5 Questions for Jamal Moore
1.
The music you’ve written for Mind on Fire is titled ‘Sawud Rayay.’ What does that mean, and how does it relate to the music you’ve composed?
Sawud Rayay- translates as Black Sun, which stems from ancient Khemetic language that dates back to pre dynastic Egypt. The black sun is the eternal core or nucleus of the ball of gas that we know as the sun, and due to the high volume of radiance we cannot see with naked eye. The sun as we know is the axis of our universe/galaxy that we coexist in, with all planets moving in constant change and motion around it.
When composing Sawud Rayay, there was deep thought about the varying degrees of heat that burns at the inner core of sun verses it outside parameter; the ideology of the sun’s origin and how it came to be as what we know it as in our human existence.
2.
At the start of ‘Sawud Rayay,’ you employ graphic notation to encourage a controlled, group improvisation. Would you explain the history and use of this specific notation?
This is a sub structure of a musical language I have developed and entitled “Tasu- Re”. I begin forming this language approximately 10 years ago to create a way of expression and improvisation outside of standard musical parameters and confinement of five lines and four spaces.
3.
Speaking of history, much of the music you create has ties to a historical context or pays homage to a historical, theoretical continuum. What role does an understanding of history play in your art? Do artists have a responsibility to know the history of their art form?
It essential to know your past in order to move forward and have a clear direction of where you are heading. Many artists try to bypass history or ignore a reality of existence i.e. social politics. You cannot be free until one has experience restrictions i.e. breaking rules of theoretical constructs taught academically or self-researched. When knowing history, an individual can learn of what not to do or take what was created and extend beyond its platform.
4.
On the other side, as an educator and experimental musician, what are you hoping to pass on through your work and craft to future art makers? Or what is the ideal world for which you’re hoping to lay the groundwork?
I do not genre specify nor proclaim to be any sort of specialized artist or musician. When I hear the term experimental musician, it gives a sense of defining and limiting an artist’s capability of creation. It’s sort of saying they don’t know what they are doing or have a clue. Perhaps we can use the term of creative musician.
It is through my work and craft I would like to pass on a holistic approach of learning. To demonstrate what it is to make what the ancient Tama-re-an (Ancient Egyptian) scientist called, “Paa Maguraj” The Journey Within; and most important, to use my work as a healing frequency to cleanse this society and planet of dis-ease.
5.
Who are some artists that you want everyone to know about right now?
Bashi Rose, Cher Jey, Discipline 99 (Malik Thomas), Baba L. Salaam