World Without Boundaries

Will Calhoun is best-known as the drummer for the rock group says. “I wanted to put an indigenous 40,000-year-old rhythm Living Colour. But he’s always been musically adventurous, from the Manding people in Mali on the record along with recording jazz and world music-influenced projects under his gentlemen like Ron Carter and Wallace Roney, and tie together leadership. His latest album, Life In This World (Motéma), com- this spirituality and history of the music.” bines all of his musical influences in a jazz framework. Not that For Calhoun, having a legend like Carter play bass on Wayne Calhoun bothers with those types of labels. Shorter’s “Etcetera” was both a thrill and a way to connect to the “Studying in Africa the last 15 years has taught me to listen jazz tradition. But the other musicians — including contemporaries to sounds and not styles,” Calhoun says. “I just stopped thinking such as pianist Marc Cary and bassist Charnett Moffett — also in that framework because I was learning so much stuff about bring the genre-bending sensibility that Calhoun believes is es- Manding rhythms and Dogon rhythms and all these things that sential for ensuring jazz’s continued relevance. are so connected to different parts of the continent. When you “It’s horrifying if [jazz] becomes like a museum piece,” he says. start to study it you realize how connected everything is, you just “It’s important what younger folks are bringing to the music, and have to call it music after a while.” it’s very important that we stay in touch with the roots of the Calhoun’s experiences from living and studying in Africa are music. We’re not abandoning one for the other.” evident throughout the record — not just on an obviously African- For Calhoun, who’s getting ready to record a new album with influenced track like “Afrique Kan’e,” but also on Thelonious Living Colour, combining all of his influences in a common Monk’s “Evidence,” which Calhoun plays in a 6/8 Manding framework is his way of treating jazz with integrity. “I want to rhythm. For Calhoun, who is as intelligent and passionate about approach the music with respect, but I think it’s very important music as anyone you’ll come across, becoming immersed in for me to respect the music in a Will Calhoun fashion,” he says. “I African music was essential to expressing his love of jazz. don’t think I would be honest with the art form if I just covered “I understood more of what Max and Elvin and Miles and an Art Blakey record. Honesty is important in art. Life In This Ornette and these guys were doing when I went to Mali,” he World is total honesty.” —John Frederick Moore

18 july 2013 jazziz Photo by Bill Bernstein