Moor Mother - Jazz Codes

Women should make protest music, Camae Ayewa once said. Ayewa is better known as Moor Mother. Born in Aberdeen, Maryland, USA, she would probably describe herself as a performer, a feminist and an activist, and all these aspects flow into her work as a musician - whether in collaboration with the neo-free jazz band Irreversible Entanglements or as Moor Mother, whether she works with analog instruments or with electronic sound snippets. The spoken-word artist's latest album is perhaps her most multifaceted and allusive to date, in part because it opens up a broad historical context to get a handle on the present: On "Jazz Codes" she swirls a thousand ideas and influences; Mary Lou Williams or Sun Ra are invoked as holy ghosts by an illustrious collective of contemporary musician:s: Jason Moran, Nicole Mitchell, Melanie Charles are among them, to name just a few here. It is a foray through different aesthetic positions, styles and ways of playing. It is sensual and theoretical at the same time: a self-empowering projection of tradition into the future. At the center: Moor Mothers' eloquent, hopeful protest. "A jazz funeral turned revival twist / away / from America's strange fruits / into scats of jazz code."