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Oral Histories

Saxophonist Matana Roberts in conversation with ICASP Researcher Eric Lewis.

Oral Histories is a showcase of interviews, performances, and articles by and about improvising musicians, artists, writers and scholars. This new monthly feature will offer an intimate look inside the minds and practices of some of the many dynamic, innovative people whose energy and ideas make improvisation studies such a vibrant field of inquiry. The Oral Histories project provides a space for improvising artists to be heard in their own words, often in dialogue with other improvisers, scholars and practitioners.

Over the coming year, witness conversations with musicians including Dave Clark, Tanya Tagaq, William Parker and Amiri Baraka, writer Cecil Foster, and scholars from fields as diverse as legal studies and musicology. The conversations and performances of this diverse group, drawn from ICASP’s online Research Collection in Improvisation Studies, are sure to inspire and to enlighten.

Read ICASP student Paul Watkins' reflective piece on the relationship between orality and improvised musical practices in our Research Collection, here.

View Monthly Oral Histories Features

  • January 2012: Jane Bunnett
  • February 2012: Patricia Nicholson and William Parker

    • Improvisation implies a deep connection between the personal and the communal, self and world. A “good” improviser successfully navigates musical and institutional boundaries and the desire for self-expression, pleasing not only herself but the listener as well.

    – Rob Wallace