Talking Back: Performer-Audience Interaction in Roscoe Mitchell’s “Nonaah”

Willisau[1] Roscoe Mitchell was minding his own business. He and his bandmates in the Art Ensemble of Chicago were one month into a long tour of Europe, and as August 1976 came to a close, they were enjoying a rare weekend off (Janssens and de Craen 1983). The members of the Art Ensemble decided to spend their downtime in Willisau, Switzerland. A picturesque village near Lucerne, Willisau was home to one of the largest European jazz festivals of 1976, along with San Sebastian, Pescara, Montreux, Moers, Juan-les-Pins, and Châteauvallon ("Festivals" 1976, 4-6). The Art Ensemble performed at Châteauvallon on August 22, then headed to Switzerland, where they opened the Willisau festival on August 26 (Flicker et al. 1976, 10 and 13; Hardy 1976, 19). Their next concert--in Italy--was still a few days away, so the musicians stayed in Willisau to experience the rest of the festival. This would give Mitchell and his bandmates a chance to hear their AACM colleague Anthony Braxton, who was scheduled to perform in Willisau on August 28 ("Festivals" 1976, 6).[2] As luck would have it, Braxton's arrival in Willisau was greatly delayed. By late afternoon on the 28th, it was clear that Braxton would not make it to the festival on time. So Niklaus Troxler, the festival organizer, asked Roscoe Mitchell to take Braxton's spot on the program and perform a solo saxophone concert (Martin 1977).(1) Mitchell agreed. "I ran to the hotel and got my alto," he recalled: "I had an hour to warm it up" (Martin 1977). Mitchell tried to maximize what little preparation time he was granted. In fact, on the Willisau concert recording, he can be heard playing long tones backstage while he is being introduced by the emcee (Mitchell 1977).(2) Ordinarily he would have preferred to spend several hours warming up, not sixty minutes. But in another sense, he had been preparing for this moment for a decade.Example 1. "Nonaah" score for solo alto saxophone (1972). Reproduced by permission of Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Company (ASCAP)Example 2. "Nonaah" saxophone quartet sketch (1976). Reproduced by permission of Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Company (ASCAP)Example 3. "Nonaah" saxophone quartet sketch (1976): Alto I, first section. Reproduced by permission of Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Company (ASCAP)Example 4. "Nonaah" saxophone quartet sketch (1976): Alto I, second section. Reproduced by permission of Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Company (ASCAP)Example 5. "Nonaah" saxophone quartet sketch (1976): Alto I, third section. Reproduced by permission of Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Company (ASCAP)Example 6. Niklaus Troxler introducing Roscoe Mitchell. Translation by Jan Hartmann(click to enlarge and listen)[3] Like many AACM musicians, Mitchell started giving unaccompanied solo concerts in the late 1960s (Martin 1993). He described these performances as "practiced solo improvisations": improvisations based on compositional structures and performance techniques that he had been exploring over a period of months, and even years (Davis 1983, 32). According to Mitchell,the point of playing solo is to prove you can sustain a structure for longer and longer periods of time, so I develop exercises to increase my power of concentration, starting off with small sections at first, and while I'm doing that, I'm also working on technique--things like. . . breathing and fingering. It would be nice if every time you started playing. . . the light comes down from the heavens, and you can do no wrong. And you reach that point sometimes--but not every night. So there's always at least a germ of thought I start off with, even on a completely open improvisation. (Davis 1983, 32)[4] Mitchell decided to begin the Willisau performance with his composition "Nonaah." The piece had been in his repertoire since 1972, when he composed a brief, etude-like score consisting of six angular phrases for alto saxophone (see Example 1, from Mitchell 1972). …