Matana Robertsprojects

Within this large scale narrative Matana is working on a concept she is devleoping called Panoramic Sound Quilting (PSQ). She is using this concept to build jazz based concert length artistic sound montages called LIFE LINES. She is currently using these concepts to create her in progress familial narrative - COIN COIN.

Coin Coin is an patch work sound quilt broken down by the defining moments of a one group of peoples shared history. It tries to pay homage to lives past but that have amazing stories worth remembering and telling using the traditions of jazz and improvised inspired music as it's medium. Through original compositions and various ensemble configurations Saxophonist/composer Matana is pulling together tales of 7 generations of her own colorful ancestral lore that spans at least 4 continents in order to paint a musical portrait of an extraordinary, yet classic African American history.

The namesake of this project pays homage to Marie Therese "Coin Coin." A woman who is legendary in southern Louisianan American history and folklore and whose "times of yore" influence runs through a segment of Matana's family tree. A child of West African descended slave parents (her mother was thought to be Ewe royalty that was sold into slavery by a rival tribe) Coin Coin was herself in one short lifetime a slave, an obligatory concubine, a mother of 15 children, 10 of which resulted from a slave union to a French man (all of which she eventually bought out of slavery), a medicine woman, a fur trapper, a community leader, a first rate southern griot, and then later a grandmother of 72 grandchildren, owner of more than 1000 acres of land, and ironically a number of slaves. All of this at least 40 years before the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865, and at least over a hundred years before the first waves of the American feminist movement.

Matana Roberts has been hearing the stories of coin coin all of her life, along with anecdotes and legends of other interesting men and women who influenced her genetic line that lived hard precarious lives, but died strong in an effort so that their spirits might carry on in the lives of their descendants. From the heart of French, Irish and British country to the coasts of West Africa, the swamps of Louisiana, the tears shed on marched trails by Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaws, to the musical soundscapes of Memphis's Beale Street, back water Mississippi blues and nomadic hope filled travels to the American Midwest and other lands beyond the spirit crushing "strange fruited" south, Matana breathes a creative life because they all breathed first.

These musical narratives will be directly based on the tales and folk lore that Matana heard constantly while growing up on Chicago's fabled "south side." It will tell the stories and myths of a people that weaved a legacy that grew a tremendous family tree, that despite knarled roots, still remains standing.

Matana Roberts' "Coin Coin" - in essence - a musical monument to the human experience.


For the next few years I am embarking on a rather long term musical narrative project. As a woman dsecended from prisoners of the American slave trade I am lucky in that my ancestors were able to keep really impeccable records of their existence that they were able to pass down many generations. For most African Americans records were never kept or were simply lost. Because I have such a wealth of information I have decided to take these records, along with further research, as well as the stories and folk lorish anecdotes that have been passed down to me and express them through my own personal musical form.
The name of this project is called Coin Coin and it is named after the "nickname" of a woman who played a big part in the ability of my family's survival. I am dividing the anecdotes and history of my family into musical chapters of a sort that are represented by different ensemble configurations. My hope is that one day I will be able to perform the entire narrative with the different ensembles as one large "life cycle". But for now I have been performing the different chapters in separate performances.
Each performance lasts anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes and encompasses written musical notation, graphic notation, improvisation, jazz conceptual techniques, genre specific time period musical details (depending on the chapter) and spoken narrative vocalizations and sometimes movement in order to tell the story.
Coin Coin is broken down into different ensemble configurations to represent the different chapters in Matana's family history. Each ensemble configuration interprets a compositional narrative practice Matana is developing called Panoramic Sound Quilting (PSQ). Each Panoramic Sound Quilt is completely unique to each ensemble configuration and is a sound amagalam of written notation, graphic notation, western harmony, improvisational tecghniques based on the American jazz cannon, as well as compositional techniques unique to the historical period of the narrative section being retold. All PSQ pieces make use of a form of verbal cyclical trance that Matana is currently developing, and some peices use visual conceptualism techniques to weave it all together.
There are 10 chapters in the entire cycle. So far in this musical narrative the chapters that are being workshopped and performed are:

Chapter I - Gens de Couleur Libre (formerly known as Coin Coin: Installation 1)
This introductory chapter deals with Matana's maternal French Louisianan roots, focusing specifically with the years 1742 - 1830and paying homage to the namesake of this project and her history-Marie Therese "Coin Coin".

Chapter II - Mississippi Moonchile
This chapter focuses on Matana's Paternal Canton Mississippi roots, and is very heavily blues based forms.

Chapter III - Illinois Central
This chapter deals with Matana's family migration for the deep American south to points northward. It refers to the name of the rail line that many black folks took upon leaving the south during the Great Migration of the 20's and 30's.

Chapter IV - Trail of A Tear
This chapter deals with Matana's relatives participation on the first United States American Indian removal of the mid 1800's. This work for saxophone, percussion and projections tells the story of a part of the native American heritage of my family tree (Cherokee Choctaw and Chickasaw). Some were participants in the first American Indian removal of the mid 1800's.
My goal is to eventually piece together my entire family story from the info that I have been able to gather a mixture of fact, folklore, and perhaps some fiction to tell a story that many people can seem to relate.
I presented this chapter with great sucess at The Roulette in New York in May and then again at the Moers Festival (in the form of a traditional jazz quintet) in Germany in June 2008.

Chapter V - Black Man
One of the first "picture book" texts that saxophonist Matana.
Roberts was given to read as a child was Joel Augustus Roger's Africa's Gift to America. The first edition originally published in 1961 was created by a man who spent over 50 years devoting his life to research that showed that people of African origin had a history that was an inseparable part of the history of mankind. The quintessential renaissance man, J.A. Rogers was an artist, Pullman porter, journalist, linguist, ardent traveler, author and scholar of the highest degree. Though unable to afford to receive a college education, he created his own scholarship through a voracious reading habit that allowed him to expand his sometimes controversial documentation of the contributions of black folk to AmeriKKKa. His single major mission in life was to affirm the humanity of the African personality, so that young people would have a document to inspire them not to be ashamed of their cultural legacy. Matana Roberts' father was a recipient of this documentation in his youth and was able to pass on this positive piece of important documentation to his children. And so it was.
In this age of fifty bullet armed force dichotomies this chapter of the COIN COIN narrative pays homage to the positive role of black manhood in Matana's life and music. This piece is for mini brass band, percussion, language ensemble and movement master.

Chapter VI - Papa Joe
For reeds and choral ensemble (news soon)

Matana Roberts