Biography
Hailing from bases in New York and across Europe, Matana Roberts has garnered acclaim for her work as a saxophonist, author, composer, ensemble leader, sonic innovator, and mixed-media artist. Her practice spans improvisation, movement, verse, and stage performance. She is recognized primarily for originating the expansive Coin Coin series, a twelve-part conceptual endeavor launched in 2006—the year she put out her self-titled debut recording, a jazz session featuring Chicago figures such as Joshua Abrams, Jeff Parker, and Frank Rosaly. Conceived as “panoramic sound quilting,” the cycle seeks to evoke the instinctive, spirit-raising legacies of American creative forms while sustaining rigorous attention to storytelling, history, community, and political themes inside improvisatory frameworks. Its opening installment, Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres, surfaced in 2011, with Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile and Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee following in 2013 and 2015. After a four-year interval spent performing, teaching, and appearing on others’ recordings, she issued Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis near the close of 2019. Four further years of composition, preparation, and travel led to the appearance of Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden.
Born and raised on Chicago’s south side to parents shaped by the Civil Rights, political, and anti-war movements of the 1960s, Roberts encountered arts, culture, and politics—both mainstream and radical—from early childhood. She commenced formal training at age seven within the city’s public schools, taking up clarinet, violin, and bassoon. At sixteen, studying under bassist Reginald Willis, she turned to saxophone and improvisation, an immersion that redirected her path. She immersed herself fully in Chicago’s diverse music and art communities, performing with experimental rock, Latin R&B, and jazz ensembles while also self-publishing zines and tracts as a writer and composing for theater. Saxophonist, composer, and Velvet Lounge proprietor Fred Anderson exerted another formative influence.
Between 2000 and 2009 she served as an associate member of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), having joined after relocating to New York, where she connected with fellow Chicago expatriates and AACM affiliates including Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, and Nicole Mitchell.
With drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Joshua Abrams she established the trio Sticks and Stones, whose self-released debut appeared in 2002 and whose Shed Grace followed on Thrill Jockey in 2004. She continued performing and session work, and in 2005 began composing and workshopping the Coin Coin cycle. Additional affiliations included the Burnt Sugar collective, William Parker, and rock outfits such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and TV on the Radio. In 2006 she self-released her first leader date, Lines for Lacy, followed by The Calling in 2007.
The year 2008 brought her quartet recording The Chicago Project on Barry Adamson’s Central Control imprint, produced by Vijay Iyer, after which she undertook international touring and further collaborations, among them an appearance on Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra’s Kollaps Tradixionales. Following a Montreal performance of Coin Coin Chapter One with her local ensemble, Constellation approached her about recording; she proposed the multi-volume Coin Coin project, which the label embraced. February 2011 saw the release of Live in London on Adamson’s label, succeeded in May by Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres, which received widespread praise. After continued touring and collaborative activity, Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile emerged in October 2013; the second installment in the twelve-part series earned year-end placements on numerous critical lists.
Roberts devoted much of 2014 to writing and performing, highlighted by a noted duet with drummer Susie Ibarra at the Stone and participation in the fiftieth-anniversary observance of Terry Riley’s In C. Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee appeared on Constellation in February 2015. In May of the next year she received a Doris Duke Artist Award. During fall 2016 she held a residency at the Camargo Foundation in Paris, France, in partnership with Art Matters and the Jerome Foundation, where she developed the fourth Coin Coin chapter.
After several years residing on houseboats in Brooklyn—where she took up surfing—she began splitting time between New York and Europe. From 2016 to 2018 she undertook a musical residency at the Park Avenue Armory’s Veterans Room, presented the installation “Jump at the Sun” at Fridman Gallery featuring a single mixed-media score against a continuous long-form sound quilt, and composed a piece for a thirty-person mixed chorus in Berlin employing a visual digital score. She also made a guest appearance on Deerhoof’s Mountain Moves. In fall 2019 she released Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, convening a new ensemble with New York musicians Hannah Marcus on guitars, fiddle, and accordion, percussionist Ryan Sawyer, Montréal bassist Nicolas Caloia, and Montréal-Cairo composer/improviser Sam Shalabi on guitar and oud, plus guests trombonist Steve Swell and vibraphonist Ryan White.
Over the ensuing four years Roberts concentrated on writing, rehearsing, and ultimately recording the fifth installment of her extended project, fusing vanguard jazz, avant composition, folk, spoken word, and theater as in prior volumes. The work recounts the story of a woman in her family’s ancestral line who died from complications following an illegal abortion. In the studio she was assisted by producer Kyp Malone, drummer/percussionist Mike Pride, saxophonist Darius Jones, pianist Cory Smythe, clarinetist Stuart Bogie, and reed and woodwind player Matt Lavelle, among others. Through gathering and interpreting family narratives together with extensive archival research, Roberts sought to render a complete, lasting portrait of a woman, “electric, alive, spirited, fire and free,” as stated in the lyric book. Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden was issued by Constellation in September 2023.
Born and raised on Chicago’s south side to parents shaped by the Civil Rights, political, and anti-war movements of the 1960s, Roberts encountered arts, culture, and politics—both mainstream and radical—from early childhood. She commenced formal training at age seven within the city’s public schools, taking up clarinet, violin, and bassoon. At sixteen, studying under bassist Reginald Willis, she turned to saxophone and improvisation, an immersion that redirected her path. She immersed herself fully in Chicago’s diverse music and art communities, performing with experimental rock, Latin R&B, and jazz ensembles while also self-publishing zines and tracts as a writer and composing for theater. Saxophonist, composer, and Velvet Lounge proprietor Fred Anderson exerted another formative influence.
Between 2000 and 2009 she served as an associate member of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), having joined after relocating to New York, where she connected with fellow Chicago expatriates and AACM affiliates including Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, and Nicole Mitchell.
With drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Joshua Abrams she established the trio Sticks and Stones, whose self-released debut appeared in 2002 and whose Shed Grace followed on Thrill Jockey in 2004. She continued performing and session work, and in 2005 began composing and workshopping the Coin Coin cycle. Additional affiliations included the Burnt Sugar collective, William Parker, and rock outfits such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and TV on the Radio. In 2006 she self-released her first leader date, Lines for Lacy, followed by The Calling in 2007.
The year 2008 brought her quartet recording The Chicago Project on Barry Adamson’s Central Control imprint, produced by Vijay Iyer, after which she undertook international touring and further collaborations, among them an appearance on Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra’s Kollaps Tradixionales. Following a Montreal performance of Coin Coin Chapter One with her local ensemble, Constellation approached her about recording; she proposed the multi-volume Coin Coin project, which the label embraced. February 2011 saw the release of Live in London on Adamson’s label, succeeded in May by Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres, which received widespread praise. After continued touring and collaborative activity, Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile emerged in October 2013; the second installment in the twelve-part series earned year-end placements on numerous critical lists.
Roberts devoted much of 2014 to writing and performing, highlighted by a noted duet with drummer Susie Ibarra at the Stone and participation in the fiftieth-anniversary observance of Terry Riley’s In C. Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee appeared on Constellation in February 2015. In May of the next year she received a Doris Duke Artist Award. During fall 2016 she held a residency at the Camargo Foundation in Paris, France, in partnership with Art Matters and the Jerome Foundation, where she developed the fourth Coin Coin chapter.
After several years residing on houseboats in Brooklyn—where she took up surfing—she began splitting time between New York and Europe. From 2016 to 2018 she undertook a musical residency at the Park Avenue Armory’s Veterans Room, presented the installation “Jump at the Sun” at Fridman Gallery featuring a single mixed-media score against a continuous long-form sound quilt, and composed a piece for a thirty-person mixed chorus in Berlin employing a visual digital score. She also made a guest appearance on Deerhoof’s Mountain Moves. In fall 2019 she released Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, convening a new ensemble with New York musicians Hannah Marcus on guitars, fiddle, and accordion, percussionist Ryan Sawyer, Montréal bassist Nicolas Caloia, and Montréal-Cairo composer/improviser Sam Shalabi on guitar and oud, plus guests trombonist Steve Swell and vibraphonist Ryan White.
Over the ensuing four years Roberts concentrated on writing, rehearsing, and ultimately recording the fifth installment of her extended project, fusing vanguard jazz, avant composition, folk, spoken word, and theater as in prior volumes. The work recounts the story of a woman in her family’s ancestral line who died from complications following an illegal abortion. In the studio she was assisted by producer Kyp Malone, drummer/percussionist Mike Pride, saxophonist Darius Jones, pianist Cory Smythe, clarinetist Stuart Bogie, and reed and woodwind player Matt Lavelle, among others. Through gathering and interpreting family narratives together with extensive archival research, Roberts sought to render a complete, lasting portrait of a woman, “electric, alive, spirited, fire and free,” as stated in the lyric book. Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden was issued by Constellation in September 2023.
Albums
Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden...
2023
COIN COIN Chapter Four: Memphis
2019
Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee
2015
Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile
2013
Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres
2011
Shed Grace
2004
Singles
