ABSTRACT
I mean, of course we confirm certain things by coming together and playing, but we’ve been together already.
Francis Wong
Why “Asian American Music?” I was talking with improviser George Lewis on the telephone about his work with the Asian American musician Miya Masaoka.1 He said:
I have a certain way that I know I’m going to be working with the material — I can just make up the material and work with it in that way, because I know what the processes are going to be, or I have an idea of certain processes that I’m interested in and that I’m going to work with. Part of our process was to create the material which then I could subject to further reflection. So that was a negotiation point, really, because we have these very different ways of thinking about structure. These kinds of negotiations go on before the music, but really they also go on during the music. And really, if you’re trying to get people to learn how to listen, that’s one of the things you want them to listen for — this negotiational thing that happens.
