Tomeka Reid: The Low Seat, the Long Haul, and 'dance! skip! hop!'

Today, The Tonearm’s needle drops on cellist and composer Tomeka Reid.

Tomeka Reid has spent the last decade building one of the most distinctive voices in creative music. The New York Times called her a "New Jazz Power Source." She's a MacArthur Fellow, a founder of the Chicago Jazz String Summit, and a key collaborator with Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and Craig Taborn, among many others.

Her quartet with guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara just released dance! skip! hop! on Out of Your Head Records. It's their fourth album together, and it shows what twelve years of shared language sounds like: tight, playful, and willing to take chances. She also appears on Dream Archives, Craig Taborn's ECM debut with this instrumentation, recorded in New Haven, Connecticut and out earlier this year.

We talked about the cello's role in jazz, how family history shapes her work, and what it means to lead a band that's been together long enough to surprise itself.

(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from The Tomeka Reid Quartet's album dance! skip! hop!)

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Dig Deeper

Artist and Album

• Visit Tomeka Reid at tomekareid.com and follow her on Instagram and Facebook
• Purchase The Tomeka Reid Quartet's dance! skip! hop! from Out Of Your Head Records, Bandcamp, or Qobuz, and listen on your streaming platform of choice
• Out Of Your Head Records — Tomeka's label for dance! skip! hop!
• Tomeka Reid — MacArthur Foundation Fellow (2022)

Quartet Members

• Jason Roebke — bass, cassette
• Mary Halvorson — guitar
• Tomas Fujiwara — drums

Related Albums and Projects

• 3+3 — Tomeka Reid Quartet (Cuneiform, 2024) — the quartet's previous album
• Dream Archives — Craig Taborn, Tomeka Reid, Ches Smith (ECM, 2026) — Tomeka's ECM debut
• Hear in Now — co-led trio with Mazz Swift and Silvia Bolognesi

Organizations and Festivals

• Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) — the Chicago collective central to Tomeka's artistic development
• Chicago Jazz String Summit — Tomeka's annual festival, founded 2013, dedicated to improvising string players

Musical References and Influences

• Abdul Wadud — jazz cellist and major influence on Tomeka's approach to the instrument
• Stuff Smith — pioneering jazz violinist; referenced in discussion of CJSS repertoire
• Ginger Smock — jazz violinist mentioned in the context of overlooked string player composers
• Diedre Murray — jazz cellist and composer; referenced alongside Stuff Smith

Historical References

• Rock Springs massacre (1885) — the violent attack on Chinese miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, which Tomeka mentions in the context of her grandmother's family history in the region
• Fred Anderson — Chicago jazz saxophonist and founder of the Velvet Lounge, where Tomeka met mentor Clarence James
• The Velvet Lounge, Chicago — legendary South Side jazz venue where Tomeka came up (verify whether Wikipedia article exists under this exact title)

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