Literature Lab at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1904 Winnebago St., on June 23 at 7:30 pm. In his first appearance in Madison in two years, he’ll play with a trio and a quartet, and then perform a solo set with his primary instrument, the saxophone. Accompanying musicians will include bassists Jaribu Shahid and Junius Paul, drummer Vincent Davis and violist Nils Bultmann.
It’s impossible to predict exactly what Mitchell will be playing, but expect a high standard. “I’m going to present you with music and you’re going to decide if you like it or not,” says Mitchell. “My job as a musician is to deliver the highest form of the music that I can and hopefully that will inspire you.”
What does the future hold for Mitchell as he approaches his eighth decade? “I’ll probably never retire,” he says. “It takes a really long time to be what I’m trying to be. If someone can accomplish that in one lifetime, then I’d like to study with them. The thing that I enjoy is you’re really not going to run out of things to do with music because the more you study, the more it will reveal things to you.”
Mitchell’s next big project is a world premier with the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris, set for January 18, 2019. For this project and whatever Mitchell offers up next, Svanoe has some advice:
"Here’s a guy who’s been doing this for his whole life, and he’s doing it again. Pay attention."