Ypsilanti Freighthouse
Kaleigh Wilder Trio:
The Story Cuts Across What the Map Cuts Up
Baritone saxophonist Kaleigh Wilder has performed around the world, led her first album release, and now has plans to release two more albums as a bandleader with a New York-based record label—among several other ongoing projects.
A map is a place which we all operate within, but it is only part of the narrative. The bulk of the story is stored somewhere invisible to us but within us. Oral tradition and bodily remembrance keep the ever-evolving story alive. The story we hold in us is unafraid of what cuts the map makes next…
Musicians Kaleigh Wilder, Ben Hall, Jaribu Shahid, and dancer Alexandria Davis will explore Afro-diasporic narratives that traverse oceans and endure attempts at erasure. Using rhythm, movement, timbre, melody, and cacophony, The Story Cuts Across What the Map Cuts Up celebrates what could not be subjugated or relegated to the margins. A continuous performance of original compositions, improvisations, and movement invites the audience to imagine not the physical map, but the stories that connect and produce our futures.
This performance is a “Pay What You Wish” event. That means that you can decide how much you would like to pay to attend. In most venues, an event like this would cost around $15-25 per person. Please enter the price you would like to pay per ticket, and the number of tickets you wish to reserve.
Kaleigh Wilder (b. 1994) is a baritone saxophone improviser and sound sculptor based in Detroit, MI. Originally from Northwest Indiana, she moved to Michigan for graduate school where she then found refuge in Detroit’s music community. It is hard to place her music into a cut and dried genre, so Wilder likes to play from what she knows in her body—what her hands, ears, and inner child remember. Using timbral extremes that shift between raw and polished, abrasive and sensitive, discomfort and catharsis, Wilder channels her lived experiences into sound to communicate viscerally. She hopes to amplify in the listener their own understanding of music and Self.
Born in Detroit, Jaribu was raised in a diverse musical community in multiple genres, including work with Kamau Kenyatta, Kenn Cox, Wendell Harrison, J.C. Heard, Jimmy Wilkins Big Band, Ed Nuccelli Plural Circle, the DSO Civic Orchestra, and others.
Major credits include recording and touring with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, David Murray, Roscoe Mitchell, Griot Galaxy , Geri Allen, James Carter, James Newton, Hamiett Blueitt, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
Ben Hall is a composer, writer, and organizer. He was profiled by Fred Moten in the book Black and Blur and has written extensively about the visionary percussionist Milford Graves. He has participated in multiple museum exhibitions including Slow An Alarm Until It’s A Tone, a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. He is currently working on a feature length documentary on the drummer Roy Brooks.