Angel Bat Dawid & The Sistas of the Nitty Gritty

Preview: Chicago singer/composer/oracle will be performing in a wonderful new trio at Austin's all-women Interference Fest, on Friday December 18th.

As I wrote the other day, Angel Bat Dawid is one of Dada Strain’s godparents: Devoted to rhythm and improvisation as pillars of both musical creativity and shining healthy presence, deeply engaged with her Chicago community and multiple generations of great Black music (that she constantly uplifts in words on NTS; and in deeds throughout the world), tirelessly doing the Werk, whichever creative and social form it takes. Friday evening she’ll be doing all these, performing on a livestream for Interference Fest: Women Making Noise 2020, a three-day, Austin, Texas-based “gathering” of interdisciplinary musicians. For the occasion, Angel will be part of a relatively new band, a trio with two young Chicagoans, pianist Anaiet Sivad and electric bassist Brooklynn Skye Scott, which they call Sistas of the Nitty Gritty.

This is what Angel told Tone Glow/Joshua Minsoo Kim about the Sistas in a great interview last month:

We were given that name by Lonnie Holley. We had this thing and we met him and he was like, “Yo, sistas of tha nitty gritty!” and I was like, “Oh yeah, because sometimes we nitty, and sometimes we gritty, and sometimes we nitty gritty.” (laughter).

So it’s me and two young women. I have Tha Brothahood, which is all-male, but I knew I wanted an all-women group. I just needed these two to grow up. One is Brooklynn Skye Scott—she just turned 18—and she’s one of the baddest bass players ever. I don’t know where this young girl learned to play Bootsy [Collins] riffs and can then be Jaco [Pastorius] the next minute. And then Anaiet Sivad. She’s 20 and she’s like Alice Coltrane’s goddaughter. I had never heard a pianist like this. They both sing and produce their own music. This had to be my trio. These girls are gonna be huge. People are gonna be calling them. I don’t want them to go to Europe and experience what I did. I want them to have some protection. I want them to go into white spaces and know that I will be there to support them.

(The last part references Angel’s experiences with the 2019 JazzFest Berlin.)

Based on their performances for St. Louis’ wonderful New Music Circle program in October [above] and a fund-raiser for Chicago’s Elastic Arts in September [below], the Sistas traverse the length of the great Black music tradition. Only a handful of gigs in, they are as comfortable locking into open, blue trio work, with Dawid ascending on clarinet, as they are in free-playing, with Angel moving between the reed and in-the-moment, spoken-sung spiritual declarations, Anaiet following her into crowded heavy ideas, while Brooklynn holds the music together. Gorgeous moments can be found throughout both completely un-choreographed performances.

Angel Bat Dawid & the Sistas of the Nitty Gritty play at 8p (CST), Friday, December 18th on the Interference 2020 Twitch channel. (Immediately following the Sistas, there’s a premiere of video work featuring music from Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star, directed by Mikel Patrick Avery, a wonderful film-maker who is sometimes better known as the drummer in Natural Information Society.) Lock it in!