Phil Freeman talks to cellist Tomeka Reid.
The seventh episode of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with cellist Tomeka Reid. She’s been on the avant-garde/free jazz scene since 2002, but has really begun to make her mark in the last few years. She’s got long-standing artistic relationships with flautist Nicole Mitchell, drummer Mike Reed, saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton, and the AACM. She leads her own quartet with guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara; is a member of the string trio Hear In Now with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi; and recorded a duo album, Signaling, with saxophonist Nick Mazzarella in 2017. She also performed on trumpeter Jaimie Branch's Fly Or Die, two Nicole Mitchell albums, and Hear In Now's Not Living In Fear, and became a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In our interview, Reid discusses her creative relationships, her recent recordings, and much more. It’s a really interesting conversation I’ve been wanting to have for quite a while—she was one of the first artists I approached about appearing on the podcast—and I hope you’ll enjoy it.