Oral Histories is a showcase of interviews, performances, and articles by and about improvising musicians, artists, writers and scholars. This new monthly feature offers 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.

In 2012 we heard Oral Histories from Jane Bunnett, Patricia Nicholson Parker and William Parker, Matana Roberts, Cecil Foster, Tracey Nicholls, George Elliott Clarke, and Bob Ostertag. 2013 has already brought exciting interviews with Andrew Cyrille, Wasanti Paranjape, Dave Clark, Eugene Martynec, and Miya Masaoka. Over the coming year, witness additional conversations with musicians including Tanya Tagaq, William Parker and Amiri Baraka, d'bi young, Wayde Compton, 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

2014

2013

2012