The Veins of Community: Nasheet Waits Speaks

Photo courtesy of the artist

This weekend, Nasheet Waits appears on back-to-back nights at The Jazz Gallery. On Friday, his show Blood Brothers with long-time friend Abraham Burton features originals and explores more compositions from a variety of eras. He then joins Neta Ranaan on Saturday for her show Dream Jar, with a band of exciting young voices. We caught up with Nasheet to chat about collaboration with old friends, mentorship, and other projects he’s been up to.

The Jazz Gallery: You have a couple of shows coming up this week at the Gallery. Could you start by telling me about the music you’ll be playing for “Blood Brothers,” your Friday show with Abraham Burton?

Nasheet Waits: The music is a composite of mostly original material by the members of the group. Abraham and I grew up together in Greenwich Village here in New York City, along with Eric McPherson. We were all childhood friends and have stayed close. They're like brothers, really. We've known each other for over 40 years! 

Abraham and I hadn't really had an opportunity to work much together. He and Eric have had a band for about 30 years, so they've played quite a bit together. But Abraham and I haven’t really had that opportunity. So this is a chance for that to happen.

We're fortunate enough to be joined by Marvin Sewell, an incredible guitarist who I've worked with in different situations. I did a recording with Marvin and Jason Moran, which is the most we’ve worked together. It’s called Same Mother. It’s probably been over 15 years ago now that we did that recording. The theme of that record is a fusion of blues and jazz. A lot of these musical traditions come out of the African-American experience and that’s why it’s called Same Mother. All those styles of music come from the same mother. 

That’s the primary way I had an opportunity to work with Marvin, but there have been some other times as well. I think the last time we worked together was with Jason Moran again, and that was with Cassandra Wilson at the Kennedy Center. Marvin is an incredible accompanist and he works a lot with vocalists, from Cassandra Wilson to Lizz Wright to Cécile Mclorin Salvant. He's a number one call for vocalists. But he's just an incredible musician in general. 

The bass player we usually work with is Luques Curtis, but he's so busy and on the move that he wasn't able to do this gig. We’ll be playing with a young incredible bass player named Jeremiah Edwards, who is like 18 years old or something. I met him about a year ago at the Detroit Jazz Festival. After that, we did some work together with Jordan Young, another really wonderful alto saxophonist, composer, and arranger. I got familiar with his playing through that, and we'll be doing this gig together on Friday.

TJG: It sounds like you've got people on Friday’s show from a lot of different places in your life, from a childhood friend all the way to an 18-year-old you just met recently. That's a cool thing to see happen.

NW: That's the way the community works. It's constantly evolving. There are these amazing young people that come out and inject the scene with new energy and vitality. Jeremiah is definitely one of those people. 

This band is a co-led effort. A lot of the music is being chosen by Abraham and myself, but everybody's contributing music. We’re also playing some things besides the originals by members of the band. We’re playing a Jymie Merritt composition, an Andrew Hill composition, and some other folks. 

We’re using content that is from sources we admire and respect and that are part of our tradition, but which might be a little different than the regular jazz canon where everybody's playing Gershwin tunes. We love those songs as well, but we feel like they've been done effectively for almost a century. There are so many incredible composers that have written music and are still writing music that deserves to be explored. So we're looking forward to doing some exploration of that music at this show. And like I mentioned, everybody's contributing originals that they penned as well. That's probably the primary source of the material.

TJG: Have those originals been written for this group specifically?

NW: I can only speak for myself, but my compositions are always kind of semi-finished. In every situation I bring them to, they're expanded and realized in a different way. So they weren't written specifically for this group, but this group has approached them in a different way than any other group that had played them before. Abraham has contributed quite a few compositions as well, and I think he had this instrumentation in mind when he composed some of those pieces.

TJG: You've been friends with Abraham since you were kids. Having someone you grew up with as a musical collaborator is not something that seems to happen all that often. So I have to ask, what is that like?

NW: It's so much fun. When we're playing, working, and conversating, it's the same as when we were conversing, walking down the streets, and playing in the yard as kids. My father also had a studio here in the Village and we used to play down there all the time. So all of that has contributed to this friendship. That's why we were so excited to finally get the opportunity to do some work together.

TJG: I’d love to hear about your Saturday show with Neta Ranaan, “Dream Jar.”

NW: Certainly. This is really Neta's band. I was introduced to her through the Next Jazz Legacy program. That's a program that's about inclusion. It's being sponsored by New Music USA, the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, and the Mellon Foundation. Different participants who receive the grant choose a mentor and a collaborator, and Neta chose me as a mentor. 

What happens is they give a suggestion of having a certain amount of gigs together over a certain amount of time. So we met and spoke, and I listened to some of her music and it was really developed. She had a lot of compositions and really good ideas. 

For this show at the Gallery, she said she’d really like to do some work with Tyrone Allen on bass and Robert Vega on trumpet. I wasn’t familiar with them, so I checked out their work and they were incredible. We decided to work together and really try to get something happening with this unit of people. 

I was also working in conjunction with Jimmy Katz of the Giant Step Arts label, and he was like, “I love Neta's music.” We did a live recording at Ornithology last summer and that's going to be released on Giant Step Arts. I'm just in this band to trim the fat a little bit. But you don't want to trim all of the fat, because that’s what makes it taste good. You need that marbling in there. We don’t want to be too lean. 

Like I said, Neta is an incredible player. She really has a wonderful voice on the instrument, and is continuing to discover that voice. She also has some really nice compositions. The other musicians are also young and full of life, creativity, and ideas. So it's really fun for me to join forces with these younger people. 

Speaking of younger people, this happened really quick to be quite honest—all of a sudden people are calling me OG and things like that, but I still feel like I'm their age. But I'm obviously not. So you accept your role, and I'm really happy that I have been able to facilitate some opportunities for Neta. Really, for me that's what mentorship is about, at least in this instance. It's about creating opportunities for her, Tyrone, and Robert to be heard. 

They’re strong musicians and strong players. None of us have fully formed musical voices. We’re all trying to expand and add to our repertoire. But they have a lot to say, and I’m learning a lot from them—as much as they’re learning from me, I’m sure.

TJG: That's also the thing about mentorship, right?

NW: Oh, yeah. Teaching teaches. To be a great teacher, you have to be open to receiving information from the student as well, because things are always changing and evolving. Staying fixed in one mindset doesn't lend itself to greatness. It lends itself to being static and fixed, and that's the last thing I want to be associated with. I always want to be associated with growth.

TJG: Do you see any similarities between these two shows you’ll be playing this weekend?

NW: The only similarity will be me. We talked about the selections we’ll be drawing from for Blood Brothers. But for Dream Jar, I believe we're pretty much playing exclusively Neta's compositions. She's a great writer, and this is an opportunity to feature her compositions. We may play a couple of other tunes from myself or the other cats, but we have a good amount of material to perform from what we recorded last summer.

TJG: Is that recording out?

NW: It's not, but it will be. You’ll be able to find that on Bandcamp when it comes out.

TJG: Are there any other projects you have going on that you’d like folks to be aware of?

NW: I’m on two other recent recordings on Giant Step Arts. One is with Tarbaby, which is a co-led group that I've been a part of for almost 20 years now. That’s with Orrin Evans on piano and Eric Revis on bass. That record is called You Think This America and it will be out on Bandcamp in a few days. It’s kind of in the same vein as Blood Brothers and features compositions from different eras. We have some Ornette Coleman and some Sunny Murray on there. We have a couple of original compositions from members of the group. We also have an Andrew Hill composition, and some unexpected ones too—some surprises. 

Another recording I did is New York Love Letter (Bitter Sweet). That’s a project I led that features Mark Turner on tenor saxophone, Steve Nelson on vibraphone, and Rashaan Carter on bass. It was also facilitated through Jimmy Katz and Giant Step Arts, and was recorded on the edges of the pandemic. 

Jimmy had asked me to co-curate a series called Walk with the Wind, where we were presenting music out in Seneca Village in Central Park. It was all kinds of folks playing up there. William Parker played with Cooper-Moore. Chris Potter played. Antonio Sánchez played. Abraham [Burton] and Eric [McPherson] played. Mark Turner played with his band. There were a lot of folks who came through. 

It was really about the people who were in the city at the time. We were barnstorming, basically, and it was an incredible experience. We really got to feel the community, the love, and the desperation people were feeling during those times. Because this was like 2021—a lot of people hadn't heard live music for over a year. It was like food for people. 

So this record has its origins in that incredible experience, and it's in reference to my upbringing here in New York City. That's why the title says “Bitter Sweet” because New York City can be beautiful, but it can also be rough around the edges. Even though I'm from New York, I realize both aspects of that and my experience in the city is reflected through that as well. That record will be out on Bandcamp soon.

Nasheet Waits plays The Jazz Gallery on Friday, June 28 & Saturday, June 29. Friday’s show, Blood Brothers, features Abraham Burton on tenor sax, Nasheet Waits on drums, Marvin Sewell on guitar, and Jeremiah Edwards on bass. Saturday’s show, Dream Jar, features Neta Ranaan on tenor sax, Robert Vega on trumpet, Tyrone Allen on bass, and Nasheet Watis on drums. Sets on both nights are at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. ET. $35 general admission ($20 for members), $45 cabaret seating ($30 for members), $20 Livestream ($5 for members). Purchase tickets here.