Welcome to American Black Journal.

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

My first guest was just named this year's Kresge Eminent Artist Award winning jazz bassist, composer, and educator Marion Hayden is the recipient of what's considered Metro Detroit's highest arts honor.

Her award includes $100,000 from the Presley Foundation.

I am pleased to welcome my friend Marion Hayden back to American Black Journal.

It is great to have you here, as always, and congratulations.

Thank you.

Stephen, thank you so much for having me here.

The American Black Journal I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah.

So in the intro I said, this is considered our area's greatest arts honors.

That said how you feel?

I totally feel that way.

It's like a it's like getting a big, giant hug for my community that that I love.

I just love this community is my it's my passion.

It's my muse.

I carry I carry the banner of Detroit wherever I go.

So yes, it feels great.

Yeah.

So so I want to talk about what brought you to this point, but but also a pause, a second to acknowledge that this is an award that that recognizes everything that you've done, the span of, your, your career.

So let's talk about that career and kind of how you got into, music, into the bass, which, I think I've told you before, I was a tuba player in college.

I have, a double bass at home and plunk around on it.

It is one of my favorite instruments.

So, talk about how how you got to this point.

Well, I have to say, one of the one of the wonderful things about growing up in Detroit, has.

Well, first of all, I should give.

I should give complete credit to my parents.

My parents.

Marion Ford.

Hayden.

Thomas.

She ended up getting remarried after my father passed.

And Herbert Herbert E Hayden and I, our little house that we grew up in and the wonderful neighborhood of Russell Woods on Fullerton Street and, and, they were just wonderful parents.

They never put any restrictions on me as a, as a young woman, as a girl, as to what girls could do.

My mother was a chemist, so she knew no boundaries of that sort.

So, when I just started taking, taking cello lessons when I was about nine, in a great public Detroit public school music education programs.

But I also left, the music, public school music program.

So, so important.

And I always want to, always, on my little bandwagon.

I'm always standing on my soapbox about continuing to support them for the young people that are in school now.

Yeah.

And so I was I was a little girl taking lessons in my school, took a cello lessons at nine.

And then when I got tall enough to, to stand up to the bass because I've always wanted to play bass, I was about 12.

I switched over to bass and, I had a lot of jazz in my household care of.

My dad was a huge jazz fan and record collector and, kind of a closeted jazz pianist.

He was really good and just, he was he exposed me to such great music.

And then he made what I consider to be just such a wonderful, gesture for me.

He took me to a summertime jazz, jazz camp called Metro Arts, which was right here on Selden Street and Detroit.

And that's where I met the likes of Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney, and so many of the great jazz musicians which would become so influential for me and others.

And there was these are the torchbearers, the people that were really keeping the music alive at that time, which would have been the, you know, early 70s, you know, and that's how I really that's how I caught the jazz bug.

Yeah.

And from then on, it was just, it just at some point you hear something, and you just now, this is something that you have to hear in your ears forever.

And that was what it was for me.

Yeah, yeah.

So I always think of, music as a form of expression, and, and that expression is really important to the artist who is making that expression.

In a little bit, we're going to listen to something that you're, you're playing for us in our, in our viewers talk about that expression, the things that you're saying and trying to communicate when you're playing.

Well, one thing about especially it certainly at this point in my career is, I have a pretty big mental library of things.

There's a lot of music that I've played in a lot of different genres.

I've played, I played, the music of, Argentinian tango.

I played, I played music from, you know, Puerto Rican, Puerto Rico and Cuban.

I played, I have played folk music.

Some classical music, of pretty much all types of jazz and all the different spheres that we work in.

And so, I'm, I'm a collector of, I collector of themes and a collector of, musical moments.

And so when I, when I play, especially something like a solo piece, then basically, I am able to I try to weave those moments together and threads so that they can be interesting.

I try to think, find things that are interesting for my, for my, my mental collection.

And, it's very important, I think especially, especially, as a, for a bass player that we have a lot of experience because the bass is a very ubiquitous instrument, and all ensembles is so much more versatile than anybody ever thinks.

Is.

It is, but the basis of so many different places.

And so so I'm, I have a I have an opportunity to really be very proudly expressive in so many, so many different ways.

I mean, as I say, you know, rock in indie rock, all kinds of things, gospel, of course, you know, all the branches of black music.

Yeah.

And so I try to bring all those things to bear when I, when I perform and try to, just try to be broadly expressive, really tell, really talk about, talk about the, the music that I'm playing in a way that is befitting of that particular, any particular thing I'm doing.

Yeah.

So, you know, in that way, you're a as much a creator.

I know you don't like to call yourself a composer.

No.

But you're a creator in in the sense of, taking all of these things, all of these ideas, all these little bits of, things that you've heard or played around with and putting them together very, very much so.

And I really I really love doing that.

One of my, one of the things that I enjoy doing a lot of is this idea of, composing from a narrative point of view.

And, so many times when I'm composing, I'm composing from an actual story, something it might be a story that I'm trying to tell.

One of the I'll give an example of one of the pieces that I wrote.

This was a commissioned piece, from Art X. Detroit was about the city of Highland Park.

That's where that's where my husband and I live.

My husband fell gardener and, to, to young man to gardener and luckily gardener.

They we are we we raised our family there.

And Highland Park has an amazing history in the auto industry.

Yeah.

And, so I created a whole piece about about Highland Park's history, and it included also interviews from Highland Park workers where they talked about the history of their town and how things had changed over the years.

And, it was, I have to say, I really I really loved delving into that.

It was, and it took, I took from that so many different, different ways of talking about the city and, and also ways to be able to kind of lay there their beautiful narratives in a, in a, in a, you know, in a bed and a bed of beautiful bed of musical flowers, you know?

Yeah.

You have some performances coming up where people can actually come see you live.

I do I'm, I'm very I would love to have people come and, please come out and see my band.

Marion hidden Legacy at the Blue Llama Jazz Club in Ann Arbor.

I'll be there on April the 4th, and then I will be, with my my great band straight ahead that I'm a co-founder of that band of Wonderful women, has been gather for many years.

Great Grammy nominated band, Random Woman.

I mean, these are women who are just, stars.

Absolute stars and, in their own right, each of them and, and we and we actually were the first, woman group signed to a major jazz label.

Yeah.

Right.

So we we will be at the freed House series that sponsored by the University Musical Society and, and, Ypsilanti and, April the 13th.

And then we'll also be at the really at the, Cranbrook project, Friday Night Live series on June the 13th.

So come on out and see us, everyone.

Love to have you there.

Yeah.

And and again, you'll be doing all of the things that, the Kresge eminent artist does, during the next year, I am.

It's just been it's just just been so beautiful.

And I so appreciate Kresge for this, for this opportunity to, to, as I said, just, just be overwhelmed with gratitude.

Just one spirit.

Well, Mary, congratulations again.

Thanks for being here.

We're on, American Black Journal.

Thank you.

Stephen.