Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music?
Music has always been a part of my life ever since I was a six year old, begging my parents to start piano lessons. I moved around a lot as a child (my parents were Salvation Army ministers, and were stationed in different posts), typically changing cities (even countries) every two or three years on average; music was the one constant wherever I went, so it has been forged into my identity over the years. The key now is to disentangle myself from that identity and realize that it is something I love and something I do, but doesn’t define me.
Who or what have been the most significant influences on your musical life and career?
Musically speaking, I have a few idols: Beethoven (I started out as a classical pianist), Stevie Wonder, Abbey Lincoln (for her wonderful, character voice and refusal to succumb to the pressures to be just a pretty face), (British Salvation Army brass band composer) Ray Steadman-Allen, Herbie Hancock. The greatest influence on my career is having two daughters. The seismic shift that happens when you become a parent cannot be overstated – specifically in becoming a mom, and having to reconcile the needs of my family and my own desire for growth and freedom.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
I would say ageing as a woman in a society that fetishizes youth, and caters to the young. It has been interesting to try and forge a way forward. Motherhood, followed by the pandemic, made me feel like I was largely absent from the scene for a good five or six years. my children are a bit older now, so I have the time and space and perspective to create and share. The challenge though is finding my place as a middle aged woman. This is not a consideration for men, but it is very real for women; it has been interesting for me as I seek a role models to observe that so many women disappear, either after having kids, or simply as they age out of what seems to be a male dominated industry where allowances for women are so often made only if she is young and new. I see part of my job now as just existing and taking up space, participating fully in the autistic conversation so that 20 years from now, 25-year-old women of today will not face the same sense of being put out to pasture, but will be fully included to the point of not even having to question their belonging.
Of which performances/recordings are you most proud?
That’s a really hard question; maybe this is just part of being a jazz musician, but my approach is to let go once something is out there. When I listen back to some earlier albums of mine, I don’t particularly love them anymore, but they bear the marks of growth. Just like a solo, the second it leaves you, it’s gone forever. I kind of treat albums the same way, even though they live on in the ether. They come from who I was then, and I’m different now. So I guess maybe my latest album is usually the one that I most enjoy? But not for long.
What do you do offstage that provides inspiration on stage?
Trying to live a full life, so that I actually have something to talk about when I engage with people or have something to bring to the music, to inform it. I’ve always believed that music is an extension of who you are, so that if you want to have rich music, you need to have a rich life. That doesn’t necessarily mean rich in experience (as in, doing a lot of things), but rather opening your mind and perspective, engaging with lots of different people, broadening your understanding. That kind of thing. In other words, all the things that aren’t music make you a good musician (that is, after you’ve done the hours and hours and hours of practising and studying!).
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
I define it as a way to keep creating music and having it reach its audience, no matter how big or small. That is one aspect. However, I think another metric of success is the extent to which I am able to live a fulfilling personal life while being a touring musician. – which is no small feat! There’s also the very pragmatic and somewhat cheeky response, which would be that the metric of success is simply that one is still standing and making music.
What advice would you give to young or aspiring musicians?
Be yourself: you are unique, and your set of experiences and perspectives are what inform your music. Study the greats, but then retreat into silence and listen to that still small voice inside for what it has to say. Be humble, stay open, trust. Don’t be afraid to take up space, especially if you are a woman. Be wary of being entitled, especially if you’re a man.
What’s the one thing we’re not talking about in the music industry which you really feel we should be?
Wow, that is a big can of worms you’ve just opened… In terms of social ailments (climate change, war, inequality), I feel music is a particularly good way of a dressing what is going on in our world and what needs to change in a poetic and palatable way. So I don’t think that we need to address those things; we can let the art speak to them. I think, concretely, as a jazz musician, and more broadly as an independent musician, that it would be good for us to come together and unite to make our livelihood more sustainable. Much like in society at large, there is a disproportionately remunerated 1%, an increasingly hollowed out middle-class, and then those struggling on the lower echelon – and I’m not talking about fledgeling musicians or amateurs here, but people who have studied for years and have devoted decades to building a career that has either stagnated or moved backwards due to the pandemic, streaming, wages stagnating (or even decreasing) as the cost of living goes up, venues being forced to close, the lack of an union that vouches for musicians in a serious and cohesive way. I think if we want to have musicians around, we need to figure out a way to make the career actually viable.
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