Live from Sitka, the Native Jazz Trio entertained a local audience of enthusiastic concert-goers in sundresses and Xtratufs in July. Featuring special guest Dennis Yerry on flute and keys, the trio performed a series of all-original Native jazz melodies. They opened with percussionist Ed Littlefield's arrangement of a Tlingit lullaby and closed with Yerry's performance of a Lakota tune from Black Elk Speaks, the classic 1932 book about the Oglala Lakota medicine man.
The trio is made up of Littlefield, an Alaska Native of Tlingit heritage; Christian Fabian, of Swedish-German descent; and Reuel Lubag, a Filipino. A fourth member, Jason Marsalis, though unable to attend this performance, brings his venerable New Orleans jazz family heritage to complete the quartet.
"This group is a stew, but we're all playing jazz," Littlefield said of the group's dynamic.
While jazz originated in the U.S., its rhythms have become universal, Littlefield said. "We take Native melodies and merge them with African rhythm and European harmony," he explained of the group's Native jazz fusion.
Since the group released its first record, NJQ: Stories, in 2012, its indigenous take on jazz compositions has been well received. In 2014, the U.S. Department of State selected the quartet as the nation's jazz ambassador, and the group traveled to Central and South America performing their music. Now they've attracted Yerry—an accomplished musician, composer and director—for the recording of a DVD.
Performing the music, using it, sharing it and creating new music is the group's bottom line.
"Indigenous music is not dead; it's not just a song on a record," Littlefield said. "[Live performance] is a big part of what I do."
Next gen jazz
The group's performance in Sitka was also a capstone concert for the 4th annual Native jazz workshop, a week-long intensive jazz camp that attracted tweens to adults from North Pole to Minnesota.
Although a jazz scene in Sitka may seem surprising, there has been a concerted effort by the Native Jazz Trio to develop its potential in Littlefield's hometown.
"We wanted to establish Sitka as a Native jazz mecca," Littlefield said.
The community already had the Sitka Fine Arts Camp going for it, and then the Sheldon Jackson College campus space was donated to the camp.
"I thought it was a great fit [for the Native jazz workshop]," Littlefield said.
Overall camp participation in dance, music, theater and art classes has swelled to 700 students—up from 70 in the 1980s—and program duration has increased from two weeks to two months.
The quartet hosted the first Native jazz workshop in conjunction with the Sitka Fine Arts Camp "as a vehicle to promote jazz" and to teach students about it in the context of their heritage.
They teach the students rhythm and blues, as well as composing, arranging, jazz improvisation, history of Native music and jazz music, as well as stage performance. By the end of the week, students are expected to have accomplished two things: to have created two fully-formed arrangements and to give a public performance. That said, Littlefield emphasized that the workshop is not performance based, but rather about helping the students create their own music and giving them the tools they need to continue to do so.
"I learned that most Native songs are in the minor pentatonic scale," said one precocious, young pupil.
During their end-of-week concert, a Filipino student from Sitka sang a song in Tagalog that she had transposed into jazz style, and a percussion student from North Pole whose great-grandfather was full-blooded Cherokee performed a Cherokee melody that he had arranged for jazz.
A great performance is about creating positive energy and sharing it with your audience, being confident and having fun, Littlefield said. "You don't have to play all the right notes as long as you're confident about it."
It's a great lesson for the students—for jazz and for life.
This article appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of 61°North. Contact 61° editor Jamie Gonzales at jgonzales@alaskadispatch.com.