Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. All this week, we are diving into music from the 1920s as we launch this year's Public Song Project. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we'll learn about the recording technology of that era and how it shapes what we listen to today.

We have a curator from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts joining us to give us some history. Did you know you could go to that library and play an acoustical recorded disc from the 1920s? It's very cool. You'll learn how tomorrow. That's in the future. Let's get this hour started with American Patchwork Quartet.

[MUSIC - American Patchwork Quartet: Shenandoah]

Alison Stewart: That's a traditional folk song, Shenandoah, as interpreted by a new music group called American Patchwork Quartet, APQ, who are, as they announce on their website, "On a mission to reclaim the immigrant soul of American roots music." APQ is led by my next guest, Clay Ross of the Gullah band, Ranky Tanky, and features my other guest Falu on lead cocals. Filling out the rest of the quartet are Jazz bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and drummer Clarence Penn.

The group just released a self-titled debut album on Friday, and they stopped by the WNYC studios while they were in town to record a couple of songs from it, including the one we're excited to add to the 2024 edition of the Public Song Project. You'll get to hear that at the end of our interview. Joining me now via Zoom to talk about the new album are Clay Ross. Hi, Clay.

Clay Ross: Hi. Good to see you, Alison. Thanks so much for having us.

Alison Stewart: So happy to have you, and Falu. Hi, Falu.

Falu: Hi. So nice to be here. Thank you for having us.

Alison Stewart: Clay, take us back to the beginning of the band. What was the original idea behind putting this group together?

Clay Ross: Well, Falu and I met as teaching artists at Carnegie Hall here in New York City, and I've been living here for almost 20 years now, but I was born in South Carolina. After doing research to work on the Ranky Tanky project, which has been my main focus for the last few years, I found a whole group of songs that I really loved but that didn't necessarily fit directly into that project, but that I really wanted to find a way to explore.

I had this little folder and I showed it to Falu and she really loved these songs. We arrived at the idea that we could explore these songs both as Americans, whether my ancestors came here hundreds of years ago, or Falu came here 20 years ago, we're both American citizens, US citizens, and have every right as we see it to explore and interpret these songs in our own way. For me, personally, I really wanted to make an expression of my southern American roots music that represented the diversity of my current neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. I'm really happy that we've come so far with it now. It's four years we've been doing this project.

Alison Stewart: Falu, what was interesting to you? What was appealing about this project to you?

Falu: Clay started bringing songs and the first thing I asked him was, why are they all talking about death? That was so funny because I don't have the background of folk music. I don't know the history. That really inspired me to check out the American Songbook, the history that I didn't grow up with. Clay helped me send some documentaries, I did my research. The melodies of these songs are timeless and boundaryless. Shenandoah could be sung in India or Egypt, and it'll have the same impact on a listener.

The only thing that will be different is the way they sing it. We use microtones. We have 22 notes, notes that are not on the piano, the notes in between the black and white keys. The way I would sing Shenandoah is to bring in my microtonal singing from India that I've inherited as an 11th generation of Indian classical music and wanted to do something that only somebody from India can bring to this country, which is the 22-note scale of ragas and Indian melodic scale that speak with emotion and expressions that directly mix with the song.

For me, it was amazing melodies, didn't matter where it came from. The Irish immigrants must have brought them, or Scottish immigrants must have brought them, but right now, an Indian immigrant is singing and I bring my spice, my masala to the songs.

Alison Stewart: Clay, how did you find this group? How did it come together?

Clay Ross: Oh, great. Well, like I said, Falu and I met teaching at Carnegie Hall. We were working on lullabies with expecting mothers. That's such an intimate context and a really beautiful project that they do there. We really struck up a friendship. That was the core of it. I actually caught one of my first big breaks with Ranky Tanky played at the Monterey Jazz Festival for the first time in 2017 and met one of my drumming heroes on the ride home in the van.

We were riding back from the festival in the festival van and there is drum phenomenon, Clarence Penn, who I've long admired. We struck up a conversation and got to know one another and turned out our flight was delayed by 10 hours. On that delay, I took it as a cue from the universe that I was destined to get to know Clarence a little better. We spent that time hanging out and we got to know each other really well and became friends over everything except for music, food, family, living in New York, and all the other things besides music.

Clarence and I both happened to know Yasushi really well. I had met him when I first came to New York 20 years ago, and Clarence and Yasushi continue to play as a in-demand rhythm section in the jazz world. Around all this time, there was just all these serendipitous circumstances happening. When my friendship sparked with Clarence, he was the first person that I said, "Hey man, I'm thinking about a band that is specifically designed to bring diversity and representation to stages and to explore these American folk songs and to explore the idea of American identity through this music." He loved the idea and he really encouraged me to pursue it. Here we are now.

Alison Stewart: Falu, when did your music career begin?

Falu: Well, in our culture, the thought is that first 18 years, you just learn. You learn and you really get inside the music very deeply and hone it. Give your 10,000 plus hours. I did that. I did 16 hours of practice every day for 10 years at least.

Alison Stewart: Oh my.

Falu: Then my training, it was very traditional. It was strict. It was nothing that an American kid does these days. Then I just feel like with that in mind, when I came to America, I decided to learn American music as well and draw freely from what I have learned and what America has offered me, which is freedom, which is, you don't have to be scared of doing any genre, you can try. I'm fearless that way. I'm not afraid of failing. I do take risks.

This was something that it fell in my lap because Clay brought songs, beautiful songs, beautiful melodies, and I just latched to them because they reminded me of my mountain music from India that I grew up with. The music that we picked was organic because I had to relate to it somehow. It had to be melody or something that I could bring in. I feel like it was organic. Also, there was COVID, so we had time to learn the songs and nudge them. I feel like the whole process was very organic but very heartfelt. We wanted to keep the integrity of every culture that we brought in.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing American Patchwork Quartet, a self-titled album from this group. We're talking to Falu who's on vocals. Clay Ross is guitarist and band leader. Clay, the song has come from the 19th and 18th centuries, how did you figure out your track list and what songs you wanted to take on?

Clay Ross: Yes, it was tough but--

Alison Stewart: I bet. [chuckles]

Clay Ross: Yes, because there are so many beautiful songs, but it really started with when I'm going through archives of field recordings and listening to the Alan Lomax Archive, and there's so many wonderful gifts that we've been given by all these folklorists who have left these recordings from the past. I know you'll be sharing a lot of those during your centennial project. As I'm listening to these songs, I'm trying to find songs that are timeless, songs that speak to the human experience, song that speaks humanity to man, songs about love, songs about loss, songs about happiness, everyday life, simple pleasures.

The songs that we chose they all fit into that category. They all have a timeless quality about them. Then I feel like between my singing lead at times and Falu's singing lead at times, it really creates a dynamic experience across the scope of the album, so we were just trying to create a balance there. We have a lot of songs where Falu and I sing as a duet, we have a lot of beautiful longing ballads that Falu sings so beautifully, and then we have some gruff and rugged bluesier songs too that create a counterweight.

Alison Stewart: Clay, do you ever want a song to show its age?

Clay Ross: Yes, that's a good question. I think they show their age at times in that there are a lot of, is the word colloquialisms. There are a lot of sometimes words that Falu is like, "Why did they say that?" I'm like, "Oh, that's probably old English, the way of saying this lyric." I'm not thinking of any right off the top of my head, but I know there are. I think specifically in a song like Pretty Sarah. We didn't try to change those types of things too much to make them modernized and we didn't put references to iPhones or anything in there. When we're talking about Lazy John getting his work done, he's still getting his work done. He's a farmer. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: We're going to hear one of the songs that y'all recorded for us at the WNYC studios last week, Soul of a Man by Blind Willie Johnson. What do we know about Johnson in the history of this song? Do you want to take that, Clay? Or Falu, do you want to take that?

Clay Ross: I can give it a shot.

Alison Stewart: Let's give it a shot.

Clay Ross: Yes. Blind Willie Johnson is one of my favorite blues musicians. He recorded so many blues classics. He actually did two songs that we recorded on the album, John the Revelator, as well as this one, Soul of a Man. We just love this song because it asks this universal question, what is the soul of a man? It tells the story of the pursuit. His was at the time definitely framed in a religious context of Christianity here in America, but it really is universal. It's a universal idea and a universal theme. That's why we chose this one.

Alison Stewart: Falu, before we play the song, your version, what's something you would like us to listen for to keep in mind as we hear Soul of a Man?

Falu: The Soul of a Man was a very different song than what I was used to listening or singing because it had different harmonies that the group came up with. My training has been in melodic singing. Classical Indian music is one note that we explore and improvise on one scale. We do not change our tonics. This one has so many harmonies and I had to learn how to sing with three different tonics on stage with Clay in APQ because this is not something I was trained on.

It definitely took a minute to get used to how the arrangement worked and how two people can sing two different melodies via harmony and sound so magical. For me, Soul of a Man is magic. It's always exciting to sing it on stage because people clap and it's a very fun song. It's lively, and for me, it was a process of learning. For Clay, it's just having fun. That's what I love about this song is we can see both aspects of beauty in the song.

Clay Ross: Falu, is there a name for the Alap that you sing in the middle, the rag, [inaudible 00:14:49]

Falu: I'm not sure.

Clay Ross: Yes, but we should listen up for that because it's beautiful. Falu does something that only Falu could do in the middle of this piece. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: From American Patchwork Quilt, Quartet, excuse me. Try and slip.

Clay Ross: I know that happens all the time.

Alison Stewart: It's great.

Clay Ross: I just want to remind everybody, it is definitely not quilt. Do not go Googling American Patchwork Quilt something, you will not find them.

Alison Stewart: That speaks of the name though. That's what makes--

Clay Ross: Yes, it's close. We are the quartet, American Patchwork Quartet.

Alison Stewart: Here's Soul of a Man.

[MUSIC - American Patchwork Quartet: Beneath the Willow]

Alison Stewart: That was Beneath the Willow from American Patchwork Quartet. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are two members of American Patchwork Quartet, Falu on vocals and Clay Ross on guitar and he's the band leader. Now before the break, we heard Beneath the Willow. They were mislabeled in our fancy machine over there.

Clay Ross: Oh, it's all good.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] We want to say that Beneath the Willow is the song that you've submitted for the Public Song Project to be part of our Public Song Project. How did you choose that song?

Clay Ross: That was actually one of the first ones that I brought to Falu to consider for the group. I just think it's a beautiful song. Again, it fits all my qualifiers of being timeless. You could take the aspect of the song, the metaphor to death, but it's also a beautiful metaphor about nature. It's also one of the first songs that was ever recorded as a country music song. I thought that that was interesting because I think a big part of what we're trying to do is just to explicitly bring diversity into a space that is often considered to be of one specific ethnicity or one specific type of person is drawn to or performing this kind of song, and I think we really just wanted to challenge that. This song just fits all those criteria really well.

Alison Stewart: Falu, where did you draw inspiration for your vocals on that song?

Falu: This song is so pretty, melodically so pretty, and the minute I heard it, I'm like, "Yes," and what brought me very close to it is the fact that I can write Hindi lyrics on it, and it can be played in a Bollywood movie. It is that accessible. It is that beautiful, and it is so catchy. For me, from a song perspective, forget everything, the history, and that it was recorded, the first recording, yes, that's all great, but for me, just the sheer beauty of the song spoke purely and magically to me.

I felt like, "Oh my god, this can be in a Bollywood movie and why don't I bring the most beautiful raga which is a major scale in India?" I took aspects from that and I composed the middle section of it because it is about the death and separation, but somewhere there is hope. I find hope in the song even though it talks about beneath the willow, hopefully, you cry for me, but there is still some light. I see that in that way.

Alison Stewart: Falu, for people who don't know about your background, you have a background in children's music. You won the Grammy for Best Children's Album in 2022. What strengths do you need to write and sing children's music that can be used and applied to other musical projects in your life?

Falu: Basically, I'm a global musician. I was trained in Indian classical music my whole life. When I became a mother in this country to a brown child, as a first-generation South Asian immigrant, it was really hard to raise a brown kid with him feeling comfortable at a school. My children's path started when my son went to preschool and came home with questions like, "Why am I brown? Why do I eat yellow rice at home or speak a different language, which is not English?"

To answer all these questions and tell him that what you have inherited is beautiful, don't be ashamed of diversity but embrace it, from a mother's point of view, I started writing songs in two or three languages, English, Hindi, and Gujarati for him. Which then happened to be an album. Got nominated. That was the first album, Falu's Bazaar. Then, he was nine or eight and then George Floyd incident happened. That also made him very fearful to go to school. That am I going to be attacked because I'm brown?

As a mother to give him a sense of protection, I wrote another song or we wrote another album with our team about how crayons can stay in a box together, keeping their identities, so can humans. A Colorful World happened and apparently, that message resonated with immigrants, so it won a Grammy. I feel like, first, I'm a global musician, and then because I became a mother, I also added this perspective of, how do you write music for children that is in many languages also so many cultures can be involved.

Alison Stewart: Clay, since we started this conversation, you mentioned that you grew up in South Carolina. Were you always surrounded by American folk music, or is that something that came to you later?

Clay Ross: My conscious pursuit in that music definitely came later, but I always tell people now that I've never been more Southern than when I came to New York City. Twenty years ago when I came here, it was like all of a sudden I realized how damn Southern I was. How dark Southern I was. I'm like, "Really?" [chuckles] Yes, I was surrounded by that music growing up. It was a part of my life and it was everywhere for me, even though it wasn't like such a conscious thing and it certainly didn't need to be a conscious thing. I played the guitar like most teenagers who picked up the guitar in my generation playing Metallica songs and other classic rock. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: When did you decide to pursue this music professionally?

Clay Ross: Well, like I said, I came to New York 20 years ago really to pursue a career in jazz music and to play jazz. That's how I know Yasushi. I was really interested in jazz. As I said, I never felt more Southern, and I was interested in this conversation of global musicians performing jazz music. One of the first collaborations I had when I came to New York was with a Spanish accordionist from Galicia. I was interested in the overlap between people bringing their own cultural worlds into the jazz language and their own cultural experiences. I wanted to be able to offer something that was innate to me to that conversation.

My Southern American roots music is a fertile soil for that type of exploration and for something that is natural to me that I can bring to the party. I always use the food analogy. We're doing this bring your own dish to the party kind of thing. I can bring my Southern cuisine and help make the food a little tasty.

Alison Stewart: American Patchwork Quartet, the self-titled album is out now. I've been speaking with Falu and Clay Ross from the group. Thank you so much for spending time with us and for performing at WNYC Studio 5. We're going to go out on Soul of a Man, a performance from that set. Thanks, y'all.

Clay Ross: Thank you so much.

Falu: Thank you.

Clay Ross: Appreciate it.

[MUSIC - American Patchwork Quartet: Soul of a Man]

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