I've been looking at and Listening to trees differently these days, after reading several books that detail the wondrous and vast neural networks of fungi that transmit sustenance, ward off disease and communicate danger to the diverse members of its forest community. "These living networks are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved", says biologist David George Haskell. "These struggles often result not in stronger, more disconnected selves but in the dissolution of the self into relationship. We cannot step outside life's songs. This music made us, it is our nature".
I'm reminded of when I invited Asian Improv Arts Midwest and the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) to share office space with me at the Jazz Institute of Chicago － in part because I had the space to give, and also because I was curious. What new synapses would materialize if we were inhabiting the same space?
This neural network had long been established. In the 60s pianist Glenn Horiuchi's family left Chicago for the West Coast, and in the 80s he found mentorship and musical brotherhood with AACM bassist M'Chaka Uba and San Francisco saxophonist Francis Wong. In the 90s bassist and shamisen player Tatsu Aoki formed an ensemble with AACM members reedman Mwata Bowden and drummer Afifi Philland. AACM co-founder Muhal Richard Abrams had also co-founded the Jazz Institute of Chicago in the 60s, and as JIC's executive director I was often the facilitator of opportunities for these musical relationships to continue to evolve. We were all inspired by the AACM and others who had pioneered the philosophy of communal place-based exchange as a natural engine of creativity－perhaps unknowingly mrroring nature's own highly evolved collaborative ecosystems.
Long conversations continue in this recording, many of them starting decades ago, others more recently. I've been in dialogue with most of these musicians for years－absorbing the dance and the bone-deep resonance of the Taiko drums and capturing the pure energy of improvisation in the play of light inside my camera. I can see what you are hearing: Melody Takata's and Kioto Aoki's driving drum rhythms that go back millennia and are as new as today. Edward Wilkerson's vinegary tenor statements join Francis' soaring saxophone; all dissolving into the centrifugal force of Mwata's bent-note baritone and William Roper's low and brassiness with Tatsu's bass providing the gravity for it all. 
I've been a participant, observer, chronicler and contributor to this creative ecosystem. And maybe a bit like the Mother Trees I have read about that ensure their progenitors and other forest neighbors have the resources they need to flourish. "Our ethic must be one of belonging, an imperative made all the more urgent by the many ways that human actions are fraying, rewiring, and severing biological networks worldwide. To listen to trees, nature's great connectors, is to learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty". Similarly, these fertile cross-country musical collaborations have established a deeply rich environment where we can all connect and thrive.
－Lauren Deutsch, Chicago - October 2021