JASON KAO HWANG/MTHS OF ORIGIN
After a solo adventure, Jason Kao Hwang trades the violin for the baton to focus on collective improvisation in Myths of Origin
António Branco, jazz.pt
(google translation)
A 2022-2023 Pew Research Center study shows that one-third of Asian adults say they personally know an Asian person in the United States who has been threatened or attacked due to racial or ethnic issues since COVID-19 turned our world upside down in 2020. Since then, reports of discrimination and violence against Asian Americans have increased, as if blaming them for the potential ground zero of the pandemic's Big Bang; English-speaking Asian adults are also more likely than other racial or ethnic groups to say they have changed their daily routines due to concerns about being threatened or attacked. This reality is very much on the mind of the violinist, violist, and composer. Jason Kao Hwang (b. 1957), who has just added a new chapter to a truly interesting career with Myths of Origin (For Improvising String Orchestra and Drum Set), an album recorded live at Roulette, Brooklyn, New York, during the 2022 edition of the Vision Festival. "Myths of Origin challenges mainstream society's persistent fetish for Orientalist fantasies, a history inextricably intertwined with unconscious biases that can, as evidenced by the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic, evolve into explicitly racist violence," explains Hwang. For the author, the new album "creates a unique language, free from the expectations of ethnicity and gender, to revolutionize our relationships with one another." The musician uses a lexicon of gestures to guide and enhance improvisations that involve his annotated score. "The musicians infuse their individuality into a flow of spontaneous moments that illuminate the "The possibilities of the journey ahead, revealing truths about who we can become," adds the musician. "To be transformed by possibilities based on truth is to transcend all myths of origin." The son of Chinese parents from Hunan who emigrated to the United States at the end of World War II, Jason Kao Hwang is a highly experienced musician who has built a unique body of work, playing on various boards, both in projects he spearheaded and in collaboration with key figures in jazz and related improvised music of recent decades, such as Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, and William Parker. "For children of war survivors, there are conversations with our parents we wish we had but couldn't. I often wonder about my parents' vague allusions to the atrocities they survived in China during World War II, "Because his trauma was far greater than I can imagine, even now, more than twenty years after his death," Hwang told jazz.pt in 2024. A central aspect of his approach is the way he explores the wide range of sonic possibilities offered by the combination of elements from the stylistically less confined jazz, free improvisation, contemporary classical music, and ancient Chinese culture. His extraordinary technique was revealed in the very first exercises he undertook when he joined the bustling New York scene in the late 1970s, in intercultural dynamics, accompanying the dance productions of choreographer Theodora Yoshikami at the Basement Workshop in Chinatown with his loftmate, the multi-instrumentalist Will Connell. Jason Kao Hwang's unique approach to composition and instruments, to which he dedicates his patient labor, is reflected in works for various instrumental configurations, from small ensembles to an opera, *The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown*. He debuted his approach to conducting an improvised orchestra in 2011's *Symphony of Souls* with the ensemble Spontaneous River and has refined similar concepts in the various chamber groups he has led over the years. In recent years, Jason Kao Hwang has released a number of significant albums, which jazz.pt has been reporting on: in 2018, *Blood*, the second album from the Burning Bridges project, was released; the following year, the musician presented *Conjure*, a duo with pianist and vibraphonist Karl Berger; in 2020, he released the debut album by the Human Rites Trio, with bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Andrew Drury; and in 2022, *Uncharted Faith*, a duo with electronics manipulator J.A. Deane, now deceased. In 2023, it was time to release Book of Stories, the debut of the trio Critical Response, formed by Hwang, guitarist Anders Nilsson, and drummer Michael T.A. Thompson. In 2024, he brought us Soliloquies, an entire album of solo violin pizzicato—a technique often relegated to occasional effects by classicism—challenging both himself and his listeners. After this solo adventure, Hwang trades the violin for the baton to focus on the fascinating possibilities of collective improvisation. "Myths of Origin" demonstrates a malleable aesthetic, which includes written orchestral passages, improvised solos, and orchestral-led improvisations, guided by an intuitive gestures that shapes the musical flow, granting creative freedom to bring out their creative personalities, balancing the individual and collective dimensions. In this orchestra he now directs, figures such as violinists Charles Burnham, Ben Sutin, Gwen Laster, Tom Swafford, Mark Chung, and Gabby Fluke-Mogul are featured; on viola, Pete Lanctot and Eric Salazar are crucial. Also noteworthy are the presence of Tomas Ulrich on cello, Che Chen, Anders Nilsson, and Hans Tammen on guitars, Ken Filiano on double bass, and Andrew Drury on drums—almost all members of the ensemble Spontaneous River, many of whom are also regulars in Hwang's bands. The inaugural "The Collapse of Gravity," a collective improvisation, begins with a drum spasm, followed by another, and another, triggering an ethereal blanket of strings, from which small phrases and fleeting motifs rise. The ancient sounds of Japanese gagaku are evoked, evolving into a cosmopolitan amalgam of cultural references—jazz, music, contemporary, challenging the conventional hierarchies of East and West, contemporary and ancient, composed and improvised. "Spin Fast and Burn" features an Eastern-inspired melody, around which many interventions gravitate, including those of Anders Nilsson's electric guitar. "Multiply and Rise" is energetic and vibrant, with swirling strings and a luminous funk groove that invites you to shake your body and soul. "Dust Gathers Around Sleep" envelops us in a lively atmosphere, with the melody expounded in unison by violinist Elena Moon Park and cellists Dara Bloom, Kirin McElwain, Lester St. Louis, and Tomas Ulrich. In "Landmarks Vanish," multiple string instruments intertwine their lines in a piece of unsettling atmosphere; guitar and drums dialogue over a constantly metamorphosing base. In "Where Fools Fear," a lively groove takes hold, and "Ancestors of Light" appears enveloped in an almost cinematic aura; Che Chen's guitar is prominent, melodious, in dialogue with violists Ginger Dolden and Pete Lanctot. "Anthem of Knowing" brings back blues reminiscences, seasoned with Eastern ingredients. A filigree composition, "Never Forgotten" is an epilogue that calls us to defy oblivion. So that hatred and barbarity are no longer the norm.