Poet, Composer, Stutterer JJJJJerome Ellis Creatively Shapes Time

Poet, sax player, electronic music producer, storyteller, and composer JJJJJerome Ellis is a stutterer. On his 2021 album The Clearing, he takes speech disfluency and considers how it affects one’s experience of time. He explains “The Clearing” as that sense of unknowing in the moments where he is stuttering. It’s a space, a pause of suspension that opens up unexpectedly – "like when you’re hiking and suddenly you come to a clearing. You see the sun and take it all in, the light conditions, the plants, and how you might lose your path."

The music on The Clearing uses hip hop drum sounds, deep bass, and experimental electronics, setting his 2020 essay, “The Clearing: Music, dysfluency, Blackness and time.” JJJJJerome Ellis’ extraordinary achievement is in using the involuntary nature of The Stutter and then shaping his music to how “The Stutter presents him with a score.”

In conversation, Ellis contrasts this 2021 release, The Clearing, with his series of sound installations, his “Fountains” – where he creates his own alternate time world in which there is a sense of relief, a respite from the interruption of flow. JJJJJerome Ellis offers live performances of works from his new album The Clearing, and shares how to say “I stutter” in Portuguese.  – Caryn Havlik

Set List: “Loops of Retreat,” “Bend Back the Bow and Let the Hymn Fly”

Watch "Loops of Retreat":

Watch "Bend Back The Bow & Let The Hymn Fly":