The Bodo Ensemble performs Thursday, July 18, at Walker’s Jazz Lounge in Old Town.
Founded in 1989, the musical collective has been home to a variety of Wichita musical luminaries since inception. In short, if there’s an accomplished jazz musician with a sense of musical adventure in Wichita, they’ve probably passed through the ranks of Bodo.
The one consistent member throughout has been Craig Owens. The multi-instrumentalist and composer has assembled a version of Bodo for Thursday’s performance that features guitarist David Lord, drummers Kurt Aiken and Bill Glenn, and flutist Ellen Johnson Mosley.
Owens, who directed Wichita State University’s jazz program and the Wichita Jazz Festival, recently visited the KMUW studios with Johnson Mosley to discuss the performance and Bodo Ensemble’s continued sense of adventure.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the repertoire for this show?
Craig Owens: This will be primarily original compositions. In fact, many of them will be premieres, which is … somewhat daunting for me on any number of levels. For the first time, really, in the history of this group, we’re going to play some tunes from the jazz repertoire, pieces that I like, pieces that came to mind while we’ve been rehearsing. Often it seemed that the quintet lineup for jazz groups, in particular trumpet and tenor [saxophone], when transferred to flute and guitar or flute and another flute, we found worked quite well.
Tell me about these new compositions, the ones that you’re premiering.
CO: I think this is the warmest sound that the Bodo Ensemble has ever made. Guitar and flute, they go together naturally; two guitars is fine with me, I’ve done a tone of that. Two flutes together with guitar in the background is great. One thing that’s distinctive will be the instrumentation. One of the things that we’ve always done with Bodo is try to write tunes which would enable people to make use of their strengths. Whatever it is that they have worked on. If they have a jazz vocabulary, and they want to play over chords, we can do that. If they have no jazz vocabulary at all, they can do that, too, whether it’s over chords or a pedal point or over something modal. Those would be elements. Also, one of the things that has enabled the audience for Bodo, if there is such a thing … to enjoy the music is that there are a lot of ostinatos and there’s a lot of rhythm. If we’re getting way out there in terms of chromaticism in the soloing and the harmonies, then, usually, there’s something rhythmically to which they can relate.
Ellen, how did you come to be involved with Bodo?
Ellen Johnson Mosley: Craig had come to me a few years ago to learn flute. He took flute lessons with me. I introduced him to alto flute, some of the low flute sounds; I think he was hooked.
CO: That’s right. No doubt about it.
EJM: It came about that way. I connected with Craig, and he was, like, “You know, she might be crazy enough to do improvisation as a classical flutist.” I was happy to jump in there and do my best. I always feel I’m learning something outside of my traditional vocabulary and trying new experimentation and improvisations with extended technique sounds on flute. You might even hear us sing a little bit! [Laughs.] It’s been a wonderful experience for me.
You gave him flute lessons. How’s he doing?
EJM: [Laughs.] He’s doing really well, of course. What about observing Craig as a flutist is that he will take an idea and run with it. He’s not going to back away from a new idea. He’s going to embrace it fully and be open to new experiences. I think a lot of flute students I’ve worked with are afraid of new experiences and trying new sounds on an instrument. I hope anybody with a flute background, even if it’s not with jazz or improv, can come out and enjoy seeing this work that we’re doing.
The classical world and the improvisational world don’t always sync up. It’s working here.
CO: I trace a lot of what I do to Chicago in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Muhal Richard Abrams, I met him. I studied with him. He was extremely open. If we would say that the creative individual would by nature would have access to anything that would fall into their world, he was certainly like that. Whether it was classical music or African music or folk music; straight ahead jazz or whatever. He would just grab something. That’s been an influence upon jazz overall.
Yusef Lateef was that way. Open to all kinds of things; “Eastern Sounds” was one of his records. Anthony Braxton, what he does is close to classical music. Vijay Iyer, that’s close to classical music. It makes the idea of third-stream music sound quaint. Now everybody does that. It’s fun. I love it.
EJM: I’ve always been open to trying improvisation. I grew up in a home where there was lots of improvising going on with my parents’ music. My most recent flute teacher Ava Amsler was always experimental. She’s from Switzerland. She would sometimes put a piece of art on the music stand and say, “Play this.” With no music notes. You say, “Well, let’s see if there are lines or shapes that I could kind of create a musical moment that that connects to.” Having teachers that are open to something like that in the classical world I think was a big influence and enabler for me as well.
Thank you both for your time.
CO: I think we have to thank the Wichita community. We’ve been playing weird music now since 1990. It’s true. There have been many instances in which I heard about friends of people in the band or friends of friends had come to hear us play, and they left saying, “I didn’t think you liked this kind of music” and the other person says, “Well, I didn’t think I did either.” They’ve been very receptive to us through all these years. So, on behalf of all these great [players we’ve had in the group], I have to say that the Wichita community has really been great.
