Joy Harjo has new jazz album, event at Philbrook Museum

(This story has been updated to add new information and a video.)

At 75, Joy Harjo is balancing two autumn book releases, the ongoing development of a musical and the unveiling of her jazzy new album of evocative poems and songs.

“And I’m working on paintings: The cover of the album is my first painting in 50 years,” said the Tulsa native and resident, who celebrated her milestone birthday on May 9.

“I’ve never fit neatly into categories.”

Even four years after finishing her trailblazing three terms as U.S. Poet Laureate, the prolific Muscogee poet, performer and writer continues to work with an eclectic and growing group of collaborators, including five-time Grammy Award winner esperanza spalding, who produced Harjo’s new album, “Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace.” Exploring the intersection of jazz and poetry, it’s her debut release on the storied Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

“I’ve played with people I never thought I would play and sing with, so that’s been cool,” said Harjo, who was the first Native American and first Oklahoman to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate.

Joy Harjo’s new album took her to Tulsa’s historic Church Studio

With “Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace,” Harjo finds a natural home with the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, which has a rich legacy of showcasing poetry, as well as music and other types of sound.

She also worked on it close to home: The influential Tulsa-based musician, writer and activist recorded for the first time in Tulsa’s legendary Church Studio, the musical haven founded in 1972 by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell and refurbished and reopened in 2022.

“I would certainly go back. … They were wonderful, and the studio is great: Great set, great vibe, sounds, history and so on,” Harjo told The Oklahoman. “I love being in the recording studio. I love playing, and I love improv-ing live. It’s just getting there. … Once I’m up there, I’m fine, but I’d just as soon be in the studio making stuff.”

Her collaboration with spalding, who in 2011 became the first jazz musician to win the Grammy for Best New Artist, came out of their first meeting in 2017, when they were both awarded Art of Change Ford Foundation Fellowships in Chicago.

“With esperanza and I, we understand each other, and she listens. She’s a good listener. I mean, she’s an incredible musician and composer and voice, so her listening skills are very finely honed. … And that makes a huge difference,” said Harjo, who plays saxophone and flute.

“We’re at political crossroads; we’re at environmental crossroads; we’re at economic crossroads. We’re at spiritual crossroads in this country and in the world. … I wanted the album as a whole to be hopeful, like a musical, poetic map for helping us move through.”

While she was working on the album, Harjo’s sister uncovered a song called “My Guy,” which her musical mother wrote in the 1950s or ’60s. Featuring spalding’s vocals and Harjo’s alto sax, it’s a jazzy love song with deep personal resonance.

“She and my father had a great love of dancing and music. That’s where they met in one of the dance halls. It was called Casa Loma Dance Hall in Tulsa … and they danced at Cain’s Ballroom. And that song is just so her,” Harjo said.

“We Muscogee people were part of the origins of blues and jazz. … And if I’m playing blues and jazz, I’m playing Muscogee music.”

That’s the concept behind “We Were There When Jazz Was Invented,” a musical Harjo is developing. She and Julia Keefe, leader of the Indigenous Big Band, collaborated last year on a staged reading of the project at Idyllwild Arts Academy in California.

“I’m just looking for a producer somebody to get behind it, to get it up and running,” Harjo said. “A lot of it takes place in Tulsa, some of it in New Orleans, and it’s around music and the origins of blues and jazz.”

Joy Harjo to share a Tulsa stage with Anthony Edwards, Bobcat Goldthwait and more

Through her ongoing relationship with the Bob Dylan Center in her Oklahoma hometown, Harjo will get to share the stage with an intriguing group of fellow artists at 7 p.m. Sunday, May 17, at Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art. She will perform a trio of songs as part of singer-songwriter, author and impresario Wesley Stace’s second Cabinet of Wonders program in Tulsa.

Along with Harjo, Stace and his band, the lineup will include live-drawing artist Michael Arthur; renowned singer-songwriter Marshall Crenshaw; Emmy-winning actor and producer Anthony Edwards (“Top Gun”); stand-up comic, screenwriter and director Bobcat Goldthwait; Nashville-based singer-songwriter Josh Rouse; and Oscar-nominated actress and “Girl from the North Country” Broadway star Mare Winningham.

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“Joy Harjo brings a depth of understanding to not only Native American culture, but just what it’s like to live in the Heartland. … She’s someone that brings the right gravity to every situation that she portrays through her art,” said Oklahoma Historical Society Executive Director Trait Thompson.

“I think that she has shown people, particularly from the coasts, that there is a lot more depth to the Heartland than they might have considered before.”