Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Flying Lotus, Alice Coltrane Tribute performance in Los Angeles, 2018. Photo by Jesse Gilbert.

Poster for RAWS:LA designed by Alejandro Ayala.

Cover art for Carlos Niño’s Flutes, Echoes, It’s All Happening, released by Leaving Records in 2016.

Jamire, Scottie, Carlos outside of Danny’s Tavern, Chicago, February 2017. Photo by Gaby Hernandez.

Photo of Jeff Parker’s IVtet, early days at ETA in Highland Park, Los Angeles, 2016. Photo by Scott McNiece

The session was beautiful, one of those days where everything just kind of flowed with ease. I had been worried that it wouldn’t, since we were rolling with our modest remote recording rig, David was engineering by himself (without the usual help of our other engineer Dave Vettraino, who couldn’t make it out), and we’d never worked in Jeff’s house before. But everything was a breeze. In some part, it might have had to do with the big, beautiful blue/super moon that was approaching the horizon of the San Gabriel Mountains behind Jeff’s house (one of the most beautiful moon rises I’ve seen, to this day). But Clearly it was also in large part to the vibe that everyone brought to the session. Honestly, kind of wild to look back at the musicians who were in that room, and think about how much every single of them have become intertwined with International Anthem in the years since…

Actual photos of the moonrise in Altadena that night. By Scott McNiece.

It was my first time hearing Carlos and Miguel play with musicians that I was so deeply familiar with, and I was really struck by how beautifully they all improvised together. Miguel, with his 5-string violin and vast array of effects pedals (something I’d never seen before and have never seen since, personally, from a violin player), brought such a unique sound, which he drizzled into the harmonic cracks between Josh and Jeff’s crosstalk, with a beautiful, meticulous melodic sensibility, like the gentler side of Jerry Goodman meeting the spiritual side of Michael White. And Carlos, with his suitcase of percussion instruments and sound makers… blew my mind! Physically, he was so active, constantly digging for and engaging with a new unique sound to flavor the music, never boring or repeating his ideas for too long, giving Makaya the absolute most. Despite the seeming torrent of new sounds coming from Carlos, his additions to the music were so natural and serene – like a wind that blows hard enough through a forest to bend and shake all the plants and trees, but all the movement and quiet cacophony come together to create a calming, subconscious symphony of micro-percussions.

Outside of Jeff Parker’s house, Universal Beings sessions, Altadena, CA, January 2018. Photo Mark Pallman.

At some point in that session, the band decided to take a break. I brewed a pot of chrysanthemum tea for everyone (my obsession at the time). As the musicians sat and drank, a conversation struck up about the state of humanity. Not quite “politics” but musing around the state of human struggle. At some point Miguel said something along the lines of “we can’t really be our best unless we’re positively impacting everything around us” (i.e. humans, animals, plants, nature)…  It felt like a perfect expression of the kind of musical approach everyone had, unspokenly, collectively decided to take into the room that day when they improvised with each other. To Miguel’s comment about being in unison with all things, Carlos said: “we’re universal beings,” which really made Makaya laugh (clearly out of appreciation and agreement). When finishing post production on the album, Makaya decided to include this excerpt of their conversation, as a sort of “interlude” over a searching moment of improvisation that led into the final piece. And with that inclusion, and when that song became the last piece on the album, Makaya decided to name the album Universal Beings, in honor of that bit of freestyle poetry by Carlos.

The actual chrysanthemum blossom brewed for tea at Jeff Parker’s house, Universal Beings sessions, Altadena, CA, January 2018. Photo Mark Pallman.

The album was released in early Fall of that year, 2018. Shortly before then, I had started working as a programmer for Red Bull Music. I did a couple events with them, and they invited me to help with their first festival in Chicago. I was doing my best to wear both hats professionally, so I was kind of shy to suggest… but since Makaya’s new album Universal Beings was basically the biggest thing in my life at the time, I asked the folks at RBM if we could do a big thing for Makaya’s new album. I wanted to use the opportunity to bring the musicians from New York, London, and Los Angeles out to Chicago, and invite Miguel to write arrangements for the gig (because there was no way in hell it’d happen without an RBM-like budget). Thankfully, they said yes.

I was very happy to reach back out to Carlos and Miguel to invite them out, with some actual bread this time. And since our entire label was built off of low budget gigs or recordings that we organized on the side when musicians were getting together for a different gig or recording haha… Of course I immediately started scheming on additional events for Carlos and Miguel to maximize their time in Chicago. Jeremy Cunningham had already asked me to setup a release show for his ensemble to perform the music of his new Northern Spy album The Weather Up There that weekend (Jeremy himself was trying to capitalize on the opportunity of half of his band, i.e. Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson, coming to Chicago to play Makaya’s Red Bull gig). I told him we could probably do it at Co-Prosperity Sphere, and that I’d like to invite Carlos and Miguel to also perform as a duo that night.

I’ve always felt that the music Carlos and Miguel made that night was deeply influenced by the vibe of Lake Michigan in early Winter. The Universal Beings show, which happened the night before the Co-Pro show, took place at South Shore Cultural Center (formerly known as “The Country Club” by longtime residents of the South Shore neighborhood, some of whom also remember when Black people weren’t allowed in). The backdrop of the building is one of the southernmost Lake Michigan shorelines within the city limits of Chicago. Not only were the musicians’ long rehearsal day and show day spent within steps of the water, but trips to and from the SSCC went up and down Lake Shore Drive. Riding along that beautiful stretch of road, one can’t help but fix their gaze eastward, into the light blue expanse of the ocean-like lake, underneath the pale white sky that is typical of that time of year. Maybe if you ask Carlos and Miguel that would say they don’t remember looking at the water at all. But to that I would argue that Lake Michigan is not merely seen, but felt. The waves are very moody and tend to have wild days in the winter, crashing violently against the manmade concrete steps that line much of the Southside shorelines (built by urban engineers who have engaged in a never-ending quest to keep the lake from overcoming the city). That’s not even mentioning lake effect weather… It’s a truly powerful body of water.

Photos of Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson from Chicago Waves performance/recording at Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago, November 2018, by Kristie Kahns.

Per usual, I asked my partner Dave Vettraino to engineer and record the Co-Pro show. He had been capturing almost everything we presented in that space for two years. But it wasn’t an explicit intention to release the recording at the time. I believe Dave first did a mix of the recording in Summer 2019 before he did a solo drive across the country (from Chicago to California, coincidentally), because he wanted to have some things to listen to. He sent it to Carlos, Miguel, and myself. I downloaded and gave it a passive listen, but that was the Summer that Francesca and I spontaneously got married and moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, so… a lot going on, and ears weren’t fully tuned. The recording just kinda sat on my desktop for months.

Fast forward to April 2020… the pandemic had completely upended our collective reality, and I was alone at our new home in Los Angeles, revisiting this recording. I had heard it before – first listened in early 2019 when Dave first sent – but this time, the sounds were just absolutely emanating from the stereo, saturating my space with beautiful, luminous sound. It was turning the temperature down, easing the ever-present tension of that time… It was exactly what I needed to hear! Then I got to the end of the recording, where Carlos leads the audience at Co-Pro in some group deep breaths and sighs. Imagine that! With the new context of the new pandemic reality, the idea of being a room with ~100 people was distant enough… How about being in a room and taking deep, unmasked breaths with that many people! It felt like human history that we all desperately needed to remember at that point. In that moment, I scrawled down the words for the obi strip:

Luminous,
loving,
lush sound,
stretching
outward in
to open air
& sparkling
inside the
collective
breath of
community
in communal
space.

If I remember correctly, it was some combination of these obi strip words that I used in my initial email to Miguel and Carlos, voicing my desire to release this recording as soon as possible. Thankfully, they said “yes,” and here we are.

Before those collective breaths, another important thing happened at the end of the Co-Pro performance. Carlos, ever the well-spoken host/MC he is, took the microphone to give thanks and acknowledgements. And in an instant of eloquent brilliance – much like the one he had during the Universal Beings session – he spontaneously told the crowd at Co-Prosperity Sphere that Miguel and he would like to call this piece of music Chicago Waves. I’ve long argued that his statement supports my theory regarding Lake Michigan’s influence on this music. Looking back now, the words hit me in a new, different way… A new thought: perhaps things we were doing strictly in Chicago in the early days of our label were sending out waves – waves that were picked up by likeminded people in other places, like Miguel and Carlos in Los Angeles, whose music was part of what influenced us to transmit those waves outwards from Chicago in the first place. And Chicago Waves was the moment that Carlos and Miguel returned those waves back to their home.

Scott McNiece

Los Angeles, California, February 2025