Mali Obomsawin brings growing indigenous jazz movement to Bay Area

"Obomsawin's score accompanies Julian Brave NoiseCat's and Emily Kassie's documentary investigating the history of abuse at Indian residential schools in Canada, a system that became compulsory in 1894. The experience is very much in living memory, as the last federally funded school closed in 1997. While Sugarcane details fraught stories about children taken from families and denied access to their language and traditions, Obomsawin's score resists telegraphing emotional responses for the audience."

"In my culture you often listen a lot more than you speak, she said. We're responding to the images, the vast expanses of this gorgeous land. In a way the land is holding this truth being delivered by the characters. Much like the film lingers on the cold northern landscape, Obomsawin's music is laced with portentous silences and unresolved harmonies."

Mali Obomsawin is a bassist, vocalist, songwriter and composer and a citizen of the Odanak First Nation in central Quebec. She performs with vocalist Julia Keefe's Indigenous Big Band and leads her own trio. She composed the score for the 2024 National Geographic documentary Sugarcane, which investigates abuse at Indian residential schools in Canada and screens at Stanford and the Freight in Berkeley. The documentary covers a system that became compulsory in 1894 and whose last federally funded school closed in 1997. Obomsawin's score avoids telegraphing emotional responses, using restraint, portentous silences, and unresolved harmonies to reflect landscape and memory.

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