Jazz interviews E-Book

Guido Michelone

• Herausgeber: EDUCatt
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This book includes 82 new interviews I made with some great jazz musicians from Americas, Europe, Asia, and other well known people with whom I also talked about jazz, between 2010 and 2016.

I have carried out these interviews mainly by e-mail, allowing no restriction of time and space for the answers given: sometimes I received a feedback within a few hours; sometimes it took several weeks. Some of the answers were simple, some more elaborate.
Over the last few years, I have translated the contents of many of these interviews into my language (Italian) and published them in whole or in part in magazines or newspapers. But in this book all of the 82 interviews appear in their entirety, without any changes.
Many of these interviews follow a basic question-answer scheme: I usually start by asking the artist about their new release; then I ask him to retrace his professional life and explore his philosophical view on the nature of music and of jazz in particular.
I have arranged the interviews in alphabetical order, without adding any comments, just some notes on the artist’s nationality and the instruments he plays.
This is just a limited glimpse over a vibrant musical scene, as the number of great jazz musicians in the world today number to at least a hundred. I have interviewed many others jazz artists in some of my earlier books, such as Jazz Is A Woman; Speak Jazzmen; El Jazz habla Espanol; I mestieri del jazz (The Works of the Jazz); Una carezza sulle ali (A Caress on the Wings).
In these interviews one can perceive a widespread optimism, which is brilliantly affirmed in the words of all the protagonists, and which reveals a great future for jazz.
Guido Michelone

Leseprobe

Guido Michelone

Jazz

Interviews

Milano 2016

© 2016EDUCatt - Ente per il Diritto allo Studio Universitario dell’Università Cattolica

Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milano - tel. [phone] - fax [phone]

e-mail: [email protected] (produzione); [email protected] (distribuzione)

web: www.educatt.it/libri

isbn: 978-88-9335-129-4

Cover: Bob Belden

To the memory of Bob, Fred, Paco

Thanks to Fiorenzo Bernasconi, Ernesto Granese, Peo Ranghino, Francesca Tini Brunozzi, Anna Rollone, Gian Nissola, Betty Perfumo, Federico Gozzelino, Alessandro Barbaglia, Fabio Ponzana, Gianni Sibilla, Gaetano Liguori, Stefano Zenni, Franco Bergoglio, Paola Rosso, Antonella Michelone, Franca Scansetti.

Index

Foreword

Abbuehl

Susanne Abbuehl, Switzerland, singer and composer

Aiméee

Cyrille Aiméee,France and Unites States, singer

Andersen

Arild Andersen, Norway, bassist

Anick

Jason Anick, United States, violinist and mandolin player

Arnalds

Ólafur Arnalds, Iceland, multi-instrumentalist and composer

Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon, Israel and Great Britain, saxophonist, writer, political activis

Baker

Chet Baker, United States, trumpeter and singer

Balke

Jon Balke, Norway, pianist and composer

Baltaro

Paolo Baltaro, Italy and England, singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer

Barbez

Dan Kaufman, Unites States, guitarist and bandleader

Bates

Django Bates, Great Britain, composer and multi-instrumentalist

Belden

Bob Belden, United States, saxophonist, arranger, composer

Bowie

Joseph Bowie, United States, trombonist

Caine

Uri Caine, United States, pianist and composer

Campus

Filomena Campus, England and Italy, vocalist

Cascaro

Jeff Cascaro, Germany, singer and trumpeter

Chanticleer

Kory Reid (Chanticleer), United States, vocal ensemble

Corso

Salvatore Corso, Italy and United States, photographer

Cox

Trevor Cox, Great Britain, academic and science communicator

Dagmar’s Collective

Dagmar Segberg, Germany, Holland, Italy, bandleader and singer

De Lucia

Paco De Lucia, Spain, guitarist

Draksler

Kaja Draksler, Slovenia, pianist and composer

Dunér

Sophie Dunér, Sweden and United States, singer, songwriter, visual artist

Edwin

Colin Edwin, Australia, bassist and member of Porcupine Tree (british prog band)

Emika

Ema Joly (Emika), Great Britain, disc jokey and folksinger

Ersan

Okan Ersan, Turkish Cyprus, guitarist

Everett

Sangoma Everett, United States and France, drummer

Faber

Michele Faber, United States and Spain, pianist

Fiuczynski

David Fiuczynski, United States, guitarist and composer

Fujii

Sakoto Fujii, Japan, pianist and composer

Garland

Tim Garland, Great Britain, saxophonist and composer

Grauer

Victor Grauer, United States, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, writer

Gustafsson

Rigmor Gustafsson, Sweden, singer

Hazama

Miho Hazama, Japan and United States, pianist, organist, conductor

Holland

Dave Holland, Great Britain and United States, bassist, bandleader, composer

Honest John

Klaus Ellerhuse Holm, Norway, saxophonist, clarinettist, bandleader

I Compani

Bo van de Graaf, Holland, saxophonist, composer, bandleader

James Taylor Quartet

James Taylor (JTQ), Great Britain, hammondist

Jazzanova

Stefan Leisering, Germany, drums and keyboard player

Jungr

Barb Jungr, Great Britain, singer and songwriter

Kaz

Fred Kaz, United States, pianist, actor, writer

Kelly

Nancy Kelly, United States, singer

King Mob

Stephen W. Parsons aka Snips, Great Britain, vocalist

Kubišová

Marta Kubišová, Czech Republic, singer

Lassy

Timo Lassy, Finland, saxophonist and composer

Lechner

Anja Lechner, Germany, cellist

Leningrad Cowboys

Timo Tolonen, Finland, bassist and musical director

Linx

David Linx, Belgium, vocalist and singer

Mahogany

Kevin Mahogany, United States, vocalist

Mara & David

Mara Von Ferne and David Sick, Germany, vocalist and guitarist

Marcus

Greil Marcus, United States, writer and music journalist

Mayall

John Mayall, Great Britain and United States, singer, harmonicist, guitarist, keyboard player

McBirnie

Bill McBirnie, Canada, flautist

Meyer

Sabina Meyer, Swiss and Italy, soprano, vocalist, songwriter and musicologist

Mnozil Brass

Wilfried Brandstötter, Austria, tuba player and brass band musician

Mover

Bob Mover, United States, multi-saxophonist, vocalist

Nils Wogram Root 70

Nils Wogram, Germany, trombonist and composer

Perelmann

Ivo Perelmann, Brazil, tenor saxophonist

Pukl

Jure Pukl, Slovenia, saxophonist and composer

Pylkkänen

Pekka Pylkkänen, Finland, saxophonist, composer, educator

The Real Group

Morten Vinther Sørensen, Sweden, vocalist, bandleader

Rebello

Jason Rebello, Great Britain, pianist, songwriter, bandleader

Rimmer

Joanna Rimmer, Great Britain and Italy, singer and model

Saft

Jamie Saft, United States, keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist

Salamon

Samo Salamon, Slovenia, guitarist and composer

Salvatore

Nick Salvatore, United States, jazz historician

JCSandford Orchestra

John C. Sandford, United States, pianist and big band leader

Schächter

Daniela Schächter, Italy and Unites States, singer and pianist

Sidran

Ben Sidran, United States, pianist, singer, writer

Sinopoulos

Sokratis Sinopoulos, Greece, lyra player

Slettahjell

Solveig Slettahjell, Norway, singer

Smirnov

Oleg Smirnov (Exit Project), Russia, United States, electric bassist

Soft Machine Legacy

Theo Travis, Great Britain, saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist

Stiefel

Van Stiefel, United States, composer

Sunde

Helge Sunde, Norway, trombonist and composer

Suttenfield

Kelley Suttenfield, United States, singer

Vasil Hadzimanov Band

Vasil Hadzimanov, Serbia, pianist and keyboard player

Wang

Jason Kao Wang, United States and China, violinist and composer

Washington

Reggie Washington, United States, acoustic and electric bassist

Werner

Kenny Werner, United States, pianist and composer

Wolverine Jazz Band of Bern

Sterchi Walter, Switzerland, banjoist, guitarist, bandleader

Yáñez

Gio Yáñez, Spain and Portugal, electric guitarist

Zeitlin

Danny Zeitlin, United States, pianist and composer

The Author

Guido Michelone, Italy, writer, jazz historian

Foreword

This book includes 82 new interviews I made with some great jazz musicians from Americas, Europe, Asia, and other well known people with whom I also talked about jazz, between 2010 and 2016.

I have carried out these interviews mainly by e-mail, allowing no restriction of time and space for the answers given: sometimes I received a feedback within a few hours; sometimes it took several weeks. Some of the answers were simple, some more elaborate.

Over the last few years, I have translated the contents of many of these interviews into my language (Italian) and published them in whole or in part in magazines or newspapers. But in this book all of the 82 interviews appear in their entirety, without any changes.

Many of these interviews follow a basic question-answer scheme: I usually start by asking the artist about their new release; then I ask him to retrace his professional life and explore his philosophical view on the nature of music and of jazz in particular.

I have arranged the interviews in alphabetical order, without adding any comments, just some notes on the artist’s nationality and the instruments he plays.

This is just a limited glimpse over a vibrant musical scene, as the number of great jazz musicians in the world today number to at least a hundred. I have interviewed many others jazz artists in some of my earlier books, such as Jazz Is A Woman; Speak Jazzmen; El Jazz habla Espanol; I mestieri del jazz (The Works of the Jazz); Una carezza sulle ali (A Caress on the Wings).

In these interviews one can perceive a widespread optimism, which is brilliantly affirmed in the words of all the protagonists, and which reveals a great future for jazz.

Guido Michelone

AbbuehlSusanne Abbuehl,Switzerland,singer and composer

Who is primarily Susanne Abbuehl?

Singer. Composer. Music Lover.

Can you talk about your album April (ECM)?

I am in the process of preparing, researching, composing. It always takes me very long, I am slow, I need to work in several phases. And I only want to record music that feels urgent to me. Music that is mine, that I can inhabit, live in, and give. I am very fortunate to work with producer Manfred Eicher as he knows so much about the creative process and has an impeccable sense of ‘Timing’. Whenever the time is right, we will record.

Tell me about the first memory you have of jazz music?

It’s listening to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. My father had lots of jazz records, and these two, I ‘really remember.

What are the reasons that motivated you to become a jazz musician?

I started with instrumental music, baroque music, playing the harpsichord (cembalo). Basso continuo, Bach, Händel, Purcell, Scarlatti. This music is very deep in my memory. I sang, in a sort of free-of-style way, when playing the harpsichord. I was drawn to music and language very early on. I heard lots of different music at home, my mother mainly listening to classical music, and my Dad mostly jazz. Then, at seventeen, I sent one year in Los Angeles, doing high school, and being part of the jazz ensemble, with classes every day and concerts in the USA and Canada. That is where I started to actively sing jazz, and knowing all the standards.

And after the american experience?

When I came back to Switzerland, I started taking lessons with great singer and composer Rachel Gould (partner of Sal Nistico) who taught in Bern at the time. When she moved to Holland to teach at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, I followed her and studied for my MA there.

Some years into the study, Jeanne Lee, my favourite voice in jazz, started teaching at the Conservatory. I had heard her voice when I worked in a record store in Bern, her record Legendary Duets from 1961, with Ran Blake. Her voice, so unique, so free of mannerism, so direct and honest – and also like a dancer, like a poet, everything really. I think it is her voice that really touched me and inspired me on a deep level.

Who are your masters and your ‘idols’ in jazz music?

Miles. Forever. Jimmy Giuffre. Don Cherry. Paul Bley. From vocalists: Jeanne Lee, Sarah Vaughan, also Cassandra Wilson. I listened to a lot of vocal music outside of jazz, some of my favourite vocal music is music from India (Rashid Khan, Prabha Atre), and it’s the vocal composing by Monteverdi and Berio that I really, really love.

What is for you the best moment of your career as a jazz musician?

It’s a collection of moments spent in music with the musicians I love – moments of complete involvement in sound, rhythm, togetherness. In concerts and in studio.

Among the jazz albums you’ve recorded as you love most?

Oh... this is difficult to say. They are all dear to me as they all mean a step on my way of developing my musical language.

How would you define jazz music?

Oh I probably cannot define it. In my music, it is about interaction, moving together, elasticity of tempo, dance, timbre, rhythm.

What are the ideas, concepts or feelings that I associate with your music?

My main inspiration are sense memories of the body – mostly of moments in nature. I am really not sure how to explain this. I am interested in a chamber music kind of approach, so having several voices in the band that are all equally important. And I am radical in stripping everything that is ‘effect’ or ‘display’ off.

As you see, in general, the present and the future of jazz music?

There are so many different movements within jazz now, it’s a thrilling time. As I also teach in two music universities (Lausanne & Lucerne), I hear all the influences my students are exposed to, and they succeed in finding yet new paths, which makes me very happy. Jazz is my musical home, for me it is about ‘Creating’.

There are direct relationships between jazz and politics?

My own music is free of politics. I am interested in everything hidden, secret, the things that words cannot express. Music for me is about that. But I grew up in Europe, with everything available, so of course I am aware that jazz was and it at times political.

What are your musical plans for the future?

I want to keep singing and composing. I am so very happy with my band, they are dream musicians for me (Swiss flugelhorn player Matthieu Michel, pianist Wolfert Brederode from Holland with whom I have been working since our student time in The Hague, and Norwegian drummer øyvind Hegg-Lunde).

We will do concerts in China and Japan, in China playing on an ECM festival in Shanghai. I just got back from France where I was invited to participate in a recording by French pianist Stephan Oliva (for a small independent label, Vision Fugitive). We have been playing concerts off and on for 15 years.

2016

Cannonball Adderley, alto saxophonist

Hipness is not a state of mind, it’s a fact of life.

Louis Armstrong, singer and trumpeter

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

AiméeeCyrille Aiméee,France and Unites States, singer

What is jazz?

It’s just a word with 4 letters.

Can you define yourself in one word?

Alive.

Among the jazz albums you’ve listened as you love most?

Kind of Blue.

Your best jazz singer in all times?

Ella Fitzgerald.

Is the truth important to you?

No...

What does it take to make a living with jazz?

Getting back up when you fall, many times.

How do you see the relation between jazz music and society?

It’s about being in the present moment, which is something difficult to achieve in both worlds.

Do you ‘feel’... or do you ‘think’?

All Feel.

How do you relate to pain?

Meh...

Do you have any regrets?

Not really... I like Yin and Yang.

What is happiness?

Feeling something.

What is beauty?

Feeling something.

Do you have a dream in music?

To feel something.

2016

Count Basie, pianist and big band leader

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz.When we played pop tunes,and naturallywe had to,I wanted those pops to kick!Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

Bix Beiderbecke, cornet player

Jazz has both white and black elements,and each insome respects has influenced the other.

AndersenArild Andersen,Norway, bassist

Who is primarily Arild Andersen?

Man from Norway, playing bass.

Can you talk about your recent albums?

The last one is called Mira and is a studio recording with my trio, Tommy Smith sax and Paolo Vinaccia drums.

And before?

Before I always wanted to do a ballad album and this is very close.

The one befoer that was a live recording as a soloist with Smith’