Let's Have a Powwow

Mali Obomsawin

• Amy Farid • Season 1 • Episode 13

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We share a candid, funny, and deeply rooted conversation with Oscar-nominated composer and bassist Mali Obomsawin, tracing a path from Western Maine to Indigenous jazz lineages, archival repatriation, and a pedalboard moment with Yo-Yo Ma. Music, memory, and sovereignty braid into songs that carry both grief and lift.

• identity as Abenaki Wabanaki and citizen of Odanak First Nation
• Indigenous jazz history from Mildred Bailey to Oscar Pettiford and Don Cherry
• fiddle camps, Berklee year, Dartmouth scholarship and culture shock
• research on colonization, captive diplomacy, and Dartmouth archives
• repatriation of Abenaki recordings to the Odanak museum
• Sweet Tooth as ancestral storytelling with modern ensemble
• Deer Lady origins, Reservation Dogs placement, and shoegaze textures
• mentors, community learning, and critiques of institutional jazz
• collaborations, Yo-Yo Ma set experiment, and future wishes
• writing process for the next Dear Lady album and upcoming shows

Find me on Instagram: @maliobomsawin


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Follow the pod @letshaveapowwowpod

Created and Hosted by Amy z. Farid

Follow me @therealamyfarid

The LHAP Song "Wakon" was created by Jason Guitano/Skellz @jay_anton_

Logo Design by my homegirl @DanielaHritcu

God Bless Community!

SPEAKER_01:

What you love, but she loves you know the future.

SPEAKER_03:

This week I welcome Molly Obamsawin to the show. If you watch on YouTube, you are in for a treat. There was a complete fluke, and I ended up getting an upgraded podcast studio. So you can watch me and Molly in 4K resolution if you're into that kind of thing. I think it was a fitting situation seeing as I am welcoming my first Oscar nominated guest onto the pod. Molly Albamsawin is an award-winning bassist, composer, vocalist, and songwriter. When she's not composing Oscar-nominated scores, you can find her performing all over the US, playing various genres of music, from jazz, folk, classic to experimental. Her band, Dear Lady, was named Best New Artist of 2024 by Stereogum. It's a perfect blend of soft, poetic, shoe gazy indie rock. Molly is a wildly gifted musician with a resume full of legendary projects. But if you ask her, she's just a regular girl from Western Maine. If you ask Yo-Yo Ma, he would say she's well, you're just gonna have to listen to find out what he says. Okay, Molly. Hi, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to my new fancy space that it was only for you.

SPEAKER_00:

Come on, a CNN or Oprah or something.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you are an Oscar nominated composer, bassist. I mean, you're a multi-instrumentalist. Let's just, I mean, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Multi.

SPEAKER_03:

And yeah. So you're my first Oscar nominated guest on the pod. Yeah. First and not the last. Definitely. And next you're gonna be Oscar winner. But yes, you were nominated for your composition of the documentary Sugarcane. Yeah. Which is an incredible heart-wrenching documentary about residential schools. And so thank you. And I think this is up to your speed as being an Oscar-nominated composer. I'm regular. Oh, and that's why I love you. Wait, so Molly. Yeah, Molly Obamsawin, everybody. Give it up for the Queen. Molly, tell me. I I kind of threw out some words of who you are, Oscar nominated composer. How do you identify?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh. As regular.

SPEAKER_03:

You know what? I say regular or normal sometimes, and people are like, Amy, like, and I'm like, I'm not trying to demean anyone else.

SPEAKER_00:

That's actually the best compliment.

SPEAKER_03:

Because it's also like civilians. It's like kind of like, you know, there are certain people that have gone through certain things in life. I'm like, oh, the civilians wouldn't understand because you know, there's certain rigor role if you know, like that goes within certain industries in life. And we've become soldiers in certain types of ways. But I love being normal too. I'm just a simple girl.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Just be simple again. That's all we want. You know, I identify as a citizen of Odinak First Nation.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And an Abenaki or Wabanaki woman. Um, and yeah. Wabanaki is the language that is Wabanaki is the we have a confederacy, Wabanaki Confederacy is five nations across the border, or crossed by the border.

SPEAKER_03:

And it goes from Canada into New England. New England, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And the Abenaki and Wabanaki people tend to ask what's the difference. And the Abenaki people, which is yeah, where my nation is, Abenaki, we allied with the French and stuck with them, and they have a really hard time with W's.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so that's why it's Wabanaki or Abenaki. Okay, yes, the W is not, they're not a fan of the W's. So New England, you're a New England baby.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. I grew up in Maine.

SPEAKER_03:

But more specifically, what part of Maine?

SPEAKER_00:

The States.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, because I have been to Maine. I've done photo shoots in Acadia, I've gone to Portland for shoots, I've done a lot of things, but not in Western Maine. So, you know, like I've been to beautiful beach houses and done that, and which is gorgeous. So is that that's different from Western Maine?

SPEAKER_00:

So different. I think I went to the beach like twice as a kid, like the ocean beach. Like people don't, it's hard to actually access if you're from Maine and don't have a beach house, you know, like a lot of vacationers, all of the shoreline property is like owned by people.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of actually a lot of people who are retired CIA end up buying homes in Midcoast Maine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

We could go down, but I see.

SPEAKER_03:

Why Maine?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it's beautiful. It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03:

So beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

And you can be kind of in incognito there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's Maine is mixed. It's and I know I know the hippies of Maine well. So Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

They're still there. They exist.

SPEAKER_00:

They're still there. They're still there. There's like artists, hippie people who kind of like move away from places like New York City and have families. So when I I was actually born pretty close to the Canadian border in New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

But I moved to Maine when I was five, and we my family was like pretty poor. And my mom was in nursing school. My dad is a musician.

SPEAKER_03:

So your dad is the musician. Oh, and your mom's a nurse.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

What a combo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Cute combo. They they did well for about.

SPEAKER_03:

And your mom is native. Your father is native. My dad's native. Isn't Digital. My mom's Jewish. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

New York City.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, great combo.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So you guys moved to Western Maine when you're five.

SPEAKER_00:

And we lived in a structure that is resembles a barn. And it was storage for bread and puppets stage props, was what the barn existed for. Oh. Yeah. So Red and Puppet Theater. Now explain what that is. Okay. So it's cool. It's cool. It's it's actually has got roots in New York, I think. Yeah. And Vermont. And in Maine at that time, they did a lot of political puppetry, basically huge paper mache puppets and parades, stilts, like kind of echoing the you've seen those images of like anti-Vietnam War, like huge masks and puppetry in the streets.

SPEAKER_03:

So that's like so that barn was their storage.

SPEAKER_00:

That was their storage for a lot of these props. I was actually just sending a friend some photos today of the where I grew up because it's like so crazy. The half of the barn was filled with these props. And the other half, my dad sort of connected some like like car lights, like just like rudimentary wiring and made it somewhat livable for a family of four. They wow. So you had electricity. We had electricity-ish, no running water. We were the last stop on a dirt road after the trailer park. Yes. And we would go to the laundromat on the trailer park to get our water. Wow. And I lived there until I was 11.

SPEAKER_03:

And do you have siblings?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I have a sister who's close in age, and then I have five other siblings who are kind of spread out on either side of us.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Interesting. So you all lived in the barn together.

SPEAKER_00:

Just me and my mom and my dad and my sister. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But as a kid, are you because I we I grew up poor too and not having electricity and you know, me, my mom, and my brother like huddling around each other to get warmth because we don't have we didn't have heat. But when you're young, like you I feel like sometimes you don't know exactly that it's kind of like, oh, I think I might be, am I camping? Like is this what camping?

SPEAKER_00:

It's like permanent state of camping. That that's my childhood.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like my trailer doesn't have heat. But we never, I didn't, I never thought, I don't know. I was never, I wasn't aware yet of the riches in the world and society. Were you and you were in the sticks?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I was so glad and happy with, I mean, it was so beautiful there.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we we had, you know, wood stove, but we definitely like plasticed up the windows in the winter, you know? And like it was it would snow so much back then.

SPEAKER_03:

And that was my next question. So, yeah, how are the weather conditions in western Maine?

SPEAKER_00:

Is it it's really it's it's like the foothills of the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains. And so you're like that's the where it ends, the trail. In Maine, yeah. Oh my god. Actually, does it end in Maine? It ends in Maine at Mount Cataudin, which is actually like the birthplace of the Wabanaki people.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my god. Okay, because I'm I know people have done from they start in Georgia or wherever they start and they hike all the way up. So that's the end of the Appalachian trail. Wow. What did your father your father was a musician? Yeah. What did he play or he plays still?

SPEAKER_00:

Um he's he plays guitar, jazz guitar, and he plays covers from any era that you could possibly want.

SPEAKER_03:

Jazz guitar.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So he's like a really good guitar player. He's a great guitar player, and he's uh like he learned from his dad, actually. So like music goes way back in my family. A big part of the work that I do in jazz specifically now is like to talk about the legacy of you know how we had big bands out of the residential.

SPEAKER_03:

Tell us about indigenous jazz. Is this the thing we can start saying?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and should and should.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, like and I noticed that because in my Instagram algorithm, I see the indigenous big band, the Julio Keefe.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Julio Keefe.

SPEAKER_03:

And then I saw you and I was like, wait, you play. I'm like, what's going on? It was like one of those things, like, who's I want to see you guys?

SPEAKER_00:

You should, you should. I hope we play in New York again soon. And we need to play in Oklahoma. Like definitely a criminal that we haven't been booked there yet. Yeah. We'll work on that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So okay, so like So Indigenous jazz. Since the beginning, since the very beginning. So, I mean, I actually was speaking with a woman. We we had a big band gig this weekend, and I was speaking about how, you know, like the church obviously impacted black folks in America and Indigenous people in America. Same time, you know, different churches, but like hymns, yep. And and also we were sharing ideas from the beginning, too, sharing songs, right? That's yes, like what we were doing back then, especially in places like Oklahoma. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Which reminds me of Ster one of Sterling's movies, This May Be the Last Time. That yeah, which is you know, that with the Scottish, Irish, you know, immigrants with us, with our his Creek songs and the Cat Catholicism and their it's the chance.

SPEAKER_00:

I think he hit on something so core to American music in that film, actually.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like actual real, that's like real roots American music, right? So sorry, I just that made me think of that.

SPEAKER_00:

That's I mean, when people ask, like, how do I learn more? I actually always point people to that film. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

If you've never seen this may be the last time you like music and you want to know where you know certain people have been inspired by American American music, it's a must-watch and it's a deep dive too, and it's fascinating. So, yeah, so Indigenous jazz, we you are an Indigenous jazz artist. Who else should we talk about? Yeah, so the from the past, present, everything.

SPEAKER_00:

The first woman to ever sing in front of a big band. So, like, you think of Ella Fitzgerald, you think of Billy Holiday, you think of all these like icons of American jazz singing. They all were trying to sound like her in the 20s and 30s. Her name was Mildred Bailey, and she was Cordelane. Oh, wait. Okay. She helped Bing Crosby get his star. Her name again is Mildred Bailey.

SPEAKER_03:

Mildred Bailey. Okay, shout out Mildred Bailey. I need to look so indigenous, Cordelane.

SPEAKER_00:

Cordelane.

SPEAKER_03:

And everyone was trying to sound like her.

SPEAKER_00:

Everyone, yeah. I mean, she like invented the style of like that like early 20s, 30s like swing singing.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, incredible. And and then you I guess you fast-forward like someone from Oklahoma who's actually black and native, a bass player, so an insider reference. But his name is Oscar Petiford. He like invented the style of like jazz bebop playing that everyone tries to do. Like slapping the bass. No slapping, but he was like really, really melodic somehow over these like crazy chord structures, nerdy shit. But wow. Don Cherry was half Choctaw. He was really big in uh free and avant-garde music, which is like kind of a touch point for me.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

There's so many. Jim Pepper, of course, who was Kaw. Yes. Maybe Comanche. I don't want to miscredit, but but at least Kaw. Yeah, there's so many, actually.

SPEAKER_03:

That's fascinating. Now, how did you choose bass? Because your father played guitar. I mean, you've you play a lot of instruments, but I started on bass.

SPEAKER_00:

I really deeply identify as a bassist, just like in my perse personality, I guess. Um I I started on actually fiddle. Because all the kids in my like second and third grade class were able to play fiddle for like 15 minutes a week, and I found that very exciting. We learned hot crossbuns.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

I played viola. Nice.

SPEAKER_03:

So I did have a stringed instrument.

SPEAKER_00:

You are such a viola type.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. I was trying to be different. I didn't want to play the violin. So I was like, I'll play that. Like I got my hair purple. Totally. And I also infamously, infamously play bass really bad. And I played in a really shitty punk rock band in New York called On the Prowl.

SPEAKER_00:

Called what?

SPEAKER_03:

Called On the Prowl.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Represent.

SPEAKER_03:

This was before YouTube, so you won't find me embarrassing myself.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, but also like being bad at bass is kind of essential for punk, right?

SPEAKER_03:

It was like punk garage. So it was like dirty and amazing and grungy. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But no chops.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, no chops. It was like self-taught, the whole thing. But I feel like too as a woman bassist, I feel like it is such a grounding instrument. And like we hold down the whole song.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I don't know if that's like kind of the secret weapon of the band. Like that's actually what I love about the bass is like you get to be kind of demure in the back, but like you're making everyone else sound good. And like it's okay that people don't know because like you kind of hold the power.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, it's so true. Because then once you don't hear it, you're like, Yeah, everyone's like, what happened?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, why am I not dancing?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, it's this grounding force. And okay, so yes, and you did you start with upright bass?

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't play electric for quite a while after uh learning upright. And and I my dad used to have to like carry it to school for me. I'm like, you must have been such a little yeah, but my older brother Adam played drums, and so my dad.

SPEAKER_03:

Wait, did you ever did you secretly want to play drums ever?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I always thought drums were cool. Yeah, yeah. But I was satisfied with bass because I was like right in the middle. I could play with you know.

SPEAKER_03:

It's true. It's true. So your dad would carry your bass to school, and in your school, did they have an orchestra orchestra? Like you had a full-on in band or just orchestra?

SPEAKER_00:

It was like so in Western Maine, there's it's like this weird cross-section, really vibrant community of folk musicians. And you know, the string program in the school definitely helped, but it's it's not like a very well-off area, you know, it's pretty remote. But there's because it's in the foothills of these mountains in New England and a place that was colonized in like every direction, there's like Quebecois music, there's Cape Britain, and like Scottish music, Irish music, there's old time music that comes up that Appalachia. Appalachian Trail, right? Lands there. There's like people playing rags still there. It's like this dome of like so many eras of American music that's kind of got stuck in the mountains. And I think that mountain people know that that happens, right? I think like down in other places in Appalachia, that's the case too, right? It's like, oh, this one town, people still play this fiddle style that's dead everywhere else.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, in a little hollow somewhere, right? Oh, that's so you have this concentration of all these different types of folk music. So you were obviously inspired by folk, you were you were born into it, literally. And you continued with bass. What happens? So you go all through school playing your music, you're like obviously your parents are embracing these decisions that you're making. You're playing in, you know, bands, and then you what how do you decide to go to someplace like Berkeley or Dartmouth for music? Is that something like you wanted to go to learn higher learning and music education? Or how do you get from you know playing folk into going to Berkeley and Dartmouth? Was it just a natural thing?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, so I went to a lot of fiddle camps growing up, also in Maine, Central Maine. That's so Maine. Yeah, fiddle camps. It was it was so nerdy, but um but that was like the cool thing to do, actually.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like that was the thing to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I'm I'm really glad a lot of the pictures of me in that era have not survived.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I bet you were adorable.

SPEAKER_00:

But in like at in those places, I got to meet, you know, kids from Boston who played folk music and other places that had more kind of access and exposure. And so it didn't seem like unachievable to go to a music school. But what was what did feel unattainable was like the money part of it. So I I applied to I auditioned at Berkeley and I got in. I didn't get like a really big scholarship or anything. I wasn't, you know, I was playing like folk bass, you know. It's not like the skill set. Yeah. I was super in demand. But but I got in and I I was able to go for a year. I was like, I'm gonna. I also applied to Dartmouth and got in with a scholarship because they have this great program for natives and they have a lot more funding.

SPEAKER_03:

Great.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I like As they should. As they should, yes. And so I deferred a year from Dartmouth and went to Berkeley for a year to like just kind of take music classes, not liberal arts or anything. So it was a lot cheaper. Oh, cool. So you could just choose the classes to take. Yeah, I was like, I'm not trying to like graduate from here, so I just get to like screw around for a year and like try to learn as much as I can. Yes. That's so smart. That's what you did. That's what I did, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So you utilize the money wisely. You were like, okay, I have enough to do a year.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm still in debt, but okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So you went a year to Berkeley. Yeah. And you did all those cool music classes and you made connections, right? Because I know a lot of times people go to school for the connections and who you meet and who you kind of grow into, you know, your career with.

SPEAKER_00:

There was like a natural, it was sort of like a natural step because, like I mentioned, like a lot of the fiddling folk country community that I knew from growing up from going to these camps was actually based in Boston. And so I was like stepping into a scene.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I was able to start my first band there and start playing country music, like performing and touring. So the whole time I was at Dartmouth, I was like half gone because I was touring and just made it work.

SPEAKER_03:

So, but then, okay, so you did the Berkeley, you got your bands going, and then you decided to go to Dartmouth. And how was the Dartmouth experience? Oh god, it was alienating. Yeah, I mean, it is like a PWI, right, for the most part, like a predominantly white institution. Yeah. Um, and I mean the the the name alone screams colonization. Oh, yeah. I mean, the And especially in that area, you know, like you're I mean, that's like that's the hot seat of American colonization.

SPEAKER_00:

That's my people's land where the school is actually. And after after Dartmouth, I I went back and did some more research there and actually found that like such crazy stories of colonization, but like so my people were really famous for burning down settlements. Nice. And but when we would raid and everything, we would capture to typically like take captives, typically children. Okay, and we would raise them in our communities to be diplomats in the next generation. So we'd have these like little white kids that we'd be like, okay, but it's one of yours, and now we need peace.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, this is what colonization does to a people. You have to figure out how how can we, you know, exist. And if this is like we have to integrate certain things into our, you know, like religion, into our music or into the Native American church so that we can still practice certain things, like integrating the Catholicism, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So to exist, we had to do certain things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's really just like smart diplomacy, actually. You know, it's intergener. We're like, okay, we realize this war is going to be intergenerational, so we need to think that way. Anyway, so but what I found in my research at Dartmouth was when that school was founded in the 1760s, they were trying to recruit the descendants of the captive white kids back from from Odinac back to Dartmouth so that they could make them Protestants and send them to Odinac to like make us like yeah, like Protestant instead of Catholic. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So then they had their own agenda within the Protestants and the Catholicism dolls.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Oh, so like this is why I love it.

SPEAKER_03:

It actually is all a conspiracy. It it is. It is been all a conspiracy. And like, yeah, they're like, okay, now we're Protestant. Now we gotta get rid of this Catholicism.

SPEAKER_00:

Crazy. So actually at Modernac, we have like the res got split in half at one point, half Protestant, half Catholic, and like to the to this day, like those families on either side of the line still kind of like feud with each other.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it is such a weird thing, like Catholics, and yeah, that's how it is kind of too back home. Yeah. It's like, you know, all a lot of people who went to boarding schools or descendants of are Catholic. And then some of the people that were either adopted or are Baptist or you know, Southern Baptist, and it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh it's so weird. So dynamic. Yeah, it's so it's like splintered, but also we're all still just like Indians, like just getting on with each other too, like at the end of the day. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

That's why I love Oklahoma, because it is you have the crazy Oklahomans, and then you have the indigenous people. We all try to coexist together. Some people make it harder to do that. I mean, we've just been we're like pros at that, learning to adapt.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, it's it's actually really clear. Like, I I don't know, I've I've become very romantic about Oklahoma and Tulsa and like just like Indian territory in general, you know, because growing up, like, yeah, I I was just not surrounded by natives in the way that you all come up down there, you know, and like to see how you guys make it work, even though you've had your your like reservations are like right up against people you fought against for like probably and were also like killing us, yeah, like historically killing each other.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, especially for being Osage, like the whole Osage Man of Terror, and you know, those families are still there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_03:

Right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

For real. And but I think too, like, there's also just like Oklahoma in general is a it's one of those, like, I don't want to say forgotten, but like ignored places in America, in the same way that places like Western Maine, like rural places where with a lot of poor people and not a lot of like access.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And and I relate to that growing up in Western Maine, like I was definitely surrounded by mostly white settler Mainers, but people got along actually better than you would expect because we were all poor.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, it's a socioeconomic situation, right? It is like you can relate because we're all just poor.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think that's that's actually why I had the hardest time at Dartmouth. Is it was the first time in my life that I was around like a super wealthy kids, yes, surrounded by another income bracket. And I was like, oh, everything's different.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I actually don't know how to relate to hardly anyone here.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So did you finish Dartmouth?

SPEAKER_00:

I did.

SPEAKER_03:

Did you graduate?

SPEAKER_00:

I did somehow.

SPEAKER_03:

You did it. Yeah, I did it. And then what is your what is it called? Diploma title? What do you do?

SPEAKER_00:

Um I actually double majored.

SPEAKER_03:

Major, that's what the word is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. In comparative literature and government, like okay, work, not music. So no, but like it was like it was kind of interpretive.

SPEAKER_03:

And I don't understand college and universities at all.

SPEAKER_00:

So I took a lot of classes with this amazing uh homo nation teacher named Bruce Dutu, who taught federal Indian law. So that at Dartmouth? At Dartmouth. Okay. Yeah, he's amazing. I I feel like I remember, you know, what's a good teacher when you remember almost everything they ever said? Yes. You know, and he was one of those.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I love, I love, I love every human that's like that. Yeah. Teachers specifically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then comparative literature was like, it's basically a catch-all for like if you have a lot of different stuff that doesn't fall into one major, you can just so music was part of it.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, perfect. Yeah. And then you played music at Dartmouth. Were you like part of their? Do they have like an orchestra or symphony or do they have a school band?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they have uh actually an experimental big band.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, it was perfect. Exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

It was like the only place that was yeah, a good fit.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so you found your people. Yeah. You found your people. And then did you lever so you left Dartmouth and then did you go to Boston? Like how what was your next move after graduation?

SPEAKER_00:

I moved to Boston for a year, a year, and then I moved to New York right on the brink of the pandemic hitting. Oh my god, so fun. Perfect. Fall of 2019. Oh my god. Yeah, I was like ready to do my New York thing, you know, had this perfect apartment. I was like, We at least we had a perfect apartment to stay inside of it. Yeah, it was awesome. It was like an old like warehouse and like east, far east Williamsburg. And amazing. Yeah, it was like this like beautiful like wood floors and all these artists living in it. It was cool. Wait, what is the building called? I d I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, because a lot of the factories where I used to live in Bushwake, they have names to the buildings. So I was like, wait, did we live in the same building?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, wait, that's cute. I don't think it had a name.

SPEAKER_03:

Like there was like the McKibben Loves, there's a Tea Factory, the Castle Braid. No. But yeah, okay, so do you still live in the nice loft? I wish I did. You moved out.

SPEAKER_00:

I had to leave, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So I had all these tour dates to pay for my New York living and so okay, so you get the the diploma, then you're like, oh wait, now I have to actually pay back and I need to make money. But you were already a touring musician. Yeah. So you're making money, so you're like, okay, I'm gonna go do these tours. I want to talk about Dear Lady.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_03:

I am obsessed with Greatest Hits. That is the only album you have right now from Dear Lady, which is an indie, would you say indie rock shoe gaze? Yeah. Oh, it's so good. It is so good. And the first time I heard Dear Lady was on Reservation Dogs. Hell yeah. Right? It was the Dear Lady episode. And I was like, what is that? Oh, it was your voice is haunting. It's like, oh so yes, that is what I would love to ask you when, how did Dear Lady come about?

SPEAKER_00:

So during the pandemic, I was living in this cabin in northern Maine close to Zabayek, the Pasmaquadi res, and was just writing. And also writing my first jazz album, Sweet Tooth. I was like doing all of it. Which we will also be talking about as well. Yeah. I don't know. I was just kind of like writing constantly. And because I had this like summer.

SPEAKER_03:

You had all that time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, all this time. And uh my band had broken up. So I was like, good.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I was like, I have all these songs, I have all these feelings about colonizers. I have Yeah. You know, and so I was just like that was the perfect timing, 2020, like post-George Floyd.

SPEAKER_03:

Like finally, everyone was like, it was just talk about it up. Like, and here we are. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I wrote all those songs, and I I actually like, yeah, I wrote them at the same time as my jazz stuff, and I recorded it within the same year. And I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen with the world, or you know, I I felt like my like career was over because my band had broken up. I was like, I'm just gonna like put it all out and just see what happens. Yes. And so dear lady and sweet tooth, you did that both around the same time. Yeah, pretty much simultaneously. And then I put Sweet Tooth out first, and and Sterling heard about it and reached out to me and was like, yo, do you have anything else unreleased? And I was like, actually, yes, but it's really different. It probably doesn't. Yeah. And that yeah, the song and the rest of the album at that time. And so he heard like the rough mixes and oh my god.

SPEAKER_03:

And that song in dear uh in that episode, is it there? There, there, there, there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Which was inspired by the Tommy Orange book. Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, wow. So and Sterling just does that, right? He just and we were at the same Samantha Crane show yeah in Beacon when she was describing her song that he she sent to him just like as a voice note. He was like, it's perfect, don't change it. Like, that's so oh, I love when we can like help each other out. And for real. And that's how I found out about you. And it's like he's doing the good work.

SPEAKER_00:

He really is. He really like the more that he get his like his rise continues, I feel like he just keeps like bringing people and like proving that he's in it for the community. It's really inspiring, actually. Yeah, like I hope that everyone who's getting visibility keeps that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, yeah, yes, yeah. Okay, sweet tooth. I'm not, I don't know if I'm done with Dear Lady yet.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about Dear Lady. I'm not okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm like, I got too excited because I yeah. Dear Lady, uh, you started the band, you were recording music for it. Did you have a full because you were you didn't have a band yet? So did you just make up like studio musicians or how did that?

SPEAKER_00:

I've been doing this tour with this man who has since passed on, but he was a really big influence on me. His name was Patrick Haggerty, and he he toured as Lavender Country, and he says that he was the first openly gay country singer. He put together this like amazing, queer tour. You eat it or whole package. Exactly, exactly. I have feelings about him. Uh but we uh we we went on tour during kind of like it was kind of low-key during the pandemic, but we were in the south, so the pandemic was not acknowledged. Yeah, they're like, you can come down here and we don't care. We had an amazing time in like Gainesville, Florida. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It was going down in Gainesville. It was really well during the pandemic.

SPEAKER_00:

The barty never stopped in Gainesville. Yeah. And so I was like, that was my first tour, just like playing my songs solo, but the the way he it was kind of like a roundup tour. So we had like a house band for all of the individual artists that were on it, and we would support each other's songs.

SPEAKER_03:

Fun.

SPEAKER_00:

It was so fun. And so I called some of the musicians musicians from that band just to like work on the songs with me. And then I was recommended this guitarist named Magdalena Abrego, who is in the band. Um amazing Chicago-born guitarist, like punk.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, her guitar. Oh, yeah, it's it sounds so good. Her command of petals and electronics is like Sonically, it's like you all your music sonically drives me crazy in the best way. I was before today, I was cutting my hair, listening to Sweet Tooth. And I'm a I I love Sun Ra, and it was giving me Sun Ra orchestra, and I was like, Molly, and I was just like razoring my hair. Yeah. So for me, like I am in Sweet Tooth. I mean, I wrote some notes here because they're just like my mind, like, oh my god. Epic album.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

I think it is epic, and I love how it kind of entangles tribal history with this, you know, phenomenal musician musicianship. And it is it's kind of like cemented you as one of the greats. Oh, you are we will be talking about you because it is it is phenomenal, and you and I you should be very proud. And it is incredible. And it's also a big part of like I have to have you on the podcast because it is you're so talented. Thank you so much, dude. Sweet tooth. You did you uh record that in Brooklyn in New York, or did you go home? Like, because I know I hear different things, like I feel like I hear like there's like some elders, there's like some kind of talking and speaking.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I recorded it all in in New Haven, actually, at the studio that I love called Firehouse 12. But so the the compositions are a mix of like old songs that are actually original, like written songs by my ancestors. Because I don't know, people like there's so many different kinds of tribal music. Some of them are like ancient, like 13,000 years we're talking. Yeah, some of them are like introduced by the church on that album, but the there's this one song that I we know was written in the 1700s because it's telling of the story of when we left our land. Yeah, which I think it's so deep to to like I don't know, to think of our ancestors in the 1700s as songwriters. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Like people don't give us that kind of thing. They were doing that back then too. Yeah, and they were like, we're here to tell a story. And that's actually what I just wanted to do with the whole album, like with all the influences in it. But but when I was at Dartmouth doing that research I talked about uh after graduating, I found these records, they had brought me in to listen to their archives that had a bunch of Abenaki stuff, including the recording that you hear on that of Tephel Penadis telling a traditional story.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So that was recorded on a reel to reel in 1956.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. And that was conducted by the school. Yeah. They were like helping the songwriters.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, well, yeah, in the 50s they hired this ethnologist to go to Odinac and like research us.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And like put down like what oh wow.

SPEAKER_00:

But I think in yeah, in 2019 or eight, 2020, when I they asked me to come back, they were like, oh, we have all this stuff that we shouldn't have. Like, let's let's do this the right way and actually bring in Abenakis to come and look at their own stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And so do they have like a little, is it in a library there or do they give it back to the archive?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, and Odinac has this is like the shout-out that I always give. We have the oldest mus uh indigenous museum in all of Quebec, maybe all of Canada. It was founded in 1960, and the building that it's in was our Catholic day school, and we reclaimed that shit, and we're like, we're putting our culture in here now. So, so this the Dartmouth actually repatriated all of those recordings because we had this amazing museum.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so they did write. Yeah, they did. Dartmouth tried. They tried. They tried, they don't do right a lot of the rest of the time, especially recently with like Palestine and all kinds of other things. But uh but in that instance, they did write.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you recommend young indigenous jazz artists on the come up, because we know you're out there to go to school, to go to these institutions. Would you recommend that?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my god. The question that I I I'm so glad to be asked this question, actually. You know, jazz as an art form is in a sort of particular place because of these institutions. It's some music that comes from communities, comes from obviously black and native communities and urban communities a lot of the time. And in over the course of the last 50 years, with these institutions starting to accept jazz as a valid art form, because of course, out of racism, they did not for a very long time. Yeah. They have really actually like gentrified the music in a way that you know you don't really hear it being played organically in those communities that it comes from so much anymore. Maybe that happens to every genre after a while, but I have I have a lot of like thoughts and a lot of my jazz has definitely been gentrified though. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my mentors too, who have been on the scene forever and you know have engaged or chosen not to engage with higher education and jazz, like they have really strong feelings about yeah, the way that the music is claimed and reshaped and taught in institutions because like ultimately it was originally an oral tradition.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it was yeah, it was played in communities. And and so when you put it in a context of like these like wealthy institutions and you teach everyone how to how to play, right? And teach everyone the same, that's actually like antithetical to the whole dot the whole core of jazz, right? Which is about personality, it's about swagger, it's about resistance, you know, and like so. I don't know. I feel like if you can learn the blues, if you can play with other people, especially play with like elders in in the jazz scene, like and really just like work on your voice. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying don't study, you know. You well, you I mean, I feel like yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Studying is so.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but you can it's and you like you can learn from everywhere outside of the institution too, right? And you can like engage with the institution a little, go to a class, but don't like pay a tuition. Right. Don't put yourself in debt if you don't. Yeah, and and like you I don't know. I think I don't know that anyone is truly self-taught, but I think especially in jazz, it's like it's it's very mentor mentee. So you can find that and you can find community to play with, and like that's gonna get you far. But I have had some amazing mentors over the years. I don't know if I should acknowledge them here, probably. Taylor Hobina was a big one. Yeah, give them a shout out. Susan Hagan, this amazing female like classical bassist, taught me a lot when I was in Boston. Yeah, um, Bill Cole, shout-out, elder who really like opened my mind about jazz, Warren Smith, yeah, all kinds of people.

SPEAKER_03:

Incredible. Do you have a favorite? Do you have a favorite baby, a favorite song of yours from Greatest Hits?

SPEAKER_00:

From Greatest Hits. I think Believer is probably my favorite. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you have a video for that. I do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, okay, because I've seen that video. I wrote it, it was like the last night before the last day in the studio, and I was like, we need one more song, and it just like poured out, and I feel like some of the best songs often come out that way.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. You have so much going on. So I this question, but what's next for you? What's going on? I saw you last at Indigenous New York Fashion Week, and you're just all over. But is there anything coming up that you want to talk about or give a shout out?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Anyone is there wait, is there anyone that you want to work with that you haven't? Before we get into what's next, I want to manifest this. Who who would you like to work with? Or who? Anyone?

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Oh my god, I'm overwhelmed by this question.

SPEAKER_03:

That is very overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm I'm like so lucky right now that I've been able to have collaborations that I never thought were possible. Like, and even like, you know, like I just got off the road with yo-yo ma, which was like hilarious. That's right. I forgot. I was seeing that.

SPEAKER_03:

Your Instagram, I yeah, I literally was like, oh my god, you're playing with yo-yo ma. So, okay, that's yeah, that's what I mean. Like, I don't even know. Like, do I ask that question? Of is there anyone that you have dreams of like playing with or being in the room with them? I would okay. Yo-yo ma. Wow. How is yo-yo ma?

SPEAKER_00:

He was so silly, dude. He was like a silly elder. Oh loves. Yeah, total goof. I would really, I mean, okay, I would love to collaborate with Aruj off Tob. Like, she's like a big person to me. But in terms of like jazz like greats, I would love to work with Henry Threadgill. In terms of like people on the scene, like dear lady stuff, like we actually haven't been able to meet yet, which is a travesty, but I would love to be able to collaborate with KP.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I'm such a huge Black Belt Eagle Scout fan. And like Oh, I can see that. Yeah, I mean, she's amazing. Dear Lady, yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That needs to be. Can we get a double show, a double billing? At least. I mean, it's New York. Can we make this happen? Let's make it happen. Do we have to go somewhere? Like, where else do we have to go? Or can we just meet in the middle? We'll just do it in Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Meet in the middle. That's what Indian territory is there for. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's just meet in the middle. Okay, so oh my gosh, I forgot the yo-yo mass. I'm still shook. I feel so. I am still ship.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. I feel so silly about it. I'm just like, yeah, I don't know. He he told me that he's really into like reading people. Like that's like his service that he provides.

SPEAKER_03:

Wait, no, wait, stop. Like reading them, like reading them the house down. Like, I'm gonna tell you this is what you're gonna.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

He was like, Or is he like, you're giving me an Aquarius vibe? Is he that?

SPEAKER_00:

He told me that I'm weird and complex. Wait. I know. I was like, yo-yo ma. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Weird and complex.

SPEAKER_00:

And and I was like, okay, but like I mean, not not a compliment. For sure. But I'm like, okay, yo-yo ma, you're weird too.

SPEAKER_03:

You're so weird.

SPEAKER_00:

You're so weird. I've seen him talk. Like he's weird.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like you're weird and awkward. Wait, what did he say to you?

SPEAKER_00:

He said, what, that I'm weird and complex.

SPEAKER_03:

You're weird and complex.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That's that's it was good. He he was like, Did he hear anyone else?

SPEAKER_00:

No, he yeah, he told my my ex that he's very grounded. I was like, okay, it's a little basic, right? Oh my god, like you can think about yourself like a horoscope, you know? Is this like his like shtick? Like no, but I guess he I I um I was having this like challenge in the Yoyama set list where I was like, so yo-yo like decided to like play his like Bach thing in the middle of this set that had nothing to do with Bach. I was like, it's fine, give the people what they want, you know. Right. This is your moment, yo-yo ma. Okay, your moment, but yeah, then he asked me to like score something, and I was like, okay, like why don't you play your Bach and I'm gonna play, put you through a pedal board and just manipulate the shit out of what you're doing. And uh I was like, Lily, like, give me some like distortions, some like really like backwards effects. And that's when he called me weird. He was like, Oh, you're weird.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my god, I love that. No, that's that's perfect. That is like current, that is different. It's like outside of the box. And I what a compliment for yo-yo ma to be like, oh, I freaked out fucking yo-yo ma. Hell yeah, yeah, exactly. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I bet you've never played pop like this before.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Oh, I want to hear this. Is this was it recorded?

SPEAKER_00:

It's not recorded once in a lifetime.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, we gotta, did they take your phone away? Because we need to have a voice note. Next time this happens.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, yeah, next time.

SPEAKER_03:

Were you were there a lot of other women there in that room?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, there was one, actually, one.

SPEAKER_03:

So no, there wasn't. That's my point. Is that you're in these amazing rooms as this epic, amazing songwriter, composer, and you're taking up that space, and you're fucking doing shit and running Yo-Yo Ma's cello through a distortion pedal. Come on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm weirding out yo-yo ma.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. There's like nothing more. I mean, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_00:

It was kind of like if like so the the point of the set was it was like wabanaki and we're like doing some wabanaki music and whatever. And there's this thing and this convention in classical music where you're not allowed to like arrange or touch Bach. Like you're not allowed to like change Bach.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's amazing. I didn't know that. I love this. I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

And I was like, really though, if like we're gonna change our traditional music for you, you're gonna end even like German or whatever Bach was. Like, yeah, you know, like exactly you're you're gonna have to let me change Bach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I don't know, I'm not into like I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. Yeah, I love that traditions versus traditions.

SPEAKER_00:

We can at least equalize here a little bit.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. Oh, that is that makes me so happy. Tell the people where they can find you, oh yeah, where you want to be seen at um Instagram, all the socials. Tell us.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, you can find me on Instagram, Molly Obamsawin. I'm not even gonna spell it out for you. You're gonna do your best.

SPEAKER_03:

Which what a beautiful name.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Beautiful. Every letter, it's just Obamsawin. It's like Molly Obamsawin. It's a gorgeous name.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So, yes, you're on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00:

Instagram, that's pretty much the only place. Um I have a website. You can look me up. I'm gonna be playing at Big Ears with my jazz band and with a new band that is a collaboration with Raven Chacone called Lazy Horse. Oh it's like our debut. Yeah, it's a really fun. Stop! When is that? March, end of March in Knoxville, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's so exciting! That's exciting. When is the next Dear Lady show? I actually don't think we have anything booked right now.

SPEAKER_00:

We're writing a new album this winter.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so you're busy. Yeah so you're busy, you're writing, you're hunkering down. What does what does writing a new album, how do you get into that frame of mind?

SPEAKER_00:

I am I'm I'm just like trying to write like 300 songs because most of them are horse shit.

SPEAKER_03:

So you just write, right, right, right. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00:

And then maybe one catching the big fish. Yeah, yeah. You know, listen to a lot of like references, just like, oh, this is like a groove that I love, or this is a chord progression, just you know, stealing, stealing ideas.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you write the music first or the words?

SPEAKER_00:

I typically I I live in the word world.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, word world first.

SPEAKER_00:

We've been sort of like splitting some duties in that way. It's been it's been really fun to write this one from scratch with her because the last one I was all you with everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. Oh, I'm so excited. Okay, so we have some new dear lady, it's gonna be coming out, and we need a show in New York soon. Yes. Um, or Beacon.

SPEAKER_00:

Beacon.

SPEAKER_03:

Or I mean it was a vibe. Yeah, that venue was great. The yard, shout out to the yard and beacon. But yeah, Molly, thank you so much for doing this coming here. You have an album to write, so I'm gonna let you go. But thanks again for coming on Let's Have a Pow Wow, and we'll see you soon. Relatives. Thanks, Amy. Bye. Okay, that's it.

SPEAKER_01:

What the hell is happening?

SPEAKER_03:

Dude, we just had to be weird and context. That was interesting. That yeah, my that was so novel. You it was good in a good way? What's going on? I think these are the first Native American ones. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah, definitely. I'm the only one who's usually in that little uh music in this episode is by Molly Obamsawin. Thank you for making such beautiful work and sharing it with us. And a big thank you to the guys at Theorist for letting us record in your fancy studio. It's truly something to aspire to. Thank you for listening.