Finding Amen: Joy Guidry Speaks

Photo by Verena Bruening

by Sarah Thomas

Composer and bassoonist Joy Guidry plays The Jazz Gallery this week featuring music from both past and future albums, Radical Acceptance and Amen. Now pursuing doctoral studies at UC San Diego, this is Guidry’s first New York performance since their move to California. We caught up with Joy to talk about their writing process, band mates, and what projects they’ve been up to this fall.

The Jazz Gallery: Can you tell us about the music you’ll be playing at the Gallery? Is it a followup to Radical Acceptance?

Joy Guidry: I'm bringing a new project titled Amen. It's going to be my next album, released in a couple of years. It's about the healed part of myself. Well, I'm constantly healing. We're all constantly healing. But I'm in a place now where I can tell a different story that I've never told before of what my happiness looks like, how I am fulfilled, what I like to eat, songs I like to sing. This album is not rooted in trauma, and I'm so happy I can finally say that. 

I have really processed a lot over the years, and I think the music really reflects that. It's very ambient. I have been listening to a lot of Carlos Niño lately and it has been very influential on my writing. It also has a lot of influences from Alice Coltrane, which is why Samantha [Feliciano] is joining us on harp. There's a lot of influences of just gospel in general, and that's why I have two voices. A lot of John Coltrane. So there's a lot of different influences from all over—just different types of Black music. 

The whole project, Amen, is actually my dissertation project. I wanted to study basically healing Black music from the beginning of enslavement to now. So that's really what a lot of the music on the show is like, but it's also a lot from Radical Acceptance. 

With The Jazz Gallery show I played in February, I was very grateful to get an email from Rio [Sakairi] asking if I wanted to do this. And I was like, “Yes!” So I did it, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was so very happy with the show, but throughout this whole year with Radical Acceptance, the live show has just changed so much. I'm really excited to be in this mental and creative space and to have the band that I do for this, because everyone's amazing.

Getting to completely redesign the album and to do some things the way I’ve wanted to for the first time, logistically things are just adding up. I’m learning how to have this—I wouldn't say a cohesive show. People can clap whenever. It’s like church. That's the whole point. So I don't really care if people have interactions as long as it's not—I don't like when people “woo” too much. Listen. That's my biggest pet peeve. 

TJG: You’re working with both new and old collaborators, so how has that worked bringing these musicians together?

JG: So the band—Jillian [Grace] and Imani [Rousselle] are the singers. I've worked with Jillian once before, and her energy was just very, very beautiful. Her voice is very beautiful. So when I was thinking about this show, I knew I wanted a singer. I was thinking about a couple of people, but there was something—I don't know why she was not leaving my mind. You know, I'm Christian, so I just really believe God was telling me, “No. You need her.” So I asked her, then I was like, “Okay, I definitely think I want another singer.” I was thinking maybe I'm pushing it, but her friend Imani is also joining us and I've just heard incredible things. Just seeing her Instagram content of her singing, I was just like, “Oh my God, this is the right choice.” 

Then you have JK [Jongkuk Kim] on drums. I met him at The Jazz Gallery very briefly, but when we were leaving my friend turned to me and was like, “He's incredible. He's the one.” So I messaged him and I was like, “Hey, I have this show coming up.” I normally work with Jessie Cox all the time, who I love. He's just very busy in his dissertation year right now. So sometimes you have to, you know, improvise. That's so cheesy, but we're going to use that. So I've just heard incredible things about JK. 

We've been talking about the music, and I've been explaining that I want a lot of—I hate saying vibes like this because it sounds so cliche. But matching the energy of some really powerful drumming at times, and also just very calm percussive things—little bells, little chimes, things like that to give a wide spectrum. Because when I saw Cécile Salvant’s concert at Spoleto this summer, her drummer—I had never seen some shit like that in my life. He just had so many little instruments. I never really saw a jazz drummer in that way before, because I'm still so new to this world. I didn't go to a ton of jazz concerts growing up, either. So I’m taking a deep dive and exploring some different soundscapes. And JK is just incredible. 

Then there's Tyrone [Allen] on bass. I met him through Kalia [Vandever] because he plays with her a lot. I really love how much he knows how to take a solo but also really support people. I feel like that's such an important thing in a bassist. You are the root, but also sometimes I need you to be the soprano. He has that versatility to do everything.

There's the track “72 Hours” on Radical Acceptance, which is about being forced into hospitalization for mental health, which happened when you and I were at Peabody together. So that really stuck with me. I've had to process that over time, and writing this track really did that. It's a whole solo bass piece now. We're going to try it out for the show, but I know he can do it. It's going to be gnarly. But with all this stuff, I know it's going to be so easy to work with Tyrone. As a composer, I do a lot of written material, but I do a lot more graphic. And I know I can just give him the graphic with some words, and he's going to do exactly what I want. 

TJG: You mentioned doing a deep dive into Alice Coltrane’s music. How has it been working with harp as a primary instrument in the group?

JG: I met Samantha the harptist on Instagram, and we just connected. It was really fun seeing everything she does and seeing everyone she works with and her solo project. She's incredible. We had never really met before, and then I invited her to my going away party and she showed up. And that really moved me. That's a big thing for me when people show up for me. So I was like, “Yeah, we need to work together. This is going to happen.” 

Harp is incredibly hard to write for. I don't know if you compose now, Sarah, but it is insane. So we're doing a lot of graphics for now until I figure out how harp works. But with her, there's the track, “Grace” that ends Radical Acceptance. I'm actually using it in the middle of the show kind of as a transition. It brings the story in a different direction. “Grace” ends Radical Acceptance in this, “Aha!” moment, but “Grace” is not the end of this current project. So it's kind of transitioning into a different world. It's going to open with all of this solo harp that she's going to do. There’s a G minor melody I wrote out, and she's going to take that and improvise with it. Then I'm going to start the track at some point under her. It’s going to be this beautiful little harp solo with saxophone and a little bit of me and some of the voices, but just very simplistic.

TJG: And then there’s Morgan Guerin, who brings a lot of different things to the table.

JG: I learned about him also through Kalia. Kalia is the GOAT, the BFF. She showed me all these people. But he's incredible. He plays like every instrument. From what I understand, on his albums it's all him and he produces it. It's incredible. I've been looking at his work for a long time and I’ve wanted to work with him for a bit, and again, it just all worked out. 

I am so excited to play “Inner Child” with him. It's based off of John Coltrane's “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” We get to have the voices of bassoon and tenor sax going side by side and coming together in harmony, but also going against each other. Because that track is about the two different sides of me constantly trying to heal each other—sometimes the adult me trying to talk to younger me, and vice versa. 

The track was already made, but the time I realized visually what I was trying to do is when I saw Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terence Blanchard, and how he had Will Liverman shadowing the younger self and they were talking to each other. And I was like, “That's what I'm doing!” You have your own idea, but sometimes you see something and it's like “No, that was it. We're on the same page.” So I'm really excited to be working with Morgan, and to have Morgan really come in and out in a lot of different textures throughout the whole show. I mean, he's incredible.

And then you have Scott Li, our BFF from Peabody. It's funny how we came back into each other's lives. He’s just so inspiring with his ambient music. That's what really brought him back into my life. I've always kind of kept in touch, but when I saw what he's really doing I was like, “Okay, I want to make things with him.” We had our first session yesterday for the show getting all of the electronics stuff together, and it's going to be really fucking cool. It's so beautiful what he can do. I just gave him the notes I want and said this is the soundscape, and it was just so funny. I said this exact thing, and he did exactly that. I was like, “How did you hear it? I didn’t sing it for you.” But he is so talented with electronics and ambience. 

It's going to be a really, really special night. The singers, Imani and Jillian, are starting off everything. It's this simple drone coming in, and then this G-something chord. I don't know, I was just playing around. And Scott's going to open on piano with the stuff I’ve written out. Then the singers are going to come in in this angelic way. Morgan's going to come in. It's like the invitation, the convocation, the praise and worship. So that's pretty much the show, and it's ending in a very special way. I don't want to give it away, but it's really cool. I’m trying something very new. Everyone will be singing. 

TJG: How are you feeling with presenting all of this material in a new way with these musicians?

JG: Trying new things is very scary, but I'm really excited for this new chapter of just—I wouldn't say less grungy music, but exploring other things, exploring different parts of my body, processing trauma differently this time. I want to process trauma through different colors, different shapes, different tone colors, different people. I've worked with different people throughout the entire year of the album, and I've loved every single person I've worked with. And this is a combination of people that I'm really curious to see how this is going to work. It's an experiment each time. So that's what's going to go on with the show and I'm very curious to see how it differs between sets. 

TJG: Are you writing music specifically for Amen, the new album? 

JG: It's all brand new things. The album technically started in 2021. I got asked to do one of the Silk Road Ensemble solo concerts at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. When I was doing those, in between people coming in I would try to record something. That was in this huge, beautiful green space. And I played this minute and thirty seconds or two minute little bassoon melody kind of messing around, and I felt good about it. I was like this is pretty. Then I got home and I listened to it, and I was like, “Oh. Wow. Yay!” It was just this way I hadn’t played bassoon in a while. Leaving the classical world completely at this point, I went really into the noise scene, and I was accepted with very open arms. People were like, “I didn’t know bassoon could do that.” And I was like, “I didn't, either.” 

I'm always grateful for where I really got a start with everything. I'm just in a different place now, and it was cool to hear where my mind was going in 2021. That was kind of the start of everything. I was still working on Radical Acceptance. So I went back when I was thinking about this album like, “Okay, what is something that's good in the past that can be inspiration?” Then I found that track, and I sent it to some friends and asked, “Does this need any production or any electronics or anything?” And they were like, “No. You need to transcribe that and just do that.” So that's actually the title track of the album. That is going to be “Amen.” 

That was actually before I moved [to California]. Moving is hard. Moving is really sad. I didn’t know if I was making the right decision. Before this was all happening, I was very sad I was leaving—the East Coast has been my home for seven years. And I had a bit of wine that night, and I had Ableton. I started singing and I turned on this filter on their preset, and it opens up all these chords and stuff. I was singing on that and it made this really cool shit. Then I sang on top of it just normal with some reverb. I went back and listened in the morning, and I was like, “Hold on. I didn't know I could make music like this.” That's always a joke I say with myself. There's so much inside all of us that we really just have to find, and it'll find us eventually. But that track is very much coming on the album. 

So once that one happened, and then the bassoon one happened, I was like, “Okay, I see where this album is going.” It's going to be very ambient. It may have some dance beats mixed in—just moments. I don't know, I wouldn't say it will have house music in it. I really doubt that. But it might. But Carlos Niño really did a number on me with my brain. I really love how he mixes so many electronic elements with live instrumentation, with samples. I mean, it's really cool. It is really cool. I would say he's my main inspiration right now, one hundred percent. I cannot stop listening to him. So I'm really curious to see how I can implement those styles into my music. 

TJG: How are you blending these inspirations with the personal experiences you’re exploring in this music?

JG: That, I think, is the hardest thing with this album—taking inspiration from Carlos, taking inspiration from Jazmine Sullivan, taking inspiration from Alice, but not becoming them. Not copying them, but learning how to just take those sounds and shape them into me. So that is what has been taking a bit with writing. I'm taking this very slow, because I'm trying to be so intentional with thinking of it as inspirations and not the music itself. So everything is being written brand new for this, and it's all written out actually—the plan of the album is written out. So it's going to take some time because there’s going to be a gospel choir in it and a lot of money. But it's going to be really cool. I think it's going to be a big turning point for me. I know it is, just writing this out.

I've been studying jazz harmony here [at UCSD] with Kamau Kenyatta. He's my current advisor, and he's just fucking me up, in the best way. It's just incredible. I guess I should say he's inspiring me on a daily basis. That's the appropriate way to say that. My plan is to have this released by 2024—realistically, it's going to be 2025, but 2024 is the goal. But I'm pretty sure it'll be 2025.

I’m working on some smaller projects with Scott, actually, that we’re releasing next year, and some solo stuff releasing next year. I’m still going to keep the momentum going. But the music I'm going to be releasing on streaming services and stuff is going to be very different from what I've already released. I'm kind of changing some mindsets with music I write to be released rather than music I play live. It's kind of tricky to think about right now, and it's in no way me conforming to anything, but this next year I want to experiment with a couple of things—see how some things work out for my sound, see what's receptive, things like that—and figure out what's going on, what people like to listen to my music, what resonates with people more. 

TJG: Shifting a little bit over from the Gallery show and the album, you've been traveling a lot this fall. What's been going on?

JG: This fall there was a really even split between Radical Acceptance and other people's projects. When I first moved to San Diego, I was here for five days then I had to go back to New York because I already had a ticket to go to the Lucerne Festival. I was commissioned to write a new solo piece for trumpet and electronics, but it ended up just being for any Black musician and electronics. That was a really special time to just travel as a composer. No bassoon—I just got my happy ass on a plane. It was really great. That was really fun. 

I came right back here and chilled for a bit, then I did Radical Acceptance in Urtecht, Netherlands at the Gaudeamus Festival. I came all the way back to California for three or four days, then went all the way back to Venice to work with Yvette Jackson on the world premiere of her radio opera at the Biennale Musica. That was very, very special. I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, and it was really fun. I learned a lot about myself. I learned how to handle some interesting situations going on in Venice outside of the festival. It was very cool also—I really love TikTok. So using TikTok kind of like a travel guide, especially like a Black travel guide, is really interesting. It's kind of like the Green Book. There were a lot of people on TikTok warning of what to watch out for in the city or this and that being Black. And everything they said was really right.

Then I was off for the whole month of October. I was starting the doctorate and needed to ground myself. Then it started up with going on tour with Mantana Roberts, touring their “Coin Coin Chapter IV” all throughout Europe. That was really incredible. In the middle of it, I had a solo show at The Music Gallery in Toronto. So there was a lot of traveling.

TJG: A lot of time zones! 

JG: A lot of time zones. It was so many time zones to the point where I don't even think I ended up being jet lagged. So it was just crazy. California to Berlin is like an eight or nine hour difference. So when I got home, I was like, “Well, I already slept all these hours on the plane.” It was weird. 

But it has been a lot, and I'm so happy that The Jazz Gallery is my final show of the year back in New York. I've missed the city so much. I miss the rats. I miss everything. So I’m really happy to be back and I’m so grateful that Rio was able to fit me in, especially because the end of the year is busy. So I'm really, really grateful to her for this, and I'm just excited to be back and to bring all this new music and to bring my new person. A lot has changed emotionally since moving here.

TJG: Is there anything else you want to talk about that we didn’t get to touch on?

JG: There has been a little more discourse on it, but there is still this demonization of social media. It is very interesting to me, especially in The Year of Our Lord 2022. This is why I think everyone should go read Legacy Russell's Glitch Feminism, because they hit on the demonization of social media very, very well. 

But what I really want to say is most of the people that are playing with me I met on Instagram throughout the pandemic, and most everyone I've collaborated with in this last year and a half I met on Instagram. People I got to meet in London and have lunch with when I was on tour with Mantana, I met on Instagram. So it's just been very, very amazing getting to see our generation really connect through social media. It's media that is social. So I hope more people stop being so afraid of it but, even outside of that, stop demonizing it. Because it is a very valid way of work. It's a very valid way of connecting and meeting new people. It is as bad as you make it, essentially. 

But all that to say, everyone needs to go check out each of these people's work online—Bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, everything. Go buy all their stuff. Buy my stuff, too. That's been my soapbox lately.

Joy Guidry plays The Jazz Gallery on Thursday, December 8. The group features Joy Guidry on bassoon & electronics, Scott Li on synth, Jillian Grace & Imani Rousselle on vocals, Samantha Feliciano on harp & vocals, Morgan Guerin on tenor sax, Tyrone Allen II on bass, and Jongkuk Kim on percussion. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. EST. $30 general admission (FREE for members), $30 cabaret seating ($20 for members). Purchase tickets here.