What is a progression session?
Between 1998 and 2003, LTJ Bukem, a drum & bass producer and innovator, released a series of albums title Progression Sessions. These albums had a unique characteristic that they had a natural musical evolution from beginning to end. So instead of being an album composed of distinct songs, the progression sessions were end-to-end musical pieces where a “conversation” between multiple different instruments and styles would continue to evolve. What characterized the progression sessions is that they could not be specifically pegged to a single genre of music, and thus made them their very own genre.
In 2009 and 2010, Nadir Ait-Laoussine, conceptualized the idea of a series of conversations in an intimate setting between individuals that may or may not know each other. Each gathering would start with a topic and naturally evolve throughout the evening. It would become, Nadir postulated, a way for deeper more relevant conversations to emerge, and possibly more lasting connections between individuals. In 2015, shelving the idea as experimental, Nadir chose to reignite the concept, and launched the first Progression Session. Nadir cites three influences that lead him to this:
- LTJ Bukem’s musical experiments and Progression Sessions.
- The famed 1971 debate between Michel Foucault & Noam Chomsky on the question of human nature, and
- The discovery of Jeffersonian dinners as pre-existing template.