Words by David C. Obenour
The shared trauma that we all can reference from having lived through a global pandemic is one of nuance and depth. For those of us fortunate enough to have had the option of adaptation, parts of what it created the space for were welcomed. Nothing could be taken for granted. Nothing could be approached the same way. Nothing could taken at the same pace. Things were different. They had to be.
Coming out of a Jazz Studies project over the COVID-19 pandemics, New Orleans musicians Emily Mikesell & Kate Campbell Strauss remotely created and recorded a song in a matter of two weeks. It starts for us as it started for them, a haunting and beautiful trumpet melody, then perfectly paired by saxophone, and slowly unfolding into enough ideas and inspiration for an entire album.
Off Shelf: Seeing how this is your debut album collaborating together – could you take a moment to talk about what you about appreciate about performing with each other? How you see the other’s approach as a foil for what you’re able to do?
Emily Mikesell: Ever since we started it’s been an effortless collaboration with Kate. I love their creativity and willingness to follow an idea through. I think we each bring our different influences to the table and it creates a really interesting sound.
Kate Campbell Strauss: I love Emily’s tone and melodic ideas, her exploration of different sounds and roles the trumpet can take on, and her innovative approaches to collaboration.
OS: Beyond your principal instruments it was exciting to see that you each performed the other instruments for Give Way. Can you talk about how you choose these other accompaniments and how you felt they rounded them out?
KCS: As we passed the tracks back and forth, we each added what we heard without overthinking. The process was very intuitive and improvised, based on our musical instincts.
EM: We decided at the beginning of this project to use just trumpet and sax so we both used every instrument at our disposal to make it the most expansive sounding possible. I love playing my flugel horn but I rarely get to use it, so I was thrilled to use it on this album. I used it to mimic the french horn or trombone.
OS: The release also talks about a shared affinity for subtlety in playing. What about this sparks interest for you? As music students, did you find it to be a common shared value or did it feel more unique?
KCS: Working with Emily has been very affirming of my inclination toward subtlety. As a gigging musician, I’ve felt a lot of pressure to play flashily – if that’s a word. It’s been hard to ignore the pressure, even though I don’t really enjoy listening to flashy playing. But I don’t remember feeling that pressure as a Jazz Studies student at the University of New Orleans. Give Way started as a project for an online class with Brian Seeger, where we were encouraged to try anything in a duo format.
EM: I think jazz school can kind of push a singular approach to improvised music; play the head, solo, play the head out, oftentimes without a whole lot of dynamic contrast. Kate and I chose to explore different song forms, dynamics, and textures and it’s quite a departure from traditional straight ahead jazz.
OS: Building songs slowly and progressively from a germinating idea – can you talk about how the process for Give Way proved unique in your experience of writing?
KCS: What’s unique about our process was how we collaborated. As we passed the tracks back and forth, we each trusted ourselves to play what we heard and trusted each other’s intuition about what to play next. Most collaborations I’ve been part of involve a lot more talking and negotiating, whereas ours was 99% playing. During the entire process, each of us made only one specific playing request of the other!
EM: Usually when I’m recording a record, I have the songs fully written and I’ve planned out exactly what needs to be recorded. Each of the songs on this record had no preconceived ideas and we completely improvised on the spot. It was really freeing to not have to labor over editing the songs and to just completely trust your first idea.
OS: From start to finish, Cloud Castles is such an absolutely mesmerizing beginning to the album. Can you talk about its beginnings and how it evolved? What stands out to you about it?
EM: Cloud Castles was the first song we wrote for this project. We were assigned to write and record a song in two weeks by our professor, Brian Seeger and this was the result of that. We were so happy with the process and sound of this song that it inspired us to continue writing the rest of the record.
KCS: As the first track that we created, Cloud Castles has a special place in my heart. It started with the trumpet melody that you hear at the top, and then the trumpet harmonies on the repeat. I believe the first sax part was the pulsing baritone sax that comes in around 0:25. You get to hear the evolution of our process on Cloud Castles because we built most of it horizontally. What also stands out to me about Cloud Castles is how much we learned about recording through that piece. It’s where we learned best practices for recording in our home studios and the first track that we edited and mixed.
OS: Beyond my favorite, can you think of favorite moments of yours from your own performances, and/or if you prefer, that of your partner?
EM: I love the moment of Give Way where the bari saxes sound like a giant stomping. When Kate sent that to me for the first time I was so shocked and delighted by it, because I never would have imagined something like that.
KCS: Emily’s solo in Quiet Evenings – it doesn’t get more beautiful than that! Also, my bari solo in Recipes still gets me, even though I’ve probably listened to it thousands of times.
OS: I love how some of the songs can feel almost like they were lifted from a classic soundtrack. What’s striking to me is – while completely worthy that style normally doesn’t resonate with me and this somehow sounds very relevant to now. How do you see blending classic approaches with your own? Where jazz has come from and what you like about contemporary styles?
KCS: We are both steeped in a deep and evolving legacy Black American Music in New Orleans. We both studied jazz in school. And we both also love David Bowie. Emily loves Bjork. Elliott Smith is one of my all-time favorites. Our creation process was so intuitive and improvised – it makes sense that what came out is an amalgamation of our different influences. I think this is what improvisation is all about, we just did it in a new context where we were free of some of the common norms and roles in jazz.
EM: I’ve always been drawn to sweeping melodies and cinematic feeling music of all genres and I think that manifested in this music. The sound of the record evolved organically without a conversation and is a sum of our combined inspirations.
OS: I saw the reference to Eno’s “oblique strategies” creative prompts – something I just learned about from his recent documentary. How did you first become aware of these and what inspired you to use them in your process?
EM: My brother gave me a deck for my college graduation and they’ve been a big inspiration to me since I got them. I suggested that we use them as a creative prompt at the beginning of the project.
OS: Can you talk more about the specific prompt referenced, “Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them?” What did you abandon? How did that feel in your process and how do you hear it in the recording?
EM: I think this prompt speaks to the overall process of the album of abandoning the expectations of a jazz record. It resulted in something that defies genre.
KCS: This prompt could be the album tagline! Our process freed me from roles and expectations that, it turns out, can be pretty restrictive. I think the result sounds more “composed” or thought out than it was in the moment of writing/recording it, since our process was improvisational.
OS: Created and recorded within two weeks of inception, have the songs continued to evolve after the version captured on the album? How do you find them different now or in a live setting?
KCS: What has evolved most is the mix, which is, of course, a huge part of the listener experience. Over the course of several years after recording, we met at our mentor, Brian Seeger’s studio – Oslo South – to finesse and fine-tune each mix. It might have been faster to hire someone to mix it, but we learned so much from each other, and Brian Seeger, in the process. Plus, the mix is part of the art! That said, we were happy to bring in Randy Crafton and Ray Dillard at the very end to bring it over the finish line.
EM: As of now the songs haven’t evolved past the album. We would love to perform it live some day and when we do, I think the music will have to change a bit to accommodate a live setting.
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