I am never satisfied with my own music – I know every mistake I make – but I also know that you are not taking creative chances if you don’t make some mistakes. The literature about high performance and innovation in every field, not just music, agrees that you have to take chances to advance and that mistakes are part of the learning process. However, street reality is that mistakes are usually penalized. 50 years after Ornette, the thing about 'wrong notes' is still going around...like Monk said as he stared at the piano keyboard, "Show me which note is wrong."
I read a lot about music and get a kick out of academic critics who earn their living by making brilliant statements like “Dexter came in a beat too soon on this phrase” or “Bud played a clashing note while comping in measure 4” or “Sonny hit a clam”. Ha ha, you dimwit. You get behind the horn at 200mph and do something you have never done before, in company of players as good as or better than you who are also creating in the moment. All that said I can’t hardly stand listening to my own playing once I finish mastering the recordings (that’s one thing I have in common with Sonny anyhow). I love playing with other horn players who are better than me. I tend to favor blues and riff tunes and minor scales and disfavor Tin Pan Alley standards (which I never listened to the original of in the first place), although if Pres or Dexter played it, it can’t be all bad. I try to expand my repertoire continually and always introduce new tunes on gigs. My recent repertoire comes from Sam Rivers, Horace Silver, Trane, Rahsaan, Sonny, Monk of course, Cleanhead Vinson, Eddie Harris, Mingus, Cannonball…
Bless the guys who are keeping the music alive. I know you are starving.
I read a lot about music and get a kick out of academic critics who earn their living by making brilliant statements like “Dexter came in a beat too soon on this phrase” or “Bud played a clashing note while comping in measure 4” or “Sonny hit a clam”. Ha ha, you dimwit. You get behind the horn at 200mph and do something you have never done before, in company of players as good as or better than you who are also creating in the moment. All that said I can’t hardly stand listening to my own playing once I finish mastering the recordings (that’s one thing I have in common with Sonny anyhow). I love playing with other horn players who are better than me. I tend to favor blues and riff tunes and minor scales and disfavor Tin Pan Alley standards (which I never listened to the original of in the first place), although if Pres or Dexter played it, it can’t be all bad. I try to expand my repertoire continually and always introduce new tunes on gigs. My recent repertoire comes from Sam Rivers, Horace Silver, Trane, Rahsaan, Sonny, Monk of course, Cleanhead Vinson, Eddie Harris, Mingus, Cannonball…
Bless the guys who are keeping the music alive. I know you are starving.
