by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

This weekend, Bohemian Caverns hosts its first four-night run by a single artist in recent memory. The man under the spotlight is Christian aTunde Adjuah, whom you probably know as Christian Scott but who altered his name recently in an embrace of his West African heritage. (He’s calling it a “name completion,” rather than a change, since he isn’t fully abandoning Scott.) The trumpeter’s new record, Christian aTunde Adjuah, released at the end of last month, debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Jazz Albums chart.

Those who know aTunde Adjuah’s work will be unsurprised to learn that the latest album is packed with ambition and brio, a two-disc set that spans almost two full hours. It’s also to be anticipated that much of the record’s music — 23 tracks in all — is driven by his strong humanitarian interests. (There are tunes motivated by the Danziger Bridge killings, and Trayvon Martin’s slaying, for instance.)

Christian aTunde Adjuah is also an album of conscientious musical alchemy. The trumpeter was raised by a musical family in New Orleans, where his grandfather was the renowned Black Indian chief Donald Harrison, Sr. Like aTunde Adjuah’s identity, the music of the Black Indian tradition derives from West Africa, and the new album is held together by West African rhythmic patterns, adapted for the drum kit by his quintet’s masterful Jamire Williams. (It makes a lot of sense that these patterns scan as slightly tweaked hip-hop to our American ears.) Some other obvious touchstones are Radiohead and Miles Davis’s late-1960s work.

I sat down with aTunde Adjuah recently in New York City, where he now lives. Here’s a bit of what he had to say about the new album, his childhood in New Orleans and what led him to augment his name.

CapitalBop: The new record, like those that directly preceded it, is full of pieces that meditate on real-life issues of oppression and resilience. Can you talk about the role that these topics play in your music-making?

Christian aTunde Adjuah: Musicians who are really good have a tendency to be able to play things that are really hard without encroaching on an area where you see that they’re struggling. I’m not really interested in you communicating a sentiment to somebody from your comfort zone, because you’re not really communicating. [In the quintet,] we’re dealing with something that is struggling, so it has to sound like struggle. And you don’t get that when you’re in your comfort zone.

Usually guys are like, “Why is Christian cursing on the bandstand?” or “Why’s he scream so loud?” But I can tell when somebody is comfortable, and that makes me uncomfortable – that somebody would be playing music about a certain subject matter from a place of comfort. Because as a conceptualist and as an idea person, then you’re not fully invested in what’s going on right now.

CB: Likewise, do you think it takes a certain level of work and commitment from the listener in order to engage with your music?

CAA: Here’s the thing, man, with all music. [Points at an artwork on the wall.] When you look at this mural, when you look at that there’s a lot of information. But you look at it, you process it, and it’s fairly easy. If we go to an art gallery and there’s something like that, and next to it is a painting that’s all red with one blue dot in it, did it take you much more work to process that? It didn’t. You may be a minutiae person and go through every little layer of the image and try to learn as much as possible, but just like the painting that’s red with the one blue dot in it, if you really look at that, maybe you could learn something and say, “Maybe the brush strokes are wide like someone like Titian.” Maybe they’re the same. There are different ways to look at things….

“I can tell when somebody is comfortable, and that makes me uncomfortable – that somebody would be playing music about a certain subject matter from a place of comfort.”

In context to what your body is actually processing – not what you’re computing, what you’re processing – it’s really not that much of a difference. It depends on how you’re listening to it. Like, when I listen to Kanye West, a song like “Runaway,” that song to me has a lot more layering and is more complex than a lot of shit you might have heard from a fuckin’ West Coast jazz record in 1962. Right? It depends on how you look at it…. It’s a feeling, it’s a sentiment, it is an impression…. I always go to art galleries, and the [pieces] I like, I don’t break down. The ones I dislike, I want to understand why I don’t like them….

CB: Talk about what motivated the name change.

CAA: I wanted to be referred to as something that I thought referenced my real identity politics. My first name, Christian, is a given name…. I like Christian, I like Andre [his middle name], I think those are great names. I don’t mind Scott that bad, really. That doesn’t mean I want to be called that, you know? So I think to be called Christian aTunde Adjuah, it feels right when I hear people say it. I think it’s hard for a lot of white Americans to really imagine every time someone calls your full name, you feeling like, “Wait, really?” They can’t fathom that.

It’s been interesting navigating this experience of explaining to people why I made the change. Because I think a lot of people have kind of perverted and belittling ideas about what goes into that, without taking into account the type of psychological things that are present when you’re constantly being called a name [like Scott] that has such a heavy history.

CB: And the more that you self-educate about your own history…

CAA: It gets heavier. It only gets heavier. I think a lot of people think, “Oh, this is a recent thing,” or, “You only changed it recently.” I pretty much have been thinking about this since I realized that somebody was calling me Scott. I was a kid that knew where the name comes from.

CB: How come?

CAA: My grandfather. His name is Harrison, right? These aren’t West African names, and there’s nothing wrong with them being white American names…. It’s something that I’m willing to accept, but just because I accept it doesn’t mean I have to navigate the world as that.

CB: Family was a big part of your musical development, too. Talk about your uncle and mentor, Donald Harrison, Jr.

CAA: I started studying with him and going and spending the night at his house and staying over there [at age 11], being there early in the morning and stuff. It was hard work because Donald will make you work, but that shit is fun. Just to be around him, man. He’s the shit! … I used to practice five, six, seven hours a day…. Yeah, I could play from an early age, but it was because I was working really hard. I’ve never been the guy that had the natural talent that can hit a fuckin’ super C on command, double tongue and triple tongue and all that…. I wanted to play the saxophone, but I couldn’t play the saxophone because I wanted to play with Donald.

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Christian aTunde Adjuah performs at Bohemian Caverns for four nights, from Thursday through Sunday. Tickets are available here, and more information can be found here.

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