Cisco Bradley Interview
Cisco Bradley is associate professor of history at the Pratt Institute. He is the author of three books, the most recent of which is The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront. He is also editor of jazzrightnow.com. He founded the Free Jazz Oral History Project in 2016 and is Chairperson of New Revolution Arts, Inc., a non-profit organization that supports experimental music in New York City.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I was an inquisitive kid. From an early age I wanted to go to the library more than anywhere else and was fascinated with the past. By age 10 I knew I wanted to be a history professor and even though I considered a few other things along the way, I got my B.A. in history in 1999 and eventually my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 2010. But in a way, that was a starting point for me. I first lived in New York City in 2000 and had always wanted to move back, in 2011, I secured a professorship at the Pratt Institute where I continue to teach.
Perhaps the most important strand of it all, though, was happening upon the Eric Dolphy and Booker Little recordings done live at the Five Spot in 1961, which I think I first heard around 2005. When I heard those, they sent me on the trajectory I am on now, intrigued as ever by interesting creative, improvised, and experimental music. I listened to many musicians over the years and there are too many to note, but in terms of contemporary figures, William Parker was a big one for me, and then the younger generation, people my age like Taylor Ho Bynum and Mary Halvorson. Once I connected with their music and moved back to New York, I started www.jazzrightnow.com to document that music scene. Over the past 10 years, I’ve interviewed close to 500 musicians about their lives and work. It’s an endless project and never loses its luster.