FourOneOne

Robin D. G. Kelley will lead a conversation with Graham Haynes about Graham’s trajectory at the nexus of Black arts movements in New York City and globally. Of particular focus will be Graham’s compositional work, his upcoming Requiem for Young Black Men Assassinated by Police in America, an opus for a 40‐voice chorus and orchestra reflecting on the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ataiana Jefferson, Stephon Clark, and Philando Castille.

Robin D. G. Kelley is Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in US History at UCLA. He is author or co-editor of numerous award-winning books, including Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, and Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, among others.

Graham Haynes, the composer, bandleader, and musician currently based in Bahia, Brazil, expands and confounds what we understand as jazz and electronic music. Son of the drummer Roy Haynes, raised among the greatest figures in improvised music and art in New York, Graham’s work grows out of a keen sense of New York’s many histories of music and musical movements. His is a voyage of constant departure and return to his native city, enriched by lifelong immersion in global musical practices and emerging sonic forms.

This event is part of Graham's residency at FourOneOne. The project, over the course of four weeks in March and April, spans performances, master classes, listening parties, and conversation with Robin D. G. Kelley; Adam Rudolph and Maalem Hassan Hakmoun; Vijay Iyer; Nublu Orchestra; Shakoor Hakeem and Lucie Vítková; Momenta Quartet, and others. More info.

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The project will highlight Graham’s voyages and their artistic consequences, from his 1980s co-founding of the seminal M-Base Collective; collaborations with performers in African, Arabic, and South Asian idioms; 1990s albums of soundscapes largely drawn from Paris's immigrant populations; work with New York's drum 'n' bass DJs and the turntables and digital samplers of the 1990s hip-hop scene; releases like 2000's BPM, a marriage of drum 'n' bass and opera; and, starting in the 2010s, densely layered chamber works, including the upcoming Requiem for Young Black Men Assassinated by Police in America.