Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

BY Pendarvis Harshaw AND GABE MELINE

I booked Rabiah Kabir and friends several times during her undergraduate days at Stanford, most notably she and two friends, Laurel and Nathan, opened for Levin LaBarbera Brothers’ combo in January, 2024.

From the soundcheck:

Her cd is called “Jezebel: Rewritten” and it is a postmodern companion to her academic thesis which discusses the role of women in jazz. (And is searchable online). Rabiah’s group plays The Black Cat later this month.

And1:

Rabiah’s academic thesis is archived on the internet. Her cd was recorded shortly thereafter and is considered a companion to the written document. As an addendum she offers this explication of the five tracks available as her performance:

I have composed five Jazz compositions. Together, these

compositions will be recorded as my debut EP, “Jezebel: Rewritten”. This music is an exploration

of my lived experiences as a woman, as a flute player, and a Black woman. The music that you

will hear is me, and it is a reflection of my experience and the collective experience of women in

Jazz I attempt to understand from my interviews. I will detail the meaning and inspirations behind

each tune below.

Fin.

I wrote “fin.” at the end of my senior year of high school. I composed this piece after

experiencing sexual harassment during my earlier years of high school. The anxiety caused by

these experiences resulted in me avoiding jam sessions and Jazz spaces. Hence, I spent more time

alone with music, especially composing at the piano.. For me, this piece was a return to

composing, to collaborating with others, and falling back in love with music.

Red Shapes and Green Shapes

“Red Shapes and Green Shapes” is a composition written with my lifelong friend and

collaborator, Laurel Fink. Laurel has been my closest friend in the music scene, and over the

years, we have supported each other as we navigate sexism in the Jazz world. Originally played at

a house event as an opening duo for Raffi Garabedian’s free Jazz group, the tune has now

evolved into a piece for a six-piece ensemble of drums, saxophone, violin, flute, piano and bass. It’s

inquisitive, strange, meditative and “girly.” The repeated lines offer a lilting but engaging

rhythmic bass line from which the horns build melody lines that both operate within and apart

from each other. Its playful nature makes me think of the joys of femininity, something that I hope

to embrace in this work, while leaving space to examine and critique it

The ReZident

Written after my time in Cape Town, South Africa, “The ReZident” draws inspiration

from modern South African Jazz groups like Shabaka and the Ancestors*. Cape Town was a

musical exploration for me, as well as a racial exploration. South African Jazz is an entirely

different style of Jazz and working with artists like Hilton Schilder provided me with new musical

vocabulary from which I built this tune. As for my experience as a Black woman, returning to the

continent my ancestors were taken from was a powerful experience for me, and this piece

captures that emotion.

I Crashed My Car: For Mo

A few months ago, I was in a car accident. Though nothing serious, it was the first car

accident I’d ever been in. I learned a lot from that experience, and this piece is an exploration into

those emotions and frustrations. More than anything, this piece is for my mother, nicknamed Mo.

I cannot write a paper about womanhood and femininity without celebrating the most influential

woman in my life. I would not be a musician without her. She drove me to my weekly piano

lessons every single week for 10 years. She didn’t let me quit when I wanted to. Without her, I

would not be able to produce this album. She also provided an incredible amount of help in the

fallout of my car accident, so, this piece is for her. Thanks, Mo.

*Shabaka Hutchings is a British musician whose parents are from Barbados who has performed and recorded in South Africa: see Will Coldwell, The Guardian, “Small Pockets of Cool” (23 September 2016)