Last night at Elastic, clarinetist James Falzone played with Wayfaring, his duo with bassist Katie Ernst—his final gig as a Chicagoan. He and his family are moving to Seattle, Washington, where he’ll become chair of the music department at Cornish College of the Arts. For nearly a decade and a half Falzone has been a crucial part of the local jazz and improvised-music scene, leading groups such as Allos Musica Ensemble, Renga Ensemble, and Klang as well as working as a sideman in plenty of others, among them Vox Arcana and Frank Rosaly’s Cicada Music. On the eve of his departure, I asked him about his time here and his decision to move on.
Like so many musicians, I’ve balanced several different jobs, combining all of them to make a living. In addition to my life as a performer and composer, I’ve taught at the college level for 15 years, first at North Central College in Naperville, then at Columbia College in Chicago, and most recently at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Over the course of my teaching career, I’ve taught everything from music theory to world music to composition to jazz history, and I was very fortunate to be a fellow at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia in 2014. I have also twice been a visiting professor at the remarkable Deep Springs College in the desert of California, a place that has shaped a great deal of my education philosophy. In addition to playing and teaching, I have also held the position of director of music at Grace Chicago Church since 2002, a wonderful post I will be stepping down from with my move to Seattle. As you can see, I’ve juggled a lot, and it will be good to consolidate my energies a bit in Seattle.
I’ll be back in Chicago several times this fall. Katie Ernst and I will present our Wayfaring project at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in September and will release an album in the new year. A score I created for a remarkable dance work involving disabled dancers will be presented over the first two weekends of November with the Momenta Dance Company, and I’ll be back for that to perform with them. Josh Berman and I have already been talking about a new project, and my Allos Musica Ensemble has gigs back in the midwest in the spring, including a night at Constellation on April 1. Additionally, my wife and I have deep roots in Chicago and will be visiting with our family often, and I would anticipate connecting these with gigs in town. So I will not vanish, and many of the important projects I’ve developed will continue. But there will be a change, no doubt. I hope to become a part of the Seattle creative-music scene and am very interested in what it will mean for the chair of an important music school in a city to also be actively involved in the music community as a player and composer. My work as an artist has always informed my work as an educator, and I want it to do the same in this new leadership position. I really don’t believe in another way.
