Camae Ayewa (a.k.a. Moor Mother) – spoken word
Aquiles Navarro – tp
Keir Neuringer – as
Luke Stewart – db
Tcheser Holmes – dr

 

The group brings together acclaimed, uncompromising artists sharing a sincere friendship and respect for the legacy of Black music and culture.

 

They first played together in 2017, and the album commemorating that session, Irreversible Entanglements, received unexpectedly great critical acclaim. It was named one of the best albums of the year by NPR, Wire Magazine and Stereogum. The band soon found fame on the major North American and European jazz stages. 

 

Irreversible Entanglements’ second album Who Sent You? topped the Billboard charts and was voted Group of the Year by El Intruso’s Critics’ Poll. Subsequent albums have confirmed the musicians’ out-of-the-box thinking and creativity that defies genre boundaries.

 

Irreversible Entanglements will introduce the Vilnius Jazz audience with their latest album Protect Your Light, released by the legendary Impulse! label.

 

“It is deeply improvised rhythm music full of love, protest, and social commitment. Driven by poet/vocalist Camae Ayewa’s (aka Moor Mother) searing narrations of Black trauma, survival, and power, Irreversible Entanglements brings first-wave free jazz’s tradition of resistance acutely into the now. It is a major statement from artists who are as much the new wave of jazz as John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp et al were in their day” is how The Wire described this album.

 

According to NPR, “a free jazz quintet with an experimental punk mentality, Irreversible Entanglements is “the most thrilling band in jazz right now”

 

American poet, musician and social activist Camae Ayewa, better known as Moor Mother in her solo work, calls herself a representative of Afrofuturist art. She is known as a fierce advocate of social justice, drawing on her research into African history and philosophy to expose painful collective experiences and unhealed historical scars. “By exploring the world, we get to know ourselves”, says the artist, fostering the heritage of Black music makers. 

 

Her debut album Fetish Bones, released in 2016, was listed among the Best Albums of the Year by The Wire, Jazz Right Now, Pitchfork, Noisey, Rolling Stone and Spin. Ayewa was named Artist of the Year by Bandcamp and listed as one of the Top 10 Newcomers by Rolling Stone. 

 

Since her debut, the prolific artist has released a new album every year. In 2020, she teamed up with Swedish producer Olof Melander to produce Anthologia, a series of recordings in support of people with disabilities. She later recorded a series of experimental hip hop singles with the musician. Ayewa has also collaborated with rapper Billy Woods. In addition to her Irreversible Entanglements projects, she is the singer of MoorJewelry and 700bliss, a visual artist. She also gives masterclasses.

 

New York-based trumpeter, composer and DJ Aquiles Navarro was born in Panama and grew up surrounded by local folk, salsa and reggae music. This inspired him to collaborate with dancers, painters, actors and poets to contrive a very colourful musical vocabulary. In addition, Navarro founded and runs River Down Records, a record label dedicated to Panamanian creators.

 

The trumpeter began his professional training in his native country and continued his studies in the USA at the New England Conservatory and the University of Miami.

 

He joined Irreversible Entanglements together with his long-time duo partner in Heritage of the Invisible, drummer Tcheser Holmes, enriching the band’s sound with Latin and Afro-Caribbean flavour.

 

Heritage of the Invisible has released several critically acclaimed albums. 2020 release was named one of the best albums of the year internationally by The Guardian and Rolling Stone, and Navarro has been nominated for a US Artists Fellowship as one of the most prominent artists living and working in the United States.

 

Saxophonist and composer Keir Neuringer is known for his avant-garde saxophone technique and socio-political activism. He is also an accomplished electronic keyboardist, a lecturer (most notably in the performances of the Dutch new music group Ensemble Klang) and an avant-garde music composer.

 

He studied composition and saxophone in the USA, spent two years as a Fulbright scholar in Kraków, and then moved to The Hague, where he completed his master’s degree in the interdisciplinary ArtScience programme at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where he curated audiovisual art projects. Since 2012, he has been living in the USA.

 

In addition to Irreversible Entanglements, Neuringer is a co-leader of the improvisers’ trio Dromedaries and collaborates with sound artist Matt Wright and pianist Simone Weissenfels. His duo with bassist Rafal Mazur has been around for decades. Neuringer presents his work extensively at festivals and masterclasses in Europe and North America.

 

Luke Stewart is one of the most popular bassists of his generation, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of music which he has accumulated as a host of radio broadcasts and concerts. His work represents a deep reverence for the history and tradition of Creative Music: a tradition which encompasses the diverse styles of expression within the body of Black Music in the United States, Africa, and throughout the world.

 

He holds a Bachelor of Arts from American University and a Master of Arts from The New School, where he is also an adjunct professor in the College of Performing Arts. Stewart is a co-founder and artistic director of CapitalBop, a Washington, D.C.-based jazz nonprofit organisation. In addition to Irreversible Entanglements, Stewart’s regular ensembles include SILT Trio, Exposure Quintet, and the experimental rock duo Blacks’ Myths.

 

Stewart has appeared with various ensembles in many renowned venues in the US and abroad, including Vision, Winter Jazzfest, Big Ears (all in the US), the Roskilde Festival (Denmark), the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Bimhuis Jazz Club in Amsterdam. In 2020, Stewart was noted in Down Beat Magazine as one of twenty-five performers to “shape jazz for decades”.

 

Stewart has made significant contributions as a scholar in the field of double bass research, lecturing at Harvard, Cambridge, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Detroit and other universities in the US and Mexico, and winning creative grants and fellowships for various residencies.

 

New York-based drummer Tcheser Holmes grew up in Brooklyn’s Afro-centric environment, submerged in house, hip-hop and rock music. After graduating from the New England Conservatory, he moved back to New York and remains a fixture in the jazz community.

 

In addition to the free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements, he appears in Sun Ra Arkestra, collaborates with avant-garde jazz legend Marshall Allen, and is a long-time collaborator of trumpeter Aquiles Navarro.