Enamiĝo Reciprokataj, a world where falling in love equals mutual breakdown...at the piano
Musings on my titled-in-Esperanto jazz piano trio album - yes, the third universal language (watch out, love and music). My Stravinsky-inspired album, Enamiĝo Reciprokataj, quickly translates to ‘reciprocal love’. Though, according to Google Translate it means ‘mutual breakdown’. (How very apropos of relationships, Google. One would think Ester Perel was behind you.)
Esperanto - What is it?
Esperanto is an artificial language written by a Polish philologist named Dr. Zamenhof, published in 1887, containing sixteen rules (which you can read about here), with an estimated population of a quarter of a million speakers. It has wonderful creative translation properties that have global applications as it combines the most common root verbs and nouns from 35 major languages - mostly European and Slavic. Stravinsky’s Petrouchka Ballet inspired four out of five movements on the Reciprokataj Suite on the album. The Petrouchka ballet is based on Punch and Judy puppet shows, and the story follows Petrouchka the puppet, who falls in unrequited love with a ballerina. In titling my own dream interpretation of this music, I originally was looking for a title that felt like jazz, felt like democracy, felt like love, but felt also like unrequited love, as a nod to the story of Petrouchka, and my relationship with jazz composing (on again, off again, whereby I cheat on it with punk, metal, and pop songwriting - and depending on what music circles you run in - it might not be so ethical).
When I released the album and it was getting a lot of press and airplay at home and abroad, a French Esperantist named Benno wrote to me, whose letter I will include below, since it was the perfect opportunity to share the very discourse about Esperanto that Origin Records had hoped I would write about. I also would like to thank this album review on France Musique for emphasizing my vision in Esperanto, and Esperanto France for including me as a member supporter since the release, and connecting me to Benno. Fun fact: there is an Esperanto web series called “Malsano Nomata Amo” (A Disease Called Love), which debuted the same week Enamiĝo Reciprokataj was released.
How and WHY did I get into Esperanto? An anecdotal journey from NYC to Prague
I spent my undergraduate days studying jazz at NYU bopping around the village most all nights until 8am watching jazz musicians play, particularly at the 55 bar, Smalls, and the Fat Cat Jazz Club - much to the bewilderment of my lit major roommates. I met the bassist and esperantist Thomas Morgan at Cafe Le Figaro on West 4th (long now defunct) while playing with guitarist Todd Neufeld and saxophonist Jonathan Rossman, who all turned me onto the language in 2005. At that time, Jonathan Rossman - no longer an active player, though influential then - had been studying and performing with the great Lee Konitz that year. I remember a particular night that year on Avenue C where Jonathan played with Mr. Konitz, with the drummer Bram Kincheloe, bassist Adam Chilenski, and guitarist Todd Neufeld. I was a shy 20 yr-old wallflower at these jazz spots, watching intently, illuminated and inspired as a new transplant to the city. Thomas Morgan offered to give me Esperanto lessons in the spring of 2005, and indeed gave a heady dose of grammar lessons in my living room, where he demonstrated the insight that Esperanto offers by swiftly translating articles in French, German and Spanish at my laptop. If you know Thomas, you would know he is a bit of a polymath at jazz and languages - including Japanese. On one particular night, Thomas and I went to the Issue Project Room, where drummer Kenny Wollesen was hosting an all night creative jam off Avenue C in the East village (when the Issue Project Room was still in Manhattan) - in which a 12 hour marathon of music ensued whereby I remember a marching band, a poet woman shaking a tree in the middle of the silent room, a glass harmonica player, loads of projected visual art, and later on, Thomas playing and singing a set of Brazilian tunes in Esperanto on the guitar. After that wonderful magic, I enrolled in a summer course taught by Thomas Eccardt at cafe Emma’s Dilemma on 22nd street and Park Avenue in Manhattan, where I earned a small certificate in the language before going to Prague (there are a lot of Esperantists in Eastern European countries, and at that time it was popular for Esperantists to travel and stay with each other - another reason I wanted to learn and practice it.) Thomas Morgan and Thomas Eccardt both hipped me to the early website Traduku.net long before Google Translate.
All of these experiences prepared me to speak with Czech Esperantists, truly allowing for wonderful cross cultural exchanges. Later in August 2005, I went to study music in Prague while working on my degree, I met with Czech Esperantists every Thursday at the Klubo Esperanto Prago (Prague Esperanto Club), just off of Wenceslas Square. There I made friends with a blind 88 year old Czech Esperantist poet named Cestmir Vidman, and his editor, Margit, who took me to visit Antonin Dvorak’s house - now a museum - in the Czech countryside. We communicated solely in Esperanto for the entire weekend while we traveled together and I stayed at her house. These exchanges were powerful, and evoked a lot of the forecast and vision of the music and releasing it later in my life - something I had a very hard time articulating to bookers in NYC for years until the album came out. During my time in Prague, I was obsessed with Bela Bartok, and Czech composers Bohuslav Martinu, Leos Janacek, whose music I studied in composition lessons with Milán Slavićky. I had also been studying with jazz pianist Emil Viklicky. By the end of my four months there in December 2005, I had composed, rehearsed and performed the tunes Snuffaluffagas, Girls Who Play Violin, and Balliou for Bartok (originally an exercise writing for string quartets) as a part of my senior recital at U Maleho Glena, Little Glenn’s Cafe, near Prague Castle, with Tomaš Liška on bass and Sam Levin on drums.
Enamiĝo: pronounced En-ah-MEE-Joh
Enamiĝo means "falling in love", not just simply the word "love" (which is ‘amo’ in Esperanto). “Enamiĝo” hits a bit harder to the flutters of infatuation and obsession when falling in love. Where “Enamiĝo” or ‘falling in love’ is singular, while ‘reciprokataj’ - the ‘reciprocation’ of it is plural - is tongue in cheek. It could mean that all parties reciprocate love reciprocally, but while only one of them is ‘infatuated’ or ‘falling in love’. Deep Esperantists would catch this joke, as did Benno. (If you found my album and understood Esperanto and this grammar trick, I am grateful that you are laughing with us nerds.)
In 2015, I was researching the album title theme of some kind of play on ‘reciprocal love’ or ‘unrequited love’ using Google Translate and Traduku.net, the word “enamiĝo” reminded me of “enemigo” from Spanish, for “frenemy” - which gripped me immediately. It also translated to “epánchement” - French for “enamourment,” and also “enigma” from English. These words spoke to me and to processing the process of composing the music. Both “enemigo” and “enigma” was personal. As a creator I was my own enemy in the process for self criticism and judgement that I seered onto my own attempts for each composition, arrangement, rehearsal, and painful sight reading I put so many musicians through in performing my compositions and altered editions. But also, the enigma for handling this. “Enemigo” also directly nods to how we are our own worst enemies when it comes to self-criticism about creating. Note: this was before I knew that Ghanaian xylophonist Alfred Kpebsaane wanted to title our collaboration album ‘Nong Voru’ in Dagara - that is - ‘fake love’.
Reciprokataj: pronounced Reh-sih-pro-KAH-tai
Reciprokataj or Reciprokata is plural for “reciprocal” or “reciprocated”. Reciproka means “mutually” or “reciprocal". The choice of using the word "reciprokataj" over "reciproka" or the alternate spelling "reciprokata" also felt in line with this theme. I was thrilled when I recently learned that "reciprokataj" is more of an older Romanian and Eastern European / Croatian / Slavic language spelling that is used in Esperanto, which confirmed my intuition to have more consonants in the spelling. Also, if I had chosen grammatically correct “Enamiĝoj Recipokataj” it felt a bit goofy and overly consonant. Enamiĝo Reciprokata felt too shallow and pretty. The combination of the words, syllables, and spellings of Enamiĝo and Reciprokataj alone felt like a gorgeous rich puzzle of consonants and enigma and circumflexes, which made me feel closer to the Czech language, and the time I spent in Prague, studying Czech and Czech composers, when I wrote some of the first compositions on the album.
A Letter from Benno, a French Esperantist
Feb 21, 2019, 11:16 AM
Hi Brittany,
I am also a learner of Esperanto (and a jazz listener and amateur practitioner). I appreciate the symbol of using Esperanto for jazz music for what it has in common: a universal language which brings very different people to communicate with each other. I find it interesting that "Enamiĝo Reciprokataj" is translated as the Esperanto for "Reciprocal Love". Originally I suppose it is, but in the process of translating in gained more meaning. As a basic translation "Reciproka Amo" would have been a minimal approach and gives a static idea of mutual love. I find the chosen expression much richer and it means much more than "reciprocal love" it should be translated back in english as something like the process of falling in love that is returned to you. "Enamiĝo" is "falling in love" used as a noun (a bit like the french "coup de foudre"). And "reciprokataj" instead of "reciproka" puzzled me a little because it is not the simple adjective but indicates the result of an action, it is not simply mutual but it is actively "reciproqued" if the verb existed. So I guess it is something offered in return. It is exactly what I love about Esperanto. Great creativity allowed by a inventive modular system made for flexibility. All things that could also be said about jazz. There is one detail that I don't understand. Why is “Reciprokataj” in plural form? It is grammatically a mistake since the "Enamiĝo" is singular. Could it be that it is a one to many relationship ? The Love one fell into (the love of music) that is met by many reciprocal loves (the many ears listening)? I would be interested to have an explanation to this puzzle. From the author of the album or the translator of the title.
Anyway thanks for spreading Esperanto. So many people think it is a dead language. When it is just the most successful constructed language. Enough said about the I am going to listen to the music now (Discovered through Open Jazz on France Culture)
Kindest regards,
Benno
Benno correctly points out that the title Enamiĝo Reciprokataj is grammatically incorrect in Esperanto due to the singular nature of ‘enamiĝo’ and the plural nature of ‘reciprokataj’, and brilliantly inquires why I chose to use this spelling. I am grateful that another esperantist would pick up on my nod to my experience of composing jazz and improvising with a group, and the perception of that music by other bandmates and the audience, and even write to me about it from the other side of the world.
Question: There is one detail that I don't understand. Why is "Reciprokataj" in plural form? It is grammatically a mistake since the "Enamiĝo" is singular. Could it be that it is a one to many relationship? The Love one fell into (the love of music) that is met by many reciprocal loves (the many ears listening)?
Answer: Yes, the title contains a grammatical mistake that was intended so I could possibly find other deep Esperanto nerds like ourselves on the internet. ‘Enamiĝo’ is the singular form while ‘reciprokataj’ is plural, in terms of meaning, creativity, participants in music - audience and listener, improvising bandmate and bandmates. Benno’s interpretation is very interesting, and adds another angle to it; to me, his last sentence implies a pianist’s enamiĝo of their own solo piano improvisations in concert, to the reciprokataj of the audience who wants more.
How to Use and Read Special Characters in Esperanto: A Composer Geek’s Cautionary Tale
There are six extra characters with a circumflex in Esperanto: ĝ, ĵ, ĉ, ŝ, ĥ and û. You can type this special character by installing an Esperanto keyboard on your device, and pressing “option + 6” before the letter you want to circumflex. The circumflex basically adds an “h” sound after the consonant. Therefore, ĉ becomes “ch”, ŝ becomes “sh”. If you don’t have an Esperanto keyboard, you can spell circumflexes analog Esperanto style by inserting an “x” after the consonant, such as “Enamigxo”. Esperantists universally understand, accept, read and write this alternative spelling. Caution to Other Musicians: Now that I’ve done it, I don’t recommend using a special character to title an album, ever. Nobody knows how to type or read in Esperanto. It poses many difficulties in terms of promotion: typing, tweeting it, getting radio, podcast, or print interviewers to pronounce it correctly, using it to label a session in Pro Tools, mastering it with encodes featuring a special character, and of course difficulty in creating a popular hashtag. Technically, people could write the title of the album either as Enamigxo or Enamiĝo, which could create a headache for the label and PR. Sometimes creativity is annoying. That said, extra extra special thanks to Kevin Reeves at Universal Music for dealing with the exhausting special characters in the master encoding processes!
Enamiĝo Reciprokataj = Mutual Breakdown? What Kind of Depressing Metaphor For Love and Relationships Is This, Brittany?
So, Yeah. The most reductive English translation of Enamiĝo Reciprokataj is ‘reciprocal love’. However, my favorite translation is ‘mutual breakdown’ - thanks, Google Translate. I really like that. In this translation, falling in love, enamiĝo, is instead - breaking down. That hit me big. When we communicate in relationships, we are constantly breaking down to and for another what we mean, and learning what the other means - and redefining each other through a careful lens of acceptance, and the mystery that desire requires. The pianist Bill Evans once said that jazz musicians communicate at the highest level of intelligence and listening to one another; which has inspired me for decades to aspire to doing - that music is like love and relationships, and as a practitioner of both it is an endless refinement of challenges to be clear and communicate words as well as notes on the piano, as a bandleader, as a composer performer. The translation of enamiĝo reciprokataj to ‘mutual breakdown’ could apply in terms of a live band - as when musicians tell each other to ‘break it down’. This applies to how as a band, Nick, Greg and I have gotten more comfortable with this music after recording, touring, and performing in the US and Middle East.
Significance and Summary
So in short, my usage of the incorrect grammatical usage of ‘Enamiĝo Reciprokataj’ using the singular for ‘falling in love / breaking down’ and plural form for ‘mutually’ in Esperanto refers to several things:
1) Group attunement in free improvisation. We are alone and we are together. When creative musicians improvise freely together, there is always a push/pull of who is feeling the sounds at any given moment. One might be falling in love with an idea and repeating it, while others are reciprocating but not falling in love and avoiding repeating it. A drummer and bassist might suddenly find a groove to a pianist's chords, while the pianist might not be in love with the chords but the others are; a saxophonist might be playing too loudly while the drummer is trying to bring a decrescendo - or vice versa. The scholar and drummer Mark Doffman examines this phenomena in jazz trios and rhythm sections, and refers to it as ‘entrainment’. Scholar Michael Kossak defines this in group free improvisation as attunement or misattunement. A band is always driving to be tight, together, in sync, in tune with each other, to reveal the highest power of the music. The goal of course, for me, for many, for small jazz combos such as the trios on this album, is to be in love reciprocally as musicians with what the other musicians are playing in the moment and to attain the highest level of communication on the bandstand, consistently.
2) Group attunement in performance of fixed compositions allowing for improvisational moments. The long-form compositions on Enamiĝo Reciprokataj which go beyond a basic jazz compositional referent form (Pressing, 1988) range from one to six pages. The reading and memorizing of such long forms can have an effect on the performers and group consciousness, and can effect realms such as the assemblage of the group, to the rehearsal stages and final performances. Where these moments allow for free (such as the piano break on Olive You, and the cascading glissandi on Flowery Distress), they also allow for traditional forms of soloing, such as standard hard bop (Hard Boiled Soup), swing, latin and ballad styles. My process of writing this music definitely frustrated Nick and Greg in that I would make new iterations of the charts often up until we recorded, and insisted on multiple takes in the studio. (We recorded the entire body of work in one day at Tedesco Studios, plus an arrangement of the Petrouchka Russian Dance that we could not release, due to the strictness of the Stravinsky estate.)
3) The relationship between the performer and the audience. Musicians have to get the audience to fall in love with their phenomena of the temporal moment. In one cognitive model of improvisational performance, the individual improviser moves between awareness of self, awareness of other musicians, and consciousness of the collective group journey onstage (see my article on improvisation and consciousness). The improvisers might be reciprocating with each other, but the audience might not be falling in love with it, as happens often with an illiterate audience or a misattuned group of improvisers. So, the phrase ‘enamiĝo reciprokataj’ universally applies to many improvising situations I've either watched, or participated in.
4) Social relationships. We all experience the cognitive dissonance of trying to create and trying to love, in all forms of expression of love, whether parent to child, partner to partner, friend to friend, or colleague to colleague, we hopefully, are all trying to manifest our highest selves reciprocally in the universe.
I felt immediately when I encountered it, that Esperanto is a beautiful way to creatively communicate in language, creativity and music. As Jazz is the democratic art form of the 20th century, using conversation, dialogue, the shared intelligence within every ensemble, and a growing tradition of composition, I felt that Esperanto paralleled jazz in that it is largely a 20th century phenomena, democratic in its mission to equalize equality in literacy and eliminate English as a global imperialist language. I felt the words Enamiĝo Reciprokataj nicely enhanced the enigma that improvisers encounter in communication, and here, specifically during every opportunity these compositions are played. (The liner notes of the album mention this as well.)
Thank you for reading, samideanoj (same-thinkers)! I hope you enjoy. Enough writing… if you’re curious about the music, the album is here (la albumo estas por la reto ĉi tie) linktr.ee/brittanyanjou.
Amo Cxiam,
Anjou
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Brittany Anjou is a jazz trained pseudo performance artist, composer, improviser, pianist, vibraphonist, writer, working musician, educator, and lead singer of the experimental punk metal band, Bi TYRANT. She holds a bachelor’s in jazz and philosophy from NYU, and is a current M.A. student in Music Psychology, Education and Wellbeing postgraduate program at the University of Sheffield (2021), designing and conducting a pilot thesis study on the wellbeing of musicians in NYC during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her research interests include wellbeing for professional musicians, improvisation, transcendence, consciousness, attunement, phenomenology, oral traditions, cultural studies, performance studies, and psychology of performance. Her critically acclaimed album Enamiĝo Reciprokataj can be heard here. She currently loves Tibetan singing bowls now more than ever.