Concurrence
For more than two decades, bassist and broadcast host Greg Bryant and keyboardist and composer Paul Horton have worked together as Concurrence. Over that time they’ve specialized in making improvised music with an adventurous edge that’s arranged and performed in a manner that can simultaneously please both hardcore jazz fans and those whose tastes run to other genres. But their newest release Indivisible, a sprawling 22-track album out June 7 via Brooklyn indie La Reserve, is not only their boldest effort but also their finest musical statement.
In a joint interview, Horton and Bryant explain that Indivisible marks the first time Concurrence has made a concept album. Their subject: the havoc that the construction of America’s interstates wrought on Black communities, as I-40 did when it was built through North Nashville in the late 1960s.
“We’re secondary survivors and witnesses to this, Paul and I,” Bryant tells the Scene. “The Nashville I grew up in reflected the aftermath of I-40’s devastation on the Black community. I saw worship centers and nonprofit organizations that fought to thrive and survive. I saw Fisk University, Tennessee State University and Meharry Medical College still educating the best and brightest under enormous fiscal difficulties.”
Concurrence’s music — “from the head and from the heart,” as they describe it — is inspired by years of gigging along with research, digging in archives and speaking with historians. They aim to bring attention to the story of their own artistic home in North Nashville, with specific references to bygone clubs like the Del Morocco and one intense track called “I-40 Was a Razor,” but also wish to highlight similar cases all around the United States.
“There is a focus on Nashville, but because this happened all across the country it’s something that we feel folks in every city in the U.S. should know about and connect with,” says Horton. “Through the music, we cover and pay homage to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the music scene and nightlife on North Nashville’s historic Jefferson Street and the destructive nature of the interstate. We also reflect on the protests and organizing to prevent it, the aftermath and resilience of the Black community and how we all have to stay informed and ready to put up a resistance to these policies when they arise — whether it be infringing on voting rights or a movement to stop educating our youth on the deplorable aspects of U.S. history.”
Recorded in sessions that began in October 2022, Indivisible also puts on full display the pair’s versatility and imagination, with collaborations that range across the spectrum of Black music. Elements of jazz, rock, blues, soul and pop seamlessly converge in the tracks, while the vocals and spoken-word passages detail the often ugly story of community displacement and turmoil caused by the highway project. The assembled cast of contributors and collaborators includes drummers and percussionists Nasheet Waits, Tommy Crane, Marcus Finnie, Derrek Phillips, Aaron Smith and Giovanni Rodriguez (who’s perhaps best known as a bassist with his band 12 Manos but has notable percussion credits as well). The roster also includes trumpeter Rod “Preacherman” McGaha, turntablist DJ Colonel Austin and saxophonist Reagan Mitchell, and there are vital contributions from vocalists and spoken-word artists Rashad tha Poet, Tracy P. Beard, Lo Naurel, Lloyd Buchanan and Dara Starr Tucker.
As with any good concept album, the entire release flows smoothly through the wealth of tracks. Snippets of narration and other sounds bridge the gaps between performances.
“[Those elements] are things I sampled from my kitchen table and that Greg sampled from his patio deck, that are just as important compositionally as things played on traditional instruments,” says Horton. “People and bands like Weather Report, De La Soul, Public Enemy, MF DOOM, Madlib, Dilla and Georgia Anne Muldrow were on our mind when thinking about shaping the overall sound of the album. One thing those artists have in common is they are not concerned with what a ‘traditional’ song looks like. We had something like nearly 20 instrumental beats of different shapes and sizes by the end of 2023. We picked our favorites and coupled some of those with the live and studio tracks to make songs that flow in a way that Greg and I connect with. Sometimes that means that the listener will, in some cases, only hear three or eight seconds of a stand-alone track that was much longer.”
Bryant explains that a significant portion of the record comes from a single session. He, Horton and Crane recorded about 10 pieces as a trio with Canadian engineer Warren Spicer, nine of which appear in one form or another on the finished album. This was all accomplished in one 12-hour session, during which Bryant and Horton also knocked out their overdubs. Such an extended session might be considered grueling under some circumstances, but not this time.
“We liked Warren’s tracking so much that we asked him to mix the entire album,” Bryant says. “He has such a great ear for what we’re trying to do. He also got us in touch with Dave Cooley out in Los Angeles, who mastered J Dilla’s Donuts album and many more for Dilla and Madlib. Indivisible has become a family album for Concurrence and has reignited my own personal creativity.”
After debuting Indivisible with dates in New York and Philadelphia at the end of May, Concurrence will have an official release party at Rudy’s on June 1 with drummer Aaron Smith and other special guests. The next afternoon, they’ll participate in a program called In Conversation With Concurrence at the Nashville Jazz Workshop, moderated by newly named NJW performance curator David M. Rodgers. Proceeds from the conversation event will go to the Jefferson Street Sound Museum and the NJW.
“We embrace the full continuum of Black music,” Bryant says, “from avant-garde elements to straight-up grooving. It all comes from the same spirit. Paul’s producer acumen is precise; the music must drive the messages. As there are deep and layered sonic intricacies in the recipe, you’ll still be able to get into what we’re cooking right away.”
