by Jerry Greenberg
Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, Lily Finnegan remembers a home filled with music of all kinds—rock, funk, punk, and jazz.
"I remember listening with my parents to Parliament, Jonathan Richman, the Clash, Blondie, and Nirvana," she says.
Indeed, it was Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl who inspired her to pick up the instrument at age eleven. Prior to that, Lily had been playing guitar since the age of eight and clarinet in middle school. She became serious about jazz drumming when she heard Elvin Jones on the classic Wayne Shorter album Speak No Evil.
"I loved how passionate and melodic his drumming was," remembers Lily. "And how responsive he would be to the other musicians, feeding off them but also giving them something in return."
Along with Dave Grohl and Elvin Jones, Lily says her playing has been influenced by drum greats Max Roach and Ed Blackwell. As she played in punk, rock, and jazz bands in high school, she began incorporating and blending rhythms and melodic ideas from these various drummers into her own playing.
When it came time to apply to colleges, Lily says "music was important to me, but I wasn't sure I wanted to focus solely on that. I wanted to understand how I could connect my commitment to the humanities and political activism with my music. Having been part of punk bands, I'm very much drawn to resistance music," she adds. "That kind of music is not necessarily about technical virtuosity. It's about passion, and I try to bring that passion to all the music I play."
Her activism took root in high school when she served on the youth organizing board for the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health in Chicago. The caucus is committed to reproductive rights from a feminist, queer, and anti-racism perspective. This kind of integrated approach remains critical to her activism. Today, she is inspired by global anti-fascist movements fighting to break down walls and borders.
Now a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lily is pursuing studies in both music and sociology—a reflection of her desire to integrate music with her activism. Throughout her college days, Lily found herself playing more and more jazz and taking up jazz composition in a serious way. Typically she composes at a piano where she tends to start with melody ideas and go from there.
While Lily takes inspiration from such legends as Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman, and Duke Ellington, she says, "I find myself drawing on all my different musical experiences, which means my compositions tend to cut across genres. That's important to me. I'm trying to make beautiful music without having to label it as one genre or another."
She hopes the audience at the trio's inDIGenous JAZZ performance will experience "an evening filled with beautiful music—not jazz music, just music."
Lily says that bandmates Paul Dietrich and John Christensen—both of whom are accomplished composers—share this same goal of creating music without regard to labels.
"There are so many boundaries being created in music and this trio tries to get away from that," she explains.
Another of the trio's goals is to compose music that provides plenty of harmonic and rhythmic space for improvising.
"It's important to me that I play with other musicians who trust and view each other as equals. This is especially important for improvising solos. I am so fortunate to have this with Paul and John."
Finnegan studied with dummer, educator, and activist Terri Lynne Carrigngton at the Berklee College of Music this past summer, which inspired her to apply to graduate schools for music. After that, she says, "I want to be in New York City or Chicago where there is so much genre bending music going on. I'd like to have my own band, but be part of as many different projects as possible."
"I also want to get better at drumming," she laughs.
The inDIGenous Jazz spring series has been postponed due to COVID-19. New dates will be announced later this year.