09/23/2022
The sax and flute player Shabaka Hutchings (leader of Shabaka and the Ancestors, member of Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming, and others), is interviewed by trumpet player and podcast host Dave Douglas on this week's installment of A Noise from the Deep. It's a riveting listen.
Hutchings:
"In the classical world it just feels like the players aren't that tight. You know, they're not, like, really *in* the pocket in a very, very deep way. Which is strange, because their whole rhetoric about the classical world vs. the jazz world is somehow the jazz world being slightly sloppier…or like, the legit (as they call it) world being somehow tighter. But actually in reality they're just really loose! I did a four-year classical degree, so I feel like I'm qualified to call their bu****it. … With big bands you've gotta be able to read fast and accurately. And when everyone needs to play--bang--a semi-quaver on the three-and-a-half beat to the bar, everyone has to do that, you know? And that's it. You gotta count, you gotta be your own metronome. Or, if you've gotta swing backward or forward, that's something that's gotta be negotiated.
"Whereas outside of the classical repertoire that everyone knows and understands, and outside of the loosening of the beat in terms of where the baton comes up and goes down, it's a loose affair. Which isn't helped by the down beat being given on the up…"!
Show A Noise From The Deep: Greenleaf Music Podcast with Dave Douglas, Ep ANFTD #105: Shabaka Hutchings - Sep 22, 2022
