Jayna Nelson: Bloom Of Creation

    The creative process is never a solo journey. Bloom of Creation is the  collaboration of rare souls conversing in the universal language of music.

  This ensemble was an offshoot of John Esposito’s A Book of Five Rings which began as an ESP DISK recording project and later had a short run as a working band at the Knitting Factory, NYC. John had asked me to be one of the central pillars of that octet both as a player and tacitly as the wind section leader.

  This one time performance was captured on DAT tape which mysteriously vanished, reappearing some twelve years later. John and I upon listening to this recording realised there was tremendous magic in that evening and I was of course thrilled when he offered to release it on his label.

   The tune Communion has been included even though it was recorded on John’s portable cassette recorder (placed near the piano) and was not part of the actual performance. It was however the first “conversation”  between John, Francois, Pete and myself during our warm up rehearsal. It was after the last note that  Pete, John and Francois officially introduced themselves  and shook hands. The intimacy  of that first improvisation truly  defined the template for the rest of the evening’s evolution.

   Several of the pieces were formatted conceptually using a visual reference or were drawn from personal stories which were shared and then left to the group to interpret. All of the pieces were totally improvised using no written charts with one exception. After a couple of tunes I asked the members if they’d mind reading something. “Sure—no problem”. I handed out copies of a diagram  from a brain re-patterning book  with the title This Is Tim’s Brain. It showed the two hemispheres of the brain with words defining  which aspects of emotional and cognitive processing occur in each part. I asked Matt and Pete to begin the piece as the left brain… John. Francois and I would then interpret the right side and the goal was to integrate the hemispheres by the end of the piece. No one spoke. We played the page. When we finished, I nodded “That was it!”  It was that kind of band.

   I had hoped to co-create a pure, spontaneous blend of sounds and textures based on trust  in every one’s ability to be truly present with hearts, minds and ears totally open to receive and exchange impressions. I hope that this project meets that criteria for the listener.

  I am so grateful to these amazing musicians for their willingness to meet me on my own terms and for providing the opportunity to create a container for ideas to germinate and evolve. Each brought forward a myriad of diverse skills and experience which deeply informed this final product.

– Jayna Nelson