Let's talk it out

A slew of interview links I've been hoarding

Paul Berliner, author of Thinking In Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation.  He's also an expert in the mbira music of the Shona of Zimbabwe. A lot of the interview relates jazz and mbira music to each other:

Despite the features that distinguish the languages of jazz and mbira music, there are similarities.  You might think that because the interlocking aesthetic of mbira music dictates a very tight mesh between the kushaura and kutsinhira parts, that that might inhibit improvisers, compared with the parameters jazz musicians typically work within. Paradoxically, when mbira players establish a powerful groove within the complementary interlocking relationship, it generates a great feeling of mutual support which inspires greater freedom of expression. At such moments, artists describe a flood of ideas coming to them, and they begin departing from their  pre-composed parts to experiment with developing new figures, trying out new cross-rhythms, taking harmonic liberties.

Ornette Coleman - "I just keep trying to find better notes. For me, better notes make my day." Ornette on the word jazz:

That's not a bad word. It's not the only word in English. And probably for sound, when you say jazz, that's a style. It doesn't represent sound. It just represents style. And that's the same for classical music. It represents a style. But sound itself doesn't really have to have a title for it to have meaning. I've heard "it sounds good" and "it sounds bad." You'll know if it sounds good or sounds bad because of how it makes you feel emotionally.

Ben Ratliff on his new Coltrane bio. Discussing the topic of Fear of Jazz:

I think because it’s serious, because it has a long history, because it has intellectual overtones, but also because it’s sort of earnest. Part of the reason jazz doesn’t fit within pop culture anymore is because it can’t really be self-consciously rebellious and shocking, which is very standard stuff now. And I guess that’s why there’s this cliché that you turn thirty and all of a sudden start to think, “Maybe I should learn about jazz, because now I’m old enough.”

An interview with producer Don Was. The Was (Not Was) album What Up Dog? still gets some play on my stereo. Sounds like Detroit was a happening place in the 60s, where Was grew up:

I remember going downtown [in Detroit] where there was a poet [and] cultural leader named Jon Sinclair in Detroit who had Pharaoh Saunders jamming with members of the MC5 on acid one night.  And it was a rich culture.  George Clinton played at my high school.  Biggie and The Stooges played at my high school.  All these guys were doing something that no one had ever done before.  So that’s the aesthetic that I come from.  My band, Was Not Was, is kind of an amalgamation of all those disparate elements, and we’re always looking to break down the barriers.