Elysia Marginata Liner Notes by Yoshi Kato

What prompts an accomplished jazz saxophonist to write and record this incessantly catchy instrumental electro-pop album as his solo debut? A mentor's advice, a global pandemic, and a celebration of identity, among other things.

Eli Maliwan's musical bonafides were already impeccable on the eve of the 2020's—both a Bachelor's (from Portland State University) and Master's (from CalArts) in Jazz Studies; a saxophone coach position in the Stanford Jazz Workshop's innovative Giant Steps program; performances with the likes of bass guitar titan Alphonso Johnson, stellar trombonists Slide Hampton and Steve Turre, and saxophone legends James Moody and Jimmy Heath. But when it came to commit to the concept of his first album, he looked inward.

"Clearly, I come from a jazz background," acknowledges Maliwan, who was born in San Francisco and raised in the Bay Area. "But for this album, I was just trying to make something fun that I'd want to listen to. I didn’t even envision releasing any of it at first because I was exploring ideas without a specific genre in mind. So this album is very much an experimentation of different sounds and recording or programming each instrumental part myself. It was actually really fun for me to put on all the different hats instead of just being the saxophonist in a band."

Listeners are still treated to Maliwan's entire woodwinds portfolio—soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones plus flute, clarinet, and even EWI (electronic wind instrument). But those are also his Ableton-enabled sequences and drum tracks, which flash back to his love back in the day of '90s hip-hop and Sega Genesis.

Maliwan's Ableton mastery came indirectly from one of two pieces of seminal career advice he's received. "I started working on cruise ships after CalArts. I did it because Dave Gregoric, who was a teacher and early mentor, told me he got a lot of shedding done when he was younger and worked on those. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy to find a place to practice without bothering someone. Modern ships are really designed to really maximize every inch of space," he points out. In other words, there were no Sonny Rollins & the Williamsburg Bridge equivalents at sea.

"So I started making beats on my laptop with an older version of Ableton that I had—just kind of as a joke at first," he recalls. "And then I'd make songs for friends and send those back home.

"Later, I met another person on the ship who also used Ableton and I learned a lot from collaborating with them," he continues. "And I realized, 'This isn't just a toy. This is actually a legitimate way to make music.' It was also a way to stay creative and grow despite the limitations of ship life.”

Fast forward to the spring of 2020 when the world was locked down. Gigs—the fiscal lifeblood of working musicians everywhere—were canceled across the board. But artists are nothing if not resilient.

"When the pandemic started, a few friends started this composing project where every day for a week someone texted a title. And everyone had to write a song with that title that day," he explains. "At the end of the week we'd have a listening party, and we'd get to hear everyone's versions. Then the next week, another person would take over.

"I could only write so much in a day, so I'd try to make it as cohesive a song as possible," he adds. "It was more of a musical idea generator." A song might have been a mere 30 seconds long or only have a single section. "But that became the start of the album and showed me what I could generate on a daily basis."

Producer/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Salami Rose Joe Louis, in whose band Maliwan played up until Shutdown, was a member of that virtual songwriting circle and encouraged him to take the project further. "She said, 'Hey, these songs are really good. You should release an album.'" 

Moving early during the pandemic from an attic room in a house in Oakland to an in-law unit in Sacramento provided an ideal creative scenario: "I soundproofed it, and it's really far away from other buildings," he reveals. "So I'm able to play at three in the morning without bothering anyone. It's now both an experimental lab and a recording studio.”

In addition to all the artistic and personal reasons to record and release Elysia Marginata, Maliwan knows there’s an extra-musical basis, too. "When I was growing up and learning to play the saxophone, I remember thinking to myself, 'Can I even play jazz? I've literally never seen an Asian person playing jazz.' I was a mixed race kid with an immigrant family. I'd go to jam sessions, and people didn't expect me to play well.

"That lack of representation can be subtle but still makes you question whether or not things are even doable," he goes on to note. "And now as a trans man, I don't really know many other trans jazz musicians. That’s why I wanted to make an album so clearly about identity. Sure the music is fun, even silly, and the titles are purposefully ridiculous just to make me laugh. But it’s all meant to celebrate parts of my identity that have brought me shame or grief from oppression. 

“Because I was seeing so much violence against Asian Americans reported in the news and was appalled by the historic amount of anti-trans legislation, I thought it was an important time to make art about it that was specifically joyful,” he concludes. 

“One day I read an article about a type of sea slug called ‘Elysia Marginata’ that decapitates itself and grows a new body. The article caught my eye because ‘Elysia’ is my birth name. Having had several gender affirming surgeries, I resonated with the concept of growing a new body and was really astonished by the name coincidence. I also love how weird nature can be. What an amazing little muse!”

Sueños Jazz Quintet