Welcome to the debut episode for the Of Flightless Doves Podcast! This has been in the works for quite a long time. Preparing to release this podcast endeavor partially explains why I have been quieter than usual via Substack in 2025. I will generally use this podcast to converse with musicians and poets. If you have an idea of someone I should speak with, please message me via Substack.
It is apt that the first episode I share—The Healing Force of the Universe—is a recording of a conversation between me and a former teacher of mine, the virtuosic double bassist and prolific composer, Michael Bisio. The title of this episode conveys what I hope an overarching theme of the podcast will be: conversations on the transformative ability of music and poetry. Michael taught me how to play bass; I studied with him for three years. Along with being a top-rate musician, he is a wonderful person.
Michael released an album today—March 14, 2025—called Morning Bells Whistle Bright via the ESP-Disk label. The album is co-led by Bisio and South Korean pianist Eunhye Jeong. It features legends Joe McPhee and Jay Rosen. The cover art is by Dawn Bisio.
On February 14, 2025, Bisio released his album NuMBq, via Mahakala Music, his latest release as leader, featuring a chamber ensemble: English horn, viola, bass and percussion.
— Christopher Laws, Culture Darm
During this conversation, Michael answers the question “what is music.” We speak about the importance of practicing, the difference between artistry and musicianship, Michael’s teachers, jazz as world music, and much more.
This conversation was recorded in person in the Jennings Music Building (yes, the place that inspired Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House) at Bennington College in May, 2024.
I desire to grow and flesh this podcast series out, which requires financial resources and lots of time to be done well. Please consider supporting the show by listening, sharing, or becoming a paying subscriber or contributing donor.
About the guest of honor, Michael Bisio:
Bassist / composer Michael Bisio has been called a poet, a wonder and one of the most virtuosic and imaginative performers on the double bass.
Michael has been a member of the Matthew Shipp Trio since 2009 performing throughout the Americas and Europe: Carnegie Hall, Newport Jazz Festival, Buenos Aries Jazz Festival, Am I Jazz? Festival, Kiev, MoMA, The Vision Festival, NYC and Festival Sons d’hiver, Paris. He has over one hundred forty recordings in his discography, more than two dozen as leader or co-leader as well as a dozen more documenting his extraordinary association with piano icon Matthew Shipp.
Michael has been a faculty member at Bennington College 2009-present. He has been recognized with ten project grants from various arts organizations, plus the prestigious Artist Trust Fellowship. In 2017 he was invited to be Master Artist in Residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts. Most recently he was awarded a Jazz Road Tours grant for solo presentations in the Southeast US, June 2022 and a Saratoga Arts Community Arts Regrant 2024.
Selected, Embedded Albums:
During our conversation, Michael and I spoke about Inside Voice/Outside Voice, a collaboration with vocalist Timothy Hill, which may be heard here:
Michael released this album shortly before I visited him in New York in summer 2023. Coincidentally, several months prior I had begun to study Tuvan Throat singing, a technique Timothy Hill employs throughout the album.
Though we didn’t mention this on the podcast, Michael released a collaborative album last year with my advisor at Bennington, the great composer Allen Shawn. The album is called January:
During our conversation Michael also mentioned They Tried to Kill Me Yesterday (ESP-Disk), a collaboration with poet Paul Harding:
Personal Notes:
The first track of NuMBq is “Elegy for MG”. The MG is an abbreviation of the name Milford Graves, the great jazz drummer, percussionist, and martial artist whose aforementioned labels do not define his breadth. NuMBq features a fully instrumental version of the “Elegy for MG” that Michael Bisio, fellow former student Luke Taylor, and I played together during a ceremony at Bennington College in 2021 after Graves passed away. Graves taught as a percussion and music teacher for 39 years (1973-2012) at Bennington College. Unfortunately, I never met or studied with him, as I began at Bennington after he left. I highly recommend the documentary about Grave’s fascinating life — Milford Graves Full Mantis — which is available on the Criterion Channel.
Learning to play the double bass was always a dream of mine. At first I was horrendous. But through Michael Bisio’s sustained engagement, tutelage and support, and my refusal to quit, bass is now my secondary instrument (the first being voice).
Selected Reviews:
"The physicality of Mr. Bisio's bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the Avant Garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive."
— Nat Chinen, The New York Times
“Michael Bisio is one of the greatest bassists on the planet,’ Shipp explains, ‘but this album isn’t about his bass playing. It’s about his humanity. Like so many great bassists in history — Charles Mingus, whose music first attracted Bisio to his instrument and to jazz, or Charlie Haden or lesser-celebrated heroes like Henry Grimes — Bisio’s sound, and the way he engages with other instrumentalists, manages to express empathy and compassion.”
— Larry Blumenfeld, Jazziz
"Bisio is one of the few musicians who has managed to meld this high concept of physicality with the soulful charge of jazz. His fiddle-high, scraped overtones create a tangled choir that is impossible to resist; his expressiveness with the bow is unmatched."
— Signal to Noise
On Inimitable (Mung Music), his second solo recording, released January 1, 2022:
“It is one of the best ways to hear this remarkable bassist’s artistry.”
— The New York City Jazz Record
"Bisio's playing exemplifies the physical and sensory aspects of the bass; it infiltrates the listener beyond the ears. The artist is a working musician who digs down deep to create an air of generous harmonics and a profoundly earthy timbre that compares to Charlie Haden's freest playing. What we have heard from Bisio in recent years is the emergence of a powerful composer and leader.”
— Karl Ackermann All About Jazz
Credits
Thank you to Michael Bisio for agreeing to this spontaneous interview.
Thank you to Jorge Zerpa, who helped me tremendously by mastering this episode. West Coast solidarity!
The background image for this episode was provided by Michael Bisio, credit to Paul D Comstock.
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