Resilient Hope: A Conversation with Caroline Davis on ‘Alula: Captivity’

The alula, sometimes called the bastard wing, is a small but important bone on a bird’s wing that plays an essential role in flight. It is a fitting name for Caroline Davis’ electro-acoustic outings as her use of samples lifts the ensemble from more traditional moorings. But what happens when these appendages are fractured? How does one’s spirit continue to soar when their circumstances confine them to a small cage? These are the weighty questions tackled on Davis’ Alula: Captivity (Ropeadope, 2023) and its dialogue on the modern prison industrial complex. 

It is easy for a cynic to view Alula: Captivity as just a clinical exploration by Davis in the intersection of psychology and music. After all, the saxophonist has a doctoral degree in music cognition. But it’s critical to note the personal emotional connections she ties into these subjects. 

Her first release as a leader, Heart Tonic (Sunnyside, 2018) addressed general concepts of the mental toll of relocation as much as her closely held concerns about her father’s heart ailment. Portals Vol. 1: Mourning  (Sunnyside, 2021) addresses general issues of loss, but is intimately tied to her own emotions upon her father’s death. One cannot fully appreciate Davis’ work in addressing psychological matters through music without exploring her personal connection to the subject matter. Alula: Captivity is no different in these regards as it reflects both the impact incarceration of a family member had on her life and the relationships she has formed with current and former inmates over the years. 

Davis’ passion for the subject matter is evident across the album’s tracks. Often, her alto sounds like dulcet bird calls. Sometimes her tone sings clearly through, perhaps evoking hope for a brighter future. At some moments, as in “and yet it moves”, the leader even provides lines reminiscent of Charlie Parker – “Bird” – who himself had to face captivity due to substance abuse problems. But at other moments on the record, her calls are met with electronic and percussive fury, signifying the bird’s recognition that its clipped wings and caged surroundings keep it from soaring. The captured monologues by Sandra Bland, Keith Lamar, and Jalil Muntaquim, among others make it clear the bird’s confinement is as much from steel bars as it is the composite of racial and economic inequality, an overly aggressive police state, an deemphasis on forgiveness, mental health issues, and mistaken choices. Thus, Alula: Captivity thrives largely due to its ability to use the unique elements from its confluence of jazz, electronic, and contemporary classical to underscore critical social issues often ignored by mainstream society. 

PostGenre: Alula: Captivity is your second album with a band of that name. The first Alula was a trio with Matt Mitchell and Gregory Saunier. This second features an entirely different group of musicians – you with Val Jeanty, Chris Tordini, and Tyshawn Sorey. What is the connection between the two recordings?

Caroline Davis: We recorded the first Alula in 2019 and had several dates scheduled before the pandemic hit. Both recordings share an electronic component. There’s always an electric processing of sound through synthesis or with my saxophone in the form of pedals. Or, sometimes, I use the Organelle [ed. a music computer], which runs on pure data. In live shows, I also play a little synthesizer. Though, of course, on [Alula: Captivity], Val Jeanty is triggering all of the samples. The band name Alula comes from a group of bones and feathers on most birds. They help birds take off, glide in the sky, and land. I was trying to utilize that concept to have electronics and processing be a part of the sound of this band. 

PG: What was your process for selecting samples? 

CD: Some of the samples deeply influenced me. One good example of this is the clip of Sandra Bland. I listen to many Sandra Bland videos on YouTube where she speaks about mental health. We used some of her thoughts in the video on racial and class inequities in the album. I appreciated her candidness. 

PG: You also used a clip of Keith Lamar, with whom you have a more personal connection.

CD: Yes, that sample was from a talk Keith gave over Zoom to a university during the pandemic. The Zoom call happened shortly before I was about to record this album, so it wasn’t something I listened to over and over before incorporating it into the music. Given Keith’s situation, there were many negative things he could have focused on, but he was hopeful and grateful to be alive. 

We also used a clip of Jalil Muntaqim, who is also a friend now. There are several documentaries and interviews with him on YouTube that we were able to use. Jalil was famously a part of the Black Panther Party. In the clip we used, he was also hopeful about getting out of prison, getting involved with the community, and working towards peace on the outside. 

PG: You also used the album to represent incarcerated people who died long ago. 

CD: Right. One example is how I reflect on two women who were burnt at the stake in the 1300s. There’s no recording of them, but we used one of Lorraine Hansberry’s speeches from the Town Hall forum. I think some of the other people who were there with her in the 60s were Sidney Poitier, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, and Ruby Dee. She talked about sacrificing comforts in life to support a larger struggle. Lorraine died when she was thirty-four and fought so hard. In the speech we sampled, she also discusses integration and segregation and what Black people needed to do to take back power. 

PG: Were the references to these women, Galileo, and Sojourner Truth done primarily to suggest that many issues they dealt with as incarcerated people have not changed that much since hundreds of years ago? 

CD: All of the people I wrote album pieces for were incarcerated. Galileo was incarcerated for the last few years of life. What I wanted to show was that all these people, regardless of the time they lived in, never gave up hope. They were resilient and almost reached a point of freedom through their work. Sandra Bland, for one, still communicated a message to all of us, and we’re still living on that message. I feel like the resilience of her message lives on so strongly for so many people. 

PG: This is your first social justice focused album. Why did you feel now was the right time to go in that direction? 

CD: During the pandemic, I think many of us came to terms with things about ourselves. I started looking further inward and realized how significantly my uncle’s incarceration impacted my family. My uncle was incarcerated in Sweden my entire childhood. In Sweden, incarcerated people were given a pass for a day. When we would meet with him, it would be at my aunt’s house with a parole officer. On one of those days we met with him, my uncle played my saxophone, and he sounded really beautiful. But the whole experience tore my family apart in a very specific way. My grandmother never spoke with my uncle again after he was incarcerated. 

Thinking about my uncle’s incarceration made me decide to try to connect with incarcerated people in this country. I started writing letters to political prisoners to try to connect with them. Jalil was one of those people, given his association with the Black Panther Party. I wrote to him, and he got back to me. We forged a friendship and kept in touch. He was so inspiring to me. I also became friends with Keith, who is still incarcerated in Ohio. I’ve also visited him in prison a few times. Keith is incredibly inspiring in his resilience in trying to get freedom. I learned so much from the people I corresponded with and tried to relate their stories to my own personal hardship and my family situation. 

PG: Do you feel anything from the letter correspondences with Jalil and Keith can be heard in things like note selections and other compositional aspects beyond the obvious audio samples?

CD: Absolutely. In his writings to me, Jalil often made it seem like he was living in this other world of freedom and knowing he was going to get out of prison and live his best life. And, it ultimately happened. It is like he manifested it into being. The composition dedicated to him, “synchronize my body where my mind had always been”, is the most angular composition on the record. I purposely wrote the piece that way because of the things he wrote to me about in the letters where he showed strength in the circumstances. 

I did similar things with other pieces as well. Joyce Ann Brown was incarcerated for a long time – nine years- for crimes she did not commit. She was wrongfully convicted of murder and stealing a fur coat. She fought incredibly hard to exonerate herself and ultimately did. But she often had a very carefree attitude about everything, even as she spent so many years advocating for policy changes in prison and trying to help people. I wanted the piece dedicated to her, “the promise i made you”, to have a lightness. I wrote that piece and the solo sections a little more groovy and tonal than on other parts of the album to capture her carefree attitude. 

PG: By extension, in referring to Brown and others who have worked towards prison reform, Alula: Captivity is a project aimed towards the same ends. In that sense, it is a political work, but one in a long history of “jazz” political protest pieces. Where do you see Alula: Captivity within that lineage?

CD: There is so much history to politically focused jazz works. Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” Carmen McRae’s “Suppertime.” [Charles] Mingus’s “Fables of Faubus.” Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” and “Revolution.” John Coltrane’s “Alabama.” Then, of course, so many works by Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Archie, and Charlie Haden. Even today, you have Christian Scott – Chief Adjuah as he goes by now – with “KKPD” and Ambrose [Akinmusire] with “”Rollcall for Those Absent.” I certainly see a lot of those works as informing this album. Many other people outside of jazz, like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Johnny Cash, Wayne Kramer, and Aloe Blacc also influenced the project. The rapper Noname has released incredible politically-minded music. John Legend has even done some work concerning mass incarceration. And then there are so many more I don’t even know about. 

PG: It is really interesting how someone closer to the issue – some of the artists you mention, Joyce Ann Brown, or yourself – is often so passionate about the issue of prison reform, while the average person seems to know very little about the topic.

CD: I think most people are very uneducated about incarceration. They don’t even know how many people are in prison. There are around two million incarcerated people in this country. That is the highest number in any country. 

I also feel that forgiveness is far too often overlooked in conversations about incarceration. I read something recently about a survey of people who were the victims and the families of victims of people wronged by those incarcerated. The survey asked if the victims and their families would forgive the perpetrator. A majority of those asked said they would forgive that person and didn’t want them to be in prison anymore. You wouldn’t know that from how most people discuss incarceration. Many people think those in prison deserve to just stay there forever. But many incarcerated people are the victims of bad circumstances and one mistake. Many incarcerated people need help, whether mental health services or addiction therapy. But forgiveness is such an important thing, and we need more of it. 

PG: Is that what you see as the primary goal of the abolitionist movement; moving to a more restorative and forgiveness-based model than a punitive one?

CD: Yeah, I think so. A friend of mine who is still serving told me a recent story about someone who went to the bathroom and smeared feces all over their cell. That person needs help. But instead of finding him help, we treat someone like him as untouchable. We lock them up and ignore them. We almost forget they even exist once they are locked up. They’re forgotten people. And many prisons are horrible places. 

PG: Do you feel like things are improving, even slightly? It certainly seems that criminal justice reform has been a more prominent topic of conversation in the last few years, with even someone like Kim Kardashian getting involved. But is the increased discussion changing anything of substance?

CD: It’s interesting because Kardashian saved some people from being executed, which is great. But what happened to them after their stay of execution? A life sentence? Life with parole? Meanwhile, the conditions in many prisons are continuing to get worse, which is very concerning. 

In terms of prison reform, certain advocacy groups are working to improve things. I have been involved with an organization in New York called 13th Forward, which is trying to amend the 13th Amendment [to the US Constitution] to remove involuntary servitude for prisoners. Hopefully, that will help with prison labor because there is a major problem currently with incarcerated people not getting paid for work they do in prison for private companies. I think we need to focus on improving the conditions for incarcerated people, including the food they are eating, the conditions of the cell, the lack of air conditioning, the lack of toilet paper, and abusive guards. There is still a lot to be done. 

‘Alula: Captivity’ is now available on Ropeadope Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. You can learn more about Davis on her website.

Photo Credit: John Rogers