Sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and improviser JayVe Montgomery will lead a multi-day, Black-centered/led creative residency, along with improvising musician Ben LaMar Gay and two members of chatterbird, Maya Stone and Joshua Dent. The residency will use innovative techniques to capture sound vibrations of plant life at historically significant locations, including sites of racial trauma across Tennessee. Stay tuned to this space for more details on how to follow and support this project.
JayVe is a multi-instrumentalist, sound designer, and composer of the Chicago school of Free, Creative, and Improvised musics, Sonic Healing Ministries sector. His work reveals his adherence to improvisation and chance as a way to explore evolutionary learning, dreams, and unintended subjective meaning through randomized being. 2019 blessed JayVe Montgomery with performances at Big Ears (Knoxville) and High Zero (Baltimore) music festivals. His solo work of woodwinds, percussion, and electronics as Abstract Black, “In Circles With Self” (Banana Tapes), received Nashville Scene acclaim and highlights Montgomery’s dedication to a public musical practice in Nashville parks.
Montgomery’s collaborator, Ben Lamar Gay, is a composer and cornetist who moves sound, color, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-acoustic collages. His unification of various styles is always in service of the narrative and never solely a display of technique. Gay has a 15 year year relationship with Chicago’s AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) and is also a touring member of The Bridge, a trans-atlantic pairing of Chicago and French improvisers.
Chatterbird's Maya Stone and Joshua Dent will form the other half of the creative quartet. As a bassoonist, Maya has commissioned and premiered several works by American composers and is a member of the Rushes Ensemble, which premiered and recorded Michael Gordon’s concert-length work for 7 bassoons. Joshua Dent plays cello across genres, with experience in classical and improvisation. Their career is always changing; currently, it ranges from chamber music, vaudeville, rock, and jazz ensembles, to recording for studio sessions and teaching improvisation workshops around the country.
This project is supported in part by an Arts Build Communities grant through the Tennessee Arts Commission and an Artistic Development Project Assistance grant through Alternate Roots.