Acclaimed Oakland jazz trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire has found his recent collaboration with San Francisco choreographer Alonzo King to be healing and transformative.
“I’m grieving, as my mom passed away while we’ve been dealing with this, and so, a lot of this has been talking about and dealing with that loss, and obviously, that’s in my music. At the same time, it’s kind of perfect being around someone like Mr. King just because he’s approaching art with these types of real-life situations, and in his practice. … It’s been really great in healing for me, and that’s something that came as a surprise,” says Akinmusire, whose world premiere composition is on the bill of Alonzo King Lines Ballet’s spring concerts May 10-18 in San Francisco.
Akinmusire, 43, artistic director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz in Washington D.C., is fulfilling a goal of working with King. And the avant-garde musician will perform his piece at the Blue Shield of California Theater on the Lines Ballet program also featuring 2009’s “Scheherazade,” a King collaboration with the late tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain.
The upcoming premiere is Akinmusire’s second collaboration with a ballet company, following Aszure Barton’s “Slow Burn” at the Hamburg Ballet in 2024.
For the composer, who scored the TV show “Blindspotting,” creating for ballet is comparable to writing for film. He says, “The process is the same and we’re dealing with music and something higher than ourselves.”
His music for the new dance, a 35-minute piece set on six men and six women, has varied elements.
He says, “There are some solo trumpet things, some pieces I’ve recorded before that I’ve come back to and put layers over it, and some electronics. There’s a lot of different things but it’s not really in movements, per se.”
Akinmusire’s impressive discography includes 2023’s “Owl Song” with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley and 2018’s Blue Note release “Origami Harvest.” Winner of Downbeat Critics’ Poll Jazz Artist of the Year in 2011 and topping the poll in the trumpet category numerous times, Akinmusire, a former member of the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble, began playing professionally as a teen. He since has performed with a variety of artists ranging from bassist-orchestra leader Marcus Shelby to pianist Jason Moran (who connected him with King) to Joni Mitchell and Kendrick Lamar.
The 2007 winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition cites Roy Hargrove (1969-2018) as an important influence and says he feels fortunate to have played with saxophonist Joe Henderson (1937-2001) and drummer Billy Higgins (1936-2001).
He adds that it’s always the individuals he’s working with, including Lines Ballet dancers, that matter to him and make each collaboration different.
“It’s been great to go into the studio and see the thing being worked on,” Akinmusire says. “Often when people collaborate with me, I’m just sort of in my dungeon creating, and then I turn it in, and I experience it on the stage, but this has been a going-back-to-the-drawing-board-type situation.”
Alonzo King Lines Ballet appears at 7:30 p.m. on May 10 and May 15-16; 5 p.m. May 11 and May 18; and 5:30 p.m. May 17 at the Blue Shield of California Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St., San Francisco. Tickets are $42-$124 at linesballet.org.
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