Bassist Emma Dayhuff to Share Chicago-Born, Based and Bred Lineage and Language at Jazz Fest

A rhetorical question, generated from intense, in-the-moment interactions, has blossomed into a 100-minute live recording and 35,000-word dissertation from Dr. Emma Dayhuff.

Dayhuff, a bassist, composer, and Montana native who has lived in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, her current locale, wondered, in wonder: “What is it about Chicago, and people who live in Chicago, learn to play in Chicago, or are from there, that have really shaped who I am as a musician?”

During these moments from her place behind the bass, Dayhuff, who is also a professor at Loyola Marymount University, would then realize: “Oh! (My bandmates) are reading my mind,” she recalled, during a recent conversation.

These enriching experiences led to Innovations & Lineage: The Chicago Project, (Division 81 Records), her debut album, and a dissertation, “Redefining Our Own Elegance: Autonomy, Mentorship, and Aesthetics in Chicago’s South Side Artistic Communities.” Dayhuff successfully defended this magnum opus and earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2024.

On Friday, September 4, Dayhuff will present material from Innovations… and Mountains, her new recording, at the Chicago Jazz Festival. This hit, which will happen at Millennium Park, begins at 6:25. Her ensemble will include trumpeter Corey Wilkes, vocalist Dee Alexander, and drummer Jonathan Pinson.

“This is an incredible opportunity to pay tribute to the city that taught me how to play and the people that helped me grow into the person I am today,” Dayhuff said.

Cover art for Innovations…, recorded live at saxophonist Hanah Jon Taylor’s Café Coda in Madison, came from photographs taken that night by Sonny Daze, who owns the Chicago-based Division 81 Records.

“Sonny’s photographs are mixed with a painting I commissioned from Jordan Stewart, a Chicago artist,” Dayhuff said. “She has a really neat process. She paints using her hands instead of a brush. I like the idea of direct, hands-on, and what Sonny did with the graphic design is really beautiful.

Innovations’ seven songs (on the Bandcamp version) feature percussionist/vocalist Kahil El Zabar, Alexander, and tenor saxophonist Isaiah Collier, who also plays piano on a few cuts. These artists, Dayhuff stated, have had substantial impacts on her musicianship.

El Zabar’s persona, she noted, radiates on and off the stage.

“He just creates an immensely magnetic pocket with his whole body,” Dayhuff said. “I have never felt that before. It’s totally different from what you might expect from a drum set.

“And there is a lifestyle he embodies. He just exudes creativity in how he moves through life,” she continued, noting that El Zabar designed pianist/vocalist Nina Simone’s Afrocentric wardrobe when he performed with her in the 1970s. “He wears his art, and he attracts people who have lifelong creative energy.”

When speaking to Dayhuff for “Reflections…” El Zabar discussed how Simone first got hip to his artistry away from the stage:

“(Ms. Simone) asked, ‘Where’d you get those pants?’ ‘I made them.’ I started making her those headdresses and big, flowery tops she wore. My last major thing was for the hip-hop group Arrested Development. They were looking for a look, like the big African pants, and commissioned me to do a piece for them.”

“Mama” Shows Best

Dee Alexander’s absolute artistry, Dayhuff stated, has helped her value patience when the music meets the moment. From onstage exchanges to dialogue during breakfast, Alexander’s honesty always uplifts.

“There’s a reason we call her ‘Mama Dee.’ She takes care of everybody,” Dayhuff said, adding that Alexander’s fearlessness ventures into new sounds that make her vocalizing wholly hers. “She draws inspiration from the sounds of birds, and she creates from things that are not always music. By working with her, I was inspired to expand the palette of sound textures I create with my instrument.”

On “Just Look Fly,” the album’s opener, Alexander’s wordless vocals lead and then propel the ensemble. (Alexander added lyrics after the recording, Dayhuff noted.) For “A PLACE,” composed by the AACM multi-instrumentalist “Light” Henry Huff (1950-93), Alexander’s voice is supported by Collier at the piano, El Zabar’s cajon, and Dayhuff.

This paean for a better world begins:

“A PLACE of peace

A PLACE of rest

A PLACE to love

A PLACE that’s blessed…”

“On Henry Huff’s sheet music, the title is all capitalized, so we kept it,” Dayhuff said, when explaining the title’s typography on her album. “Whether he intended it to appear that way or not I’m not sure.”

In her dissertation, Dayhuff wrote this about Mama Dee:

“Vocalist Dee Alexander remembers attending performances that provided both musical inspiration and sparked her passion for fashion. She says that as an artist, “every day there's a new way to invent and reinvent yourself by how you look when you’re performing.” Her style is bold, often African in inspiration, and often features pieces from local Chicago artisans and designers with whom she has personal connections: vivid clothing, head wraps and hats, sinuous leather bracelets, lively glasses, and large pieces of jewelry. Her stage presence is a mix of visual style and musical brazenness that traces to a mesmerizing experience she recalls at the Progressive Arts Center.”

As the 16-minute tune “Katon” ascends into the stratosphere, Alexander’s and El Zabar’s voices unite, while Dayhuff immerses herself into a solo. This song’s meditative moments, she said, always elevate her consciousness into areas unknown.

“It feels like I’m in a trance playing it, and the vocals added to that feeling,” she said about those moments, when the bold souls journeying with her were at their zenith. “I vaguely remember coming up out of the trance just enough to be wowed by what was happening…and then re-entering that trance.”

The Chosen Two

Dayhuff believes that Isaiah Collier’s ability to vibe with her without words began when they were students at separate institutions. Collier studied at the Brubeck Institute in Stockton, California, while Dayhuff studied at the Monk Institute at UCLA, where she graduated from in 2020. (Dayhuff’s classmate, pianist Robert Glasper, will play the Fest immediately after her performance.) In Chicago, Dayhuff and Collier also studied and practiced together with drummer Vincent Davis.

Expressing their thoughts together is natural, Dayhuff expllained, because they share similar sentiments about accompaniment and improvisation. Collier’s contributions on stage, she added, reflect their telepathy and friendship.

“If I am not laying out the beat and decide to play around it instead of on it, he still understands where the beat is,” she said about Collier, who is also featured on Mountains and will also play in her ensemble at the Fest. “Isaiah is able to keep things grounded when I move left. He helps everyone else in the band hop on that. He understands how I play.”

Mountains of Identity

When COVID temporarily ended the world in 2020, Dayhuff returned to her folks’ home in Bozeman, Montana. There, she explored the mountains, searched her inner being, and allowed herself to avoid touching the bass for six months.

This hiatus from playing, she explained, helped separate self-realization from the vehicle she uses to express her…self.

“My identity had become so much, ‘I’m a bass player,’ that if I didn’t play well, it would affect my self-esteem,” she said. “Playing the bass is a huge part of who I am, but it doesn’t determine who I am.”

Mountains, which will be released on September 4, features nine originals and one song by bassist Bill Lee, Spike’s late father. This new side, recorded at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, includes Wilkes, Collier, and Pinson, along with pianist Paul Cornish, guitarist Andrew Renfroe, and the singer Akenya.

“The music on Mountains reveals what the mountains mean to me,” Dayhuff said. “This music came out of who I am and how the mountains ground me. That’s what I realized spending time there. Montana gives me a sense of peace.”