Live Shows: Mali Obomsawin 6tet and Olivia Shortt, Club Passim, Cambridge, MA 11/10/22

It may not be my normal music of choice, but I love Mali Obomsawin's new album Sweet Tooth. My taste in music can lean pretty far on the experimental side of things, but a three piece suite of music that is a mixture of jazz, folk, blues, Native cultures, etc. is new territory for me. But, I'm all about new experiences, so I headed out to Club Passim to experience it live.

Mali Obomsawin's Sweet Tooth is about Indigenous resistance, which she made quite clear while discussing the songs. She discussed how large the Wabanaki territory once was and how they are now limited to two reservations near Quebec, the influence (or attempted influence) of Jesuits on the Wabanaki, and joked about the lack of cultural relevance of Boston. It was definitely a night of challenging music, with plenty of discordance and experimenting going on with the music. As experimental as the recorded album is, live it was both more experimental and less experimental. At times the 6tet strayed away from the record, which almost made the songs more traditionally jazz, especially when the horn section had time to solo. It might sound weird saying that free form, improvisational jazz is "traditional," but compared to other parts of the suites, it was very traditional. 

Club Passim definitely attracts an older crowd, especially with memberships and traditional folk music. I was curious how this crowd would handle the noise and dissonance of Sweet Tooth, but everyone was much more open minded than I expected and Mali Obomsawin 6tet was met with enthusiastic applause between songs. This is music that requires an open mind and rewards those that have it.

Olivia Shortt opened the show and asked if we were ready for "... weird shit and noise," and she definitely delivered on both of those. She played a thirty minute composition where she played notes on a saxophone and vocalized, looping those over and over to flesh out the musical piece more. It seemed more like something I'd expect to see opening for Sonic Youth than at Club Passim. At times it worked for me, and at times it didn't. But that's how "weird shit and noise" works best.

Mali Obomsawin - "Wawasint8da"

I can't think of anyone making music these days quite like Mali Obomsawin. According to a press release, their latest single, "Wawasint8da," "... is a Jesuit hymn taken from the strange story of 'The Harrowing of Hell,' an obscure religious tract that tells of Jesus traveling into hell to liberate souls who had died outside of the Catholic faith." It also includes an ancient mourning song Obomsawin was taught by a Passamaquoddy citizen. Musically the song starts off rooted in traditional folk and jazz in an almost stodgy way. It feels like "Wawasint8da" starts off almost overly traditional to make what is coming even more effective. Slowly the song starts getting more loose and warping into this dissonant version of free jazz that sounds more like a rootsy version of James Chance. "Wawasint8da" is most certainly not going to be for everyone, but it certainly deserves for everyone to give it a shot.

You can listen to "Wawasint8da" below. Sweet Tooth is due out October 28 on Out of Your Head Records. For more on Mali Obomsawin, check out the artist's website.

Mali Obomsawin - "Odana"

Photo via Facebook

The new single from Mali Obomsawi is one of the most unique and powerful pieces of music we've heard in a while. "Odana" combines traditional Abenaki culture with jazz. It starts off a brass band which is inspired by the marching bands Jesuit priests would bring to reservations. It then evolves into a seventeenth century Abenaki ballad done in free jazz. Obomsawi has crafted a compelling and important song that I'm hardly doing any justice with my description.

Mali Obomsawin explains her new song much better than I can:

"The first song, 'Odana', looks to the reservation community where I’m enrolled. Odana is a Wabanaki word for ‘the village’ – and Odanak, the name of our Abenaki reservation in southern Quebec, means 'at the village.' Writer unknown, this ballad is a homage to this home that our ancestors founded in the late 1600s.

"'Odana' tells the story of those ancestors who fled to modern-day Canada to escape biological warfare and scalp bounties (17th & 18th centuries) issued by the English crown in its colonies. The bounty proclamations, in particular, deterred Abenaki families from returning permanently to their ancestral territories by the end of the 18th century. The lyrics warn Abenakis to “be vigilant” so that the ground remains peaceful and they do not lose their newly founded villages at Odanak and 'Mazipskoik' at the head of Lake Champlain. The lyrics describe 'a great forest extending from the village,' a stolen homeland. Finally, the lyrics thank our forefathers for guarding this place for us and emphasize the importance of this place to the survival of Abenaki people in the face of genocide.”

You can listen to "Odana" below. Sweet Tooth is due out October 28 on Out of Your Head Records, and can be pre-ordered via Bandcamp. For more on Mali Obomsawin, check out the artist's website.