Stories about Thollem (and everyone else) [1/2]

Thollem. Photo by ACVilla

By David Cristol

Thollem McDonas – or simply Thollem according to which album cover you’re looking at – is a pianist, keyboardist, songwriter, vocalist, and activist whose work straddles free jazz, new classical, improvisation, film scores, punk rock, art pop, the minimalist and the maximalist, the avant-garde and all kinds of experimental music, from (acoustic and electric) solo to large ensembles, and countless collaborations which include, in addition to those featured in the following interview, Jad Fair (from Half Japanese), drummers Brian Chase (from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Sara Lund (from Unwound) and Gino Robair, French guitar improviser Jean-Marc Montera, pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn, Chicago cornetist Rob Mazurek, New York bass player Michael Bisio, … With a restless and fiercely independent work ethic and wide-open aesthetic vistas, Thollem’s music doesn’t fit easily into any genre or category,which might confuse the most dedicated listener and doesn't help make his music marketable. An oeuvre so multifaceted in scope it's almost impossible to grasp – let's try anyway, through the artist’s own words. There are many sides to Thollem, whose creativity knows no bounds.

P.S. The Gowanus Session, by Thollem/Parker/Cline (Porter Records, 2012), was this listener’s introduction to Thollem’s music, and not a bad entry point in the sprawling discography.

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Growing up in a musical environment

Both of my parents were pianists, though kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum. My mom was a classical pianist and my dad played in piano bars. Although I didn’t know him very well growing up, they both had a big influence on my musical perspectives and interests. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and exposed to much music from all of the communities represented there. It had a huge impact on my way of seeing the world and experiencing music.

The piano

Piano music was all around me growing up. One of my earliest memories is crawling up and into my mom’s piano and playing the inside. I studied classical piano music and have been improvising and composing for as long as I can remember. I was very fortunate that I grew up in an environment where music was integral to our lives, and my creative interests were encouraged. My mom was also very strict, which I’m thankful for now!

Influences

I grew up studying and performing classical piano music, so those 450 years of musical history definitely shaped me as a pianist. I also had the great fortune to have access to the Kuumbwa Jazz Club in Santa Cruz, California, where my stepsister was, and still is, the chef. Anyone who has played there knows Cheryl and her food! I started going to shows there when I was 12, and heard Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Toshiko Akiyoshi , Pharaoh Sanders and many others. At the same time, West coast punk was in its heyday and had a huge influence as well. I went to the Cabrillo Music Festival each year. My mom studied with composer Lou Harrison, and I attended classes with her. I was influenced by music from all of the communities from the Bay Area, like salsa, norteño, taiko, gamelan, West African, Eritrean, and on and on…

Photo by ACVilla

Playing style

My playing in certain contexts has elements that make it distinct, but I’m more interested in approaching each musical situation as a unique event and expression. I have always thought of myself as an explorational musician and a serial collaborator. Collaboration for me means the opportunity to discover something new about myself in relation to others. As a solo pianist I incorporate many influences but people on many occasions said they knew it was me from the first moments of listening. As a songwriter I am continuously pushing myself. I’m inspired by music from all eras and places. I dropped out of school and society for the most part, during the buildup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990, and spent years living out of a backpack, devoted to organizing and protesting. This was a profound break from everything I had been preparing for up to that point in my life. It took years to figure out how to participate in this society in a way that was aligned with my values, and at one point I had kind of a nervous breakdown realizing that I had neglected playing music throughout my 20s. I mention this because it had a huge impact on the way I approached music again coming back. I had burned every bridge I had built up to that point and had to start from the ashes. My first real tour was in 2005 when I was 38 years old, so I’ve felt like I had a lot of catching up to do and all of this is what has created a deep urgency in my work.

Europe

My first time playing in France was 2006 with an Italian outfit of misfits called Squarcicatrici led by Jacopo Andreini. Jacopo and I originally met at the Olympia Experimental Music Festival that Arrington de Dionyso was directing. On the tour I met Pierre Barouh and his son who invited me to release a solo piano album on the Saravah label, called SoMuchHeaven SoMuchHell. The following year I was invited to play a concert on the only piano Debussy owned for the last 14 years of his life, which is housed at Musée Labenche in Brive-La-Gaillarde. For the first half of the concert, I performed works of Debussy's that he wrote on that piano, and for the second half I was joined by Italian double bass player Stefano Scodanibbio, with whom we improvised within a structure. French artist Delphine Dora got in touch and invited me to release something on her label Wild Silence. At the time, I was going through old tapes that I found when clearing out my mom’s house after her death, recordings of me as a teenager playing compositions of my own and others. I collected them together and titled the album Dear Future . Most recently I was in Marseille for a week with the Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra (SIO) hosted by Grand8 – both are large ensembles dedicated to improvised music. I have taken on a temporary long-term role with SIO after its founder Lelio Giannetto died of Covid in 2020. I was there at the right moment to help keep the ensemble going. They had always performed under the guidance of a visiting artist, and I had given several workshops and collaborated with many of the members over the years. Grand8 is a more anarchic ensemble, without a leader, and each year they invite another ensemble to Marseille for a week of collaborations and performances. SIO and I have our second album coming out this spring, after OmniLelioMatic (Superpang, 2023). I have a punk band in Italy called Tsigoti, that released our fifth album last year. In 2012, we did an anti-mafia tour throughout Italy in conjunction with anti-mafia organizations and anti-mafia events. When we were driving South and arrived in Napoli, my bandmates said, “now everything changes”. That was an interesting moment. We didn’t have any issues, and I don’t know how effective we were, but it was important to us and to what the band is about. In Portugal I’ve put out albums with Ernesto Rodrigues ’ Creative Sources label and collaborated with great improvisers including Carlos Zingaro as well as members of a noise rock band called dUASsEMIcOLCHEIASiNVERTIDAS. We formed a band called Para Poupar Coma Merde [to save money, eat shit].

Photo by ACVilla

Terry Riley

I first met Terry at a party at Joan Jeanrenaud’s house in San Francisco around 2007. I grew up on the West Coast and was steeped in his music, and feel very aligned in many ways philosophically. At the party I gave him Racing The Sun, Chasing The Sun which was a new album of mine at the time, and later he told me that he listened to it over and over again on his trips to LA while he was developing Hurricane Mama Blues , his huge organ work at the Disney Concert Hall. When I was invited to perform on Debussy’s piano I was inspired to invite Stefano Scodanibbio and asked Terry if he would put in a good word for me. Stefano and I then met in Brive the night before our performance and Terry wrote the liner notes for the album. With The Light is Real [2023 trio album with Riley and Nels Cline ] I had an epiphany when I was in New Mexico. My Suegra [mother-in-law] had painted a mural of a redwood forest in her bathroom, and the light was streaming through the window. I took the photo and thought “the light is real” and “Terry Riley”. So, I mentioned this to Terry and he was up for the idea, which was simply to vocalize together spontaneously. We had a great time. Later, Yuka Honda recorded Nels and me in their home in New York and I mixed it together. Other Minds Records wanted to put it out which felt appropriate because of their historical connection with Terry.

Film scores

I’ve primarily worked with the animator Martha Colburn and my partner ACVilla. They both have extremely different approaches to their work, so that also changes my approach. Martha composed her film, Triumph of the Wild, to my music; and I composed the score to ACVilla’s video works. Currently we are developing a project called Stories About People and Everyone Else. We’ll be performing it at the University of Illinois, Trinosophes in Detroit, and Lisbon and Zurich this spring.

ACVilla

ACVilla and I have been collaborating together for over thirty years, in life and in our work. She was an inter-city bilingual teacher for many years before taking the leap into joining me full-time on the road fifteen years ago. She’s also collaborated with artists including, most notably, the Rova Saxophone Quartet. We’ve been quite prolific together as well collaborating on projects such as Who Are U.S. In 2016, we traveled throughout the lower forty-eight states documenting the points where people came into contact with each other and the environment. Artists Engaged is a long-term series of interviews and profiles of artists and organizations working in response to the needs of their communities and the dynamics of the world. We have the third in a series coming out at the end of this month that is focused on New Mexico artists and organizations. We’ve also toured extensively internationally with our multimedia performances Obstacle Illusion and Worlds in A Life. We have a new one that we’ll be touring with soon called Stories About People and Everyone Else which investigates what a story is and how much can be left out for audiences to fill in for themselves. 

Photo by ACVilla

Long run and one-offs

Many albums are one-offs, with groups that never played again. It stems from leading an itinerant lifestyle. I also have projects that have had years-long lives, multiple albums and performances. Those include six trio albums with Nels Cline. Revolving members include William Parker , Michael Wimberly, Pauline Oliveros [1932-2016] and Terry Riley. Tsigoti just released a fifth album, No Vacation from Poverty. The Estamos project has four albums including two by large ensembles and two by a trio with Carmina Escobar and Milo Tamez. There are several albums with Rent Romus and Bloom Project. Several with Arrington de Dionyso, several with John Dieterich [of Deerhoof]. I don't have any one main project or projects, except for my solo work. So, a lot of side projects that are all important! I live on the road, so this gives me the opportunity and time to meet with musicians along my travels, either on stage or in the studio. I wouldn’t say necessarily that they represent a certain period of my playing but more what my collaborators bring out of me that I may not have known was there previously. I don’t have a grand vision as an improviser, it’s truly about being in the moment, challenging and supporting each other, diving deeply into my curiosity and finding the beauty in what is created and ultimately how this informs myself as a human being in this world. For many of these albums the particular group of musicians never met again and certainly never toured. It’s kind of an anti-model in a hyper-capitalist society.

Defining your own music

Ah, you were just buttering me up with the easy questions! My music is an ever-changing amalgam swirling in the confluence of infinite rivers – something like that. I’ve called myself an eccentriclect, and my music as omni-idiomatic in the sense that my influences and interests are eclectic, in that I’m open to ideas and inspirations from infinite sources and experiences and that I don’t want to be burdened by anyone’s idea of what should be. Depending on albums and eras I’ve been called a free jazz pianist, a post-classical improviser, a punk rocker and more. I prefer to always remain independent in search of other independent minds and creators and to encourage others in order not to succumb to the pressures to conform which are constantly attacking us in myriad ways. I’m doing all I can to assist in humanity’s evolution into a more mature, playful, creative relationship with our world and each other. My involvement in music making both solo and in collaboration is always coming from this place. The actual aesthetics are less important generally speaking, but crucially important situationally. I love to explore the value of different aesthetics and how that changes my relationship with music, art and fellow artists.

How projects are born

Primarily, I want to work with people I enjoy being with, and that share my vision of communality both musically and supra-musically. Joy and curiosity have got to be there before anything else of interest can happen. This I have learned through many varied experiences. So, many collaborations happen as anything else in life, because I happen to be in the same space and time with someone, and ideas generate organically out of a mutual experience. That is not always the case, of course, but it generally is. I often live by “What if?” and “Why not?”. This is the basis for experimentation. “What if I bring these different elements or artists together in this particular setting?”, “What will happen with the least amount of guidance from me?” A big part of the practice of my interaction with music making is a cycle that continually builds on itself. Sometimes collaborations are well planned out and often they happen because of our lifestyle of living on the road. We haven’t lived in our own place in over fifteen years and own almost nothing except what is essential to our lifestyle and that we can fit in our carry-on size backpacks. This has afforded us the ability to collaborate with amazing artists as well as document communities, like with our Artists Engaged series [Everything can be streamed freely through: www.artistsengaged.com].

 

Part 2 of this feature will continue tomorrow...