IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

WITH DATA LORDS, MARIA SCHNEIDER MAKES A STATEMENT ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD AND SOCIETY.

- KEN MICALLEF

The data lords are gathering data and giving it to organizations that then manipulate us with the things they know about us, things that we don’t even know about ourselves,” says five-time Grammy Award-winning composer, conductor, producer, and bandleader Maria Schneider. “They give our data to any company that’ll pay for it to manipulate you, specifically targeting your vulnerabilities. It takes away freedom of thought, a true discourse where people are thinking for themselves. Count me out.”

The Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra’s new double album, Data Lords (ArtistShare), addresses surveillance, corporate overreach, and governmental failure to deal effectively with social media platforms, making a musical case that these datagathering machines abuse our rights while reaping millions.

“I grew up in Windom, Minnesota,” Schneider says. “We were surrounded by farmland. My dad was an engineer and he designed machinery for processing flax. He held quite a few patents. He invented things that are still used on every combine to this day for processing flax straw. So, I understood the idea of creating something and pride of ownership.”