Letting the Silence In: A Conversation with Nate Wooley

Louis Armstrong once noted that “music is life itself.” Expression through sound is a requisite and inescapable part of human existence. But life, at least on this planet, is not eternal. Thus, death and remembrance are also inherently reflected in music. Even Satchmo himself recognized this, with his famous cover of “St. James Infirmary” speaking of the death of a lover. But when is something truly at its end? In the words of Irving Berlin, “the song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” And what should we do with the gifts artists of the past have left behind for the rest of us? Should we merely adopt the ideas of those we honor and present them as they were before, or should we adapt them and continue the language our predecessors forged? Any serious reflection leads to the latter. Replication is the easiest of the two routes to follow, particularly when the hero followed is a romanticized and idolized figure to whom we have no direct personal connection. But mere recreation of past greatness does nothing to further the path once forged by the fallen. Where one has a personal connection to the subject, mere copycatting is especially disrespectful as it reflects a caricature of a friend rather than reality. And so a faithful tribute does not mirror the deceased but tries to present the essence of the true creative inheritances left behind. This is where Nate Wooley and Columbia Icefield’s A Silence Opens (Out of Your Head, 2026) stands out; it is a deeply moving tribute to both Ron Miles and Susan Alcorn that honors both in the fullest sense.

A Silence Opens began life as a record of Miles’s compositions. The impact of Miles on Wooley went far beyond a stylistic approach, a compositional idea, or a particular sound. They even go beyond music itself. Hearing Miles’s music for the first time changed a teenage Wooley’s musical trajectory, opening him up to new sonic possibilities. In the years that followed, Miles became a mentor, informal teacher, and friend. As Wooley told us back in 2022, above all else, Miles taught him to be a better human. He even credits Miles with saving his life. And so, even putting aside Wooley’s own experimental interests, one could not conceivably expect a straight-ahead recreation of pieces from albums ranging from Distance for Safety (Prolific, 1987) to Old Main Chapel (Blue Note, 2024). Such would be insulting to both the performer and the composer. 

Instead, Wooley and his bandmates use Miles’s compositional frameworks as a starting point for branching out further. The cool mid-tempo “Howard Beach” is given a sparse bluesy elegance on Wooley’s horn before meeting the sharp edges of Ava Mendoza’s electric guitar and the rhythmic propulsiveness of drummer Ryan Sawyer. The thrashing “You Taste” retains its initial attitude – including distorted horn and rapid fire runs on guitar – but only after a gorgeously spacious and exploratory journey on pedal steel. The original balladry of “Darken My Door” begins with lyricless humming and fervent maracas that ultimately give rise to an aura of dystopian dizziness.

But something happened on the way to creating a stellar tribute to Ron Miles. With about half of the album complete, Susan Alcorn passed away as well. Alcorn’s pedal steel guitar unquestionably lies at the heart of Columbia Icefield’s distinctive sound. A trio of trumpet, electric guitar, and drum masters is compelling enough, but Alcorn’s unique voice propelled the band to a different level entirely. Her amazing solo on “You Taste” makes this clear, as does the mysterious apparitional murmurs and decaying echoes at the opening of “We Say Goodbye Twice.” But, like Miles, Alcorn was more than just a gifted artist. She was a kind person who looked beyond the notes and towards how they can be used to better the world. Her album Canto (Relative Pitch, 2023) was one of the best albums of the last few years, not only because of the music contained therein but also its unavoidable yearning for human improvement. In fact, on a personal note, the one time this author interviewed Alcorn, we spent as much time talking about things other than music – parenthood, her years as an educator, and life in Texas – as we did her recording. Her warmth as a person shone through our phone call as clearly as each note on her instrument. Her incredible work on A Silence Opens leaves listeners with a special final opportunity to witness her spirit and skillfulness.

But based on purely logistical considerations, Alcorn’s passing also created a logistical problem for Wooley. How could he honor her, too, on an album that is likely her final work? He could have split the album in two, with the first half consisting of Miles’s pieces and the second Alcorn’s. From her gorgeous tribute to Astor Piazzolla on Soledad (Relative Pitch, 2015) to the compelling originals on Pedernal (Relative Pitch, 2020), there was certainly enough material to work with. Instead, Wooley brilliantly went in the opposite direction. He took a single piece that truly spoke to Alcorn – Victor Jara’s “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz” and interspersed five different versions of it throughout the album.

The initial version of “El Derecho” finds Wooley’s lonesome whistling, evoking a desolation reminiscent of what one may hear in a Morricone soundtrack of a man about to meet his end. The breaths between whistles are both humanizing and muffled. Something familiar but not necessarily comforting. The second turns into a mournful lyricized edition that suggests the peace the song aims for in this world, but may not be fully attainable until the next. The third finds a full choir of some of Alcorn’s closest colleagues – her bandmates along with friends Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock, Wendy Eisenberg, gabby fluke-mogul, Laura Ortman, and Patrick Holmes. It reflects both those left behind when one passes and how some part of the deceased never truly and fully departs. The fourth is a self-created trumpet choir that can move beyond feelings of depression and towards a regal celebration in remembrance. The closing version returns to whistling, but now with a sense of acceptance amidst a sea of whirled silence.

Each version of “El Derecho” is directly woven into Miles’s pieces, making it often difficult to tell when one ends and another begins. In not isolating the two parts of the album, Wooley underscores the album as a singular form. But he also makes a poignant statement on two themes that have guided Columbia Icefield throughout its existence: the relationship between humanity and nature, and the universality of folk music; the connections between people. Ultimately, both relationships inevitably change, and both invariably end. With A Silence Opens as the band’s final statement, Wooley suggests there are universal mysteries that may transcend what we see and hear and yet unite us all nonetheless. It speaks to something larger than us, than a band, or than a specific recording. Columbia Icefield will be missed, but one cannot think of a finer requiem for the band.

PostGenre: First, congratulations on the recent announcement that you will be the director of Pyroclastic Records. What interested you in taking that position, and  any thoughts on what you have planned for the label?  

Nate Wooley: I had no real ambition to become artistic director at Pyro or anywhere else. Kris [Davis] was stepping down after ten years, and much of my day work has been non-profit and record label adjacent. I have done a lot of publishing with Sound American and with my own records, so I’ve been on both sides of the process for at least the last twenty years. Because of that experience, the label asked if I’d apply for the job. I thought a long time about it; it’s not an easy position, and after having a few years of being able to concentrate on my own work, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to that kind of administrative role. But I really believe in what Pyroclastic can represent, its possibility of introducing listeners to music that takes chances and supporting artists as they take those chances. And if there is a chance that my experience can help keep that possibility alive, then it is worth the work.

Everyone wants there to be huge changes when a new face gets behind a label or publication or venue. To be honest, much of what Pyro is doing is fine as it is; it just needs quiet support. My ultimate hope for the label is that people forget that I’m the artistic director, and it develops a relationship for being a label that fosters community by giving musicians a place to realize their biggest dreams, an organization that has a reputation of being ethical, transparent, and fair, and a team that cares about its artists and the musical scene at large.

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PG: The record label itself can have a significant impact on how a work is shared with listeners. It is worth noting that each of the Columbia Icefield records has been released on a different label – Northern Spy, Pyroclastic, and now A Silence Opens is coming out on Out of Your Head Records. Do you feel the different labels can be felt on their respective records in some tangible way?

NW: The different labels have really been a product of necessity. Each record has had a somewhat difficult birth, and it’s been serendipitous that Northern Spy, then Pyro, then the fellas at Out of Your Head have stepped up and said “We believe in this record.” I’m really thankful for the energy they’ve all put into helping me put the music out in the way I envision it. Each record has had a different look–that is probably the biggest difference–but all three labels (and I have to give a special shout out to OOYH for really bending over backward) have been really thoughtful and flexible in balancing their aesthetics with what the record seems to need visually and concretely as a release.

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PG: In general, Columbia Icefield had a focus on nature and place on the first two albums. The third one is more focused on personal loss and memory. Does the emphasis on nature carry through in some subtle way as well?

Well, the project has always had a focus on humans in nature, and that’s an important distinction, one I haven’t always articulated very well. The first record was really an attempt to capture the feeling of being a single, small, erasable being in confrontation with something huge and imposing, but also, sadly, erasable. The second record is about the human personality that attempts to get through life without somehow touching it, touching other people, touching nature, or the natural world in any way. And this record brings us back to that feeling of erasability in the face of the cycle of nature, our inevitably destructible selves, and their place within an inevitably destructible, changeable, natural world.

PG: The title itself of A Silence Opens feels both literal and metaphorical, especially given the themes on the record. How is silence, both musically and emotionally, most reflected in the record?

NW: It’s literal and metaphorical–and literary–as it is a line from an Amy Clampitt poem, and I want to make sure she gets her due for that turn of phrase.

Of all my recent projects, Columbia Icefield probably has the least objectively measurable space in it, but I’ve always felt like that music embraces a certain quality of silence, if not a quantity. There are different kinds of silence to each of us, depending on our disposition and our history. To me, CIF’s silence is of the type I inhabited growing up. I was an only child, growing up in a small town where there was plenty of time to be lost in your own thoughts or otherwise being surrounded by my grandmother and great aunts, who were quietly bustling around, always in motion. I think that quality of silence is what is musically at play on this record and in CIF’s history in general. There is a lot of activity going on in the band, but the music is structured in a way–and the players are so virtuosic–that it/they can find a way to be peacefully in constant motion.

Metaphorically, the silence refers to our collective loss of unique voices. Primarily, it was meant to mourn the fact that I won’t get to hear Ron Miles anymore. And then, of course, that same mourning had to be widened to include Susan when she passed away. And then, on a meta level, these are the last sounds that we will hear from Columbia Icefield. The good thing about silence being created, though, is that the vacuum fills with new sounds and new voices. We can remember the old fondly while being happy that there is always something to keep our minds, hearts, and ears full. So hopefully the record balances the loss with some sense of hope.

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PG: That balancing of hope and mourning would also seem tied to how you plan to honor the person who has been lost. There is a beautiful quote from you in the liner notes to A Silence Opens that says, “We can pay homage in so many ways, but simply reproducing the surface markers of what defined the person we’ve lost is not enough. We need to find something in our music that responds to the soul of our lost ones, not merely the practiced movement of fingers or the written strokes of a favorite tune.” Is it difficult to find something that responds with the lost one’s soul while still retaining yourself in the music?

NW: If it is difficult, then I think that person didn’t have the effect on you that you think they did. If all you got from them is summed up in an attempt to play exactly like them, then you didn’t really take the time to try to understand who they were as a person or as a musical thinker. You didn’t understand what they were trying to tell you. That’s not to say there aren’t elements of mimesis here–we’re playing Ron’s tunes, and I find that some of my solos have a bit of his lyricism that isn’t typically in my playing–but the true homage is to find our own way of creating that rare feeling of joy that Ron’s records give. Have you listened to Woman’s Day (Gramavision, 1997)? It makes you smile. Not because it is sappy or makes you want to dance, but because there is real, unmediated, and pure human joyfulness in that music. Even when it’s aggressive or full of sadness, there is that feeling of love of life. It’s so complex because it is so real. So we play his music in our way, but we honor his spirit by trying to keep our version of that complexity of feeling at the front of our minds.

And there are a few moments where that really happens. Listen to Susan’s solo on the last tune on the record. I’ve heard it two dozen times now, and I cry every time. Not because she’s gone (although of course I feel that) but because it’s so happy. It’s just a total god damn romp, and I can see the look of joy on her face as she’s playing.

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PG: As far as Ron’s compositions, they make up a third of the tracks on A Silence Opens. When we last spoke in 2022, we had discussed the influence he had on you. Four years later, do you feel your perspective on his work has changed at all?

NW: Everything on the record, with the exception of the “El Derecho”s for Susan, is related to Ron. They are either his compositions, pieces I heard him play a lot, or, in one case, a piece of mine based on a certain way of thinking I felt he had. A lot of the answer to this is contained above, I think, but maybe it’s worth saying that, four years later, I still miss him, and I still feel that more people need to hear his music and understand what a unique voice he had.

That being said, with time and with age, there has been a shift in perspective. I think when we’re younger–and perhaps right when we lose someone, and that wound is raw–we search for attributes of the person that we can overtly digest: a way of dressing, a verbal affectation, a posture, a sound concept, a lick. I definitely felt the draw of that in the days after Ron’s passing. As time moves on, and we hopefully deepen our relationship to their memory, the person becomes a different type of model, one that is less obvious and less articulable. At this point, my friendship with Ron has most affected the way I try to be as a human being towards other human beings. His example has (hopefully) made me more humble, and I think he’s changed my relationship to what it means to be “successful.”

PG: What about the decision to include ‘Wildwood Flower’ on the album?

NW: That was one of Ron’s favorite tunes. He recorded it at least once, I think, on a trio record that may be a deep dive for people who know him from his Blue Note stuff. When I moved to Denver, Shane Endsley and I would drive all over the place, every weekend, to all these horrible, bougie cigar bars to watch Ron play with his trio. During that period, he was often playing one tune for a whole set, stretching things as far as they could go, and a lot of times, the tune he played was “Wildwood Flower.” So that melody is just kind of wrapped around my memory of him.

PG: You mentioned how the inclusion of “El Derecho” on the album was to honor Susan and that works well given her work with nueva canción – actually, Susan’s one interview for PostGenre was tied to the excellent Canto (Relative Pitch, 2023)- but what led the decision to have five different versions of the piece on the album?

NW: When Susan died, I went for a walk so I could deal with that in the way that made sense for me. I hum when I’m stressed out or depressed. It’s a tic I picked up from my grandmother. As I walked, I hummed and listened to the birds and the trees and cars and people in my neighborhood. As I let the sadness consume me, I concentrated on my humming more and more. It started to feel like that was a form of communication to Susan. We always had more of a sound [based] relationship than a verbal one, and so maybe that just felt like us picking up our friendship in the way I knew we felt most comfortable.

I tried to remember what I was humming, but whatever melody I came up with was hollow. There was some feeling that there was a melody that needed to be sung for her, but at that point, I wasn’t sure the record would come out at all. I couldn’t even listen to Susan’s playing for months. I didn’t want to talk about her. I didn’t want to “process.” I just wanted there to be my humming and to suffer the silence of her being gone. At some point, although I was sort of (thankfully) pushed into dealing with that loss by friends and the other members of the band. I put on Canto, and that Victor Jara tune just stuck out. I began humming it, and it felt right.

But I’m not the only one mourning, right? I’m not so solipsistic to think that my sadness is the correct quality of sadness. And so I set about different ways of “humming” that tune, in hopes that there would be one in there that let someone else mourn her passing in the way that they needed to. And that’s why I tried to set the tune in ways that may have meaning to different listeners. I’m especially happy that we could get so many of her friends into the studio for a day to just sing that melody. That was a special experience, and that was a way that we could talk about Susan and be together singing a song that she loved.

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PG: So the choice to have both the opening and ending versions of “El Derecho” be you humming and tapping was not a way to reflect something circular about life?

NW: It was a way of having a personal moment of mourning for Susan on a recording that has a lot of mourning for Ron. In a way, it’s a contrived version of that walk on the day she died. I wanted my body to be heard without the trumpet. We forget sometimes that musicians have bodies that feel things and that they can express those feelings without having to resort to the Western musical tradition. Sometimes the sound of feet on floor or skin on skin, the sound of whistling or breathing or humming is a way of saying “Here I am, and I’m making myself vulnerable in the best way I know how so you can know that I love you.”

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PG: What do you feel you learned the most from working with Susan?

NW: I think everyone in the band found her desire to push herself inspiring. She was always looking for something new, some way of broadening her own playing, some manner of developing new or more refined techniques. And the joy. Even though she could be very self-critical after a show or recording, during the playing, there was always a sense of abandon and play and pure happiness.

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PG: Any favorite stories or memories of her?

NW: Maybe not what you’re looking for: a sad story, or a regret at least. Susan and I weren’t always patient with each other. And on a long drive back from [Festival International de Musique Actuelle (FIMAV)] in Canada, she, Ryan Sawyer and I were talking about who we thought the best living American writers were (not a standard conversation from us, don’t worry, we’re not that pretentious), and Susan chimed in with Kim Stanley Robinson. I think my response, sadly, was “the Mars guy? Fuck that.” We argued for a while without malice, and then the conversation moved on to other things. But I was already regretting how quick I had been to dismiss her opinion.

A few months later, I read a Kim Stanley Robinson book–maybe as an atonement–and it was great. I’m not sure I would say he’s the best American living author, but I definitely owed her an apology. I picked up my phone to text and tell her I was wrong, and that’s when I noticed the sea of texts telling me she had passed. A few months later, and this is not a normal thing for me, I had a dream where Susan and I were just hanging out all day near a lake, talking. And as the dream was ending, she said, “I still stand behind Kim Stanley Robinson.” I still regret not apologizing to her for that (and probably a lot of other times that I was bull-headed with her as well).

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PG: A Silence Opens is fantastic as an experience to listen to, start to finish, without pause. Did you always intend to craft the album in this way? What do you feel is lost in the fact that society is so rare these days in approaching the album as a singular cohesive whole?

NW: It’s so nice of you to say that. I’m never sure if my aversion to the “single” makes the record better or worse. It probably makes it less saleable, but at this point, I guess I’ve given up on being a millionaire. This record, even before El Derecho was added, was going to be one continuous flow between the four main pieces using solo improvisations, in the way that it is sort of set up now (with the El Derechos in between now) because that’s the way we played it live. So I guess I always thought of it as a kind of long narrative.

I think it’s increasingly hard to sit with something and be okay with the fact that we may not like a part of it or that we may feel some boredom when the music isn’t our favorite thing. I understand that problem, and I feel it myself sometimes. But taking the time to sit and listen for more than seven minutes has some benefits. Slowing down with the possibility of being bored opens up a vacuum that lets new ideas in or lets other anxieties out. I love an orchestra concert of light classical music, because my mind goes in and out of focus with the music, and I get some of my best ideas. The other benefit is the development of empathy. We’re so deeply involved in making sure that everything in our life is curated for maximum personal pleasure that we forget that what we’re hearing, reading, seeing is the product of the effort of someone who had the gumption, the gall, to make something. Sitting and listening through will change the way you hear, but it is also an act of kindness toward the stranger who put all that energy into it, as well as a way of celebrating the radical act of making something and giving it away.

PG: Although A Silence Opens is Columbia Icefield’s final album, the band’s membership has also changed over the years, specifically, in the switch in guitarists. How do you feel switching the part from Mary to Ava most changes the band’s sound?

NW: It’s a hard question to answer. They are both so different. I am attracted to their confidence in their language and their aggression. But they each have their own timbre of aggression somehow: Ava’s is more up front, whereas Mary’s spreads itself out and intermeshes with all the sound around her. Ava interacts with Ryan, Susan, and me in a different way as well, and we respond differently. This is really more of a rock record in a way because of Ava’s sound on it, and I think that’s kind of the perfect thing for this particular music.

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PG: With Columbia Icefield ending, what shape do you think your interest in folk music will take going forward?  

NW: That’s a good question, and I think you (maybe consciously?) set me up to bring things full circle. Strong interviewer work! My fascination with folk music now is centered around how we tell stories, and in that quality of silence that we started out talking about. A new piece, called “After Nan Shepherd,” takes those ideas up and plays with text and different qualities of silence to try and tell a story without leading you through it by the nose. I think Columbia Icefield was doing a similar thing, although I’m not sure I was bright enough at the time to realize it.

‘A Silence Opens’ will be released on May 29, 2026 on Out of Your Head Records. You can purchase the album on Bandcamp. More information on Nate Wooley is available on his website.

Photo credit: Julia Dretel