By Melina Paris, Music Columnist
To trumpet player, composer and producer Christian Scott, expression is supreme. His stretch music is a conversation of different cultures from both today and the past.
Scott, who performed a show June 4 at the Roxy in Hollywood, expresses a musical diaspora including West African sounds, hip-hop, funk, trap, Caribbean, New Orleans bounce and, of course, jazz.
Scott, or Christian aTunde Adjuah — as he’s been known since changing his name — speaks on matters of both social injustice and the heart through his song titles and compositions.
With stretch music, he creates a language that with which everyone can identify. His fans were just as diverse as the music.
Members of his quintet were featured heavily in this show. Flautist Elena Pinderhughes kicked off the opening number, mesmerizing the audience. Her energy was subtle, fluid and unstoppable.
On another hip-hop-flavored number, Scott led in with an extended haunting echo in his horn. As the beat soon quickened, Pinderhughes jumped in. The swirls of complementary forces merged in harmonic masculine and feminine expression.
A great surprise followed. Bass and drums carried through a bluesy opening on the keys that dropped into a deep funk. Gripped into a huge groove, the room was unsuspectingly arrested by a crystal clear tone of the trumpet. Out walked the prodigious Theo Croker with the sound of his horn raining down. Scott joined Croker and Pinderhughes’ flute completed the crescendo.
Croker and Scott both come from musical DNA and they have been playing together since they were 10 and 12 years old, respectively.
Scott described his band as building something as a collective. He was equally in awe, with good reason, of each individual player in his quintet. Scott said his keyboardist Lawrence Fields “decodes seemingly disparate vernaculars of music and makes it fit.” Drummer Corey Fonville is “strong and dedicated.” Fonville wanted to join the ensemble at 13. That didn’t happen but he diligently waited until the time came when he could join. Of Pinderhughes, Scott said she “plays in a space musically that (Scott) has never let anybody into.” In an emotionally dense moment, when she was only 17 years old, the flautist made Scott reevaluate how he communicated music. Now at 22, he said she is also one of the best singer-songwriters of this time. Bass player Kristopher Funn brings a powerful resonant sound that was felt throughout the night. Together, this group is a powerful force.
Scott announced that the band is working on a Centennial Trilogy project that represents the first 100 years of jazz. It is made up of his albums: Ruler Rebel, released this past March; Diaspora, to be released in June and The Emancipation Procrastination, which does not have a release date as of yet.
Ruler Rebel characterizes the beginning of jazz rhythms and the dialect played over those rhythms to come out of New Orleans. It includes Afro-Native American music, New Orleans bounce and trap-influenced beats.
Diaspora is about seemingly distinct cultures that are actually one family. Its influences are from Nordic pop music, traditional Korean music, impressionist music and Russian classical music. It stretches out, showing connectivity between these civilizations which have related rhythmic bases.
This intersectionality of music is something Scott strives to illuminate as a way of life, which he will explore further in the third album. The Emancipation Procrastination is about reexamining the way people interact and communicate with each other.
They closed with a serene number called The Last Chieftain. Scott, who is part Native American, said it is only heard at the pow wow’s he attends. As Fonville unleashed a backdrop of Native American drum beats, Scott’s trumpet echoed sensuously above the vibrations.
Before the night ended, Scott said two true things happen in society. First, generally we all fully agree with each other to help and second, we celebrate successes too early. He said the younger generation has an opportunity to eradicate social ills and corruptive situations.
He illustrated with the example of the passing of Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restored worker protections against pay discrimination. From this then, Scott said women need to reach out to help [people of color] and then they need to reach out and help the LGBTQ population.
“People need to stand up for each other,” Scott said. “Class warfare is here. If you see something going on, address it. You saw it. Don’t build and combine tribes, states and nations with hate; create a space of love.”