Jana Herzen Reflects on Motéma at 20

News, From the Magazine, Jana Herzen, Charnett Moffett

By Hannah Edgar I Sep. 26, 2023

“I want to work with good people,” says Motéma founder Jana Herzen, whose label has signed and promoted a host of major jazz stars during its 20 years of existence.

(Photo: Rebecca Meek)

A lot has changed at Motéma Music in 20 years, but as founder, president and A&R director Jana Herzen will tell you, the label’s three criteria for signing artists haven’t changed one bit. First, a potential signee should be a master at their craft, or on their way to being one. Second, as a live performer, they need to be able to “change the molecules in the room,” per Herzen. And ultimately their work should reflect a desire to “make a positive difference in the world.”

“I want to work with good people,” Herzen says, her matter-of-fact shrug all but audible on a call from her home office in San Francisco.

Nowhere in those tenets will you find the boundaries of genre. What started as an unboxable label working broadly in “world music” has earned its reputation as a jazz juggernaut, releasing albums by Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science, Gregory Porter, Geri Allen, René Marie, Monty Alexander, Melissa Aldana and Arturo O’Farrill. Bassist Charnett Moffett was also a Motéma signee, becoming partners with Herzen in music and life until he passed away last year.

“I was never limiting it to jazz, but we got a reputation as a jazz label,” Herzen says.

When the singer and guitarist looked to release her own music around the turn of the millennium, she found a record industry on shaky ground — and few labels willing to take a risk on a singer-songwriter from an unconventional background. “I was being told, ‘The music sounds great, but we can’t do anything right now.’ I got enough of those that I thought, ‘Well, I guess I’ll start my own label to put it out.’”

With guidance from industry vets, Herzen founded Motéma in San Francisco. The name nods to its culturally roving mission: “Motéma” means “heart” in Lingala, the Bantu language spoken in much of the Congo region, just as Herzen’s surname is the plural for the German word for “heart.” The label unveiled Herzen’s debut Soup’s On Fire in 2001, then released percussionist Babatunde Lea’s Soul Pools in 2003.

Through Lea, Herzen would be introduced to Moffett after Herzen had moved the label to New York. Their business relationship eventually deepened into a creative partnership, and then a romance, which led to the label’s inadvertent return to San Francisco. The sudden onset of the pandemic, and grim positivity rates back in New York, ultimately kept the pair in California.

“As shocking as it was, with so many people dying, having now lost Charnett, I actually think of those times fondly: We had a chance to be together a lot and make music. That really was a blessing,” Herzen says.

Moffett’s death from a heart attack last April has left Herzen struggling to imagine her life — and Motéma — without him. The label took a 16-month hiatus from new releases, but now, as Motéma breaks its silence in time for the 20th anniversary, Moffett is the beating heart of its return. Innocence Of Truth, a duo recording he made with Herzen, comes out Oct. 20, with more material to follow.

“It’s a heartbreak for me because he was very loved as a sideman and made records as a leader all through his life. But he raised two kids, and the whole financial responsibility thing led him to rely a lot on income from being a sideman,” Herzen says. “By the time he got to Motéma, most of his focus was really on his own material, and it was a career we were enjoying developing.”

Also due out are Rising Sun, the debut by 25-year-old pianist-composer Shuteen Erdenebaatar; and A Lovesome Thing, Geri Allen and Kurt Rosenwinkel’s live album recorded at Jazz à la Villette in 2012. Already released as part of the celebration is Flamenkora, a collision of West African Mande music, flamenco and Western jazz spearheaded by Motéma signee Volker Goetze. DB