Courtesy Duke Performances

Richmond, V.A.-based jazz ensemble Fight the Big Bull has made a name for itself playing thoroughly inventive big band music with collaborators such as trumpeter Steven Bernstein and clarinetist Karl Blau. This weekend, they’ll perform a series of shows for Duke Performances with Megafaun, Justin Vernon, and Sharon Van Etten based on Alan Lomax’s Sounds of the South, a collection of southern folk recordings that stretches from traditional hymns and raw Mississippi Delta blues to the call-and-response vocal music of the Georgia Sea Islands. Fight the Big Bull’s guitarist and bandleader Matt White spoke to Recess’ Andrew Walker about the upcoming concerts.

How did this collaboration with Megafaun, Justin Vernon, and Sharon Van Etten come about?

I met Megafaun on tour with another band four years ago, and I really hit it off with those guys. We just happened to be playing the same place the same night. Our starting point from the getgo was our love for old gospel and blues like the Staple Singers. Since then, we’ve constantly been talking about finding a way to work together. This project started after Brad [Cook of Megafaun] called me a few months ago and said that Duke was going to allow us to put something together.

In reality I think the source material for our music, even outside this concert series, is southern folk music. It’s not too much of a stress to combine these ensembles, because more or less we’re each pulling from that world anyway. Megafaun and Fight the Big Bull are kind of a match made in heaven, we’re soul brothers.

What is particularly compelling about this music you’re reworking?

All American pop music, from Jay-Z and Beyonce to whatever, comes back to southern folk music. Those are the roots of our culture. We all know how rock and roll shaped American culture, but southern music is the archetype of that. In the concerts you’ll hear everything from literal recreations of the music on Sounds of the South to complete reinterpretations. For me, it’s really interesting to see how much of what we play and listen to comes back to this music. In its purest form, the music that America exports to the rest of the world is southern African-American music. From a historical and cultural sense, it’s really fascinating. But it’s also interesting if you like Stevie Wonder or Duke Ellington or Jay-Z or Notorious B.I.G., because all of that stuff is basically coming from the same place. A lot of that music will be represented in the concert. Don’t expect to hear too much Biggie, though.

How did you come up with the arrangements based on the Alan Lomax recordings?

We met one week in May, we listened to the whole box set, and we pulled out thirteen things that we wanted to turn into performance pieces. Some of these things were certain songs from the collection, others were specific rhythmic or melodic concepts that we wanted to flesh out.  It’s really interesting putting this performance together, because we each have totally different ways of going about things. I’m dealing with these guys in my band that are very functional at reading music, so I charted everything out with full scores. Phil [Cook of Megafaun] or I are arranging most of the songs, and we communicate in a similar way because we’re both basically jazz school nerds. We can really focus on the particulars of harmony and form.

How much space for improvisation are you allowing?

Some parts of the arrangements are through-composed, and some parts are really, really open. Actually Megafaun tends to leave a lot of room for improvisation. It’s a situation for them where they’ve never really had the opportunity to work with horns like this before. They don’t approach them strictly. I know what I want and I lay it out for them, so the charts and the ideas are a lot looser. Although there’s plenty of improvisation, there’s definitely a cohesiveness to the whole performance based on the source material we’re using.

Does each show use different music?

We talked a little bit today about varying the arrangements a bit and trying different things out. There’s a lot of improvisation, so in music like this there’s always the adventure of hearing the way improvisation can take a piece to several different places over the course of a few nights.

Your latest album was a collaboration with David Karsten Daniels, and now you’re doing this set of performances with with Megafaun, Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten. Do you see a lot of overlap between these different indie rock, folk and jazz scenes?

It’s kind of funny how we got into these two things back to back. In January we recorded our record with David, and we just finished touring with him. You know, I don’t go out and try to find these middle-of-the-road rock/folk collaborations, these guys just happen to be my friends. There’s a skillset and a soudset that a lot of people in the rock and roll world don’t have and can’t gain access to. We’ve kind of hit on a little bit of this niche, because we can help people who want this bigger sound.

Musically, there’s only a few mutual interests between the heavily instrumental jazz community and rock and roll kids. One of the things that works well in both worlds is minimalism, stuff like Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Not only do both parties know those names, but each can apply that kind of music in different ways. That’s one thing that I was particularly interested in writing, playing and exploring.

Anything else you’d like to tell our readers about?

Tell all the Duke students I’m a really huge Bobby Hurley fan. When I was in the first grade, I was so into Duke basketball. When he got into that car accident, I cut out his picture and put it on the ceiling of my bunk bed and prayed for him every day.

• The Independent has a locally flavored wrap-up of the end of the aughts, highlighting the top 10 albums and 40 songs (some favorites: Hammer, Red Collar, Megafaun, Bowerbirds, Midtown, Love Language and Bombadil)
• Everyone and Mac McCaughan’s mother at Merge Records has dropped a list over at their blog
• The good folks over at Trekky Records have compiled some really stellar lists in the form of “TRK Best of 2k9″ (My biased favorites: Will Hackney, Clare Connolly, Martin Anderson — Bill Callahan and Mount Eerie!)
• WXDU’s Ross Grady weighed in
• A bunch of people dropped guests lists on Pitchfork, among them lots of Merge Artists (Jeremy Gara, Dan Bejar, etc.) and rising star Chaz Bundick who we caught up with earlier this year
• Karen Mann has her five favorite local releases on her blog
• Megafaun recount some of their favorite things of the year (and release a cover of “I Saw Three Ships”) on Hometapes’ blog as part of the label’s 8 Days of Hometapes
• All Songs Considered (and NPR music) always puts together smart pieces and their year-end list is good, but this map is possibly better

Finally, I just want to throw in Freddy Ruppert’s year-end list because he has some great picks on there, but also because the Former Ghosts’ debut album was really spectacular.

Here’s to 2010.

• Bowerbirds
• Megafaun
• Birds of Avalon
• Red Collar
• The Love Language
• The Future Kings of Nowhere

Also noteworthy (I could go on about all the shows–Pipe!–but Trekky has a good guide here) is the Rock Paper Scissors art/music event Saturday afternoon. If nothing else, you can be a humanitarian and buy some of Red Collar drummer Jonathan Truesdale photos to help him work out some medical bills caused by CMJ (see the story for clarification).

See you at Troika.

[Photo of Bowerbirds in Paris by Oliver Peel. Courtesy Flickr.]

[Photo courtesy flickr.com, by Helena Agmar]