Kei Akagi

Transcription

>> When you are a jazz musician and an improviser, there is no distinction between composition and improvisation. I am spontaneously composing. What are the elements as I am creating music on the spot? What is really in that music that I just played? For example I can just sit down and play .... That's just a melody I came up with. I can choose to interpret it very playfully ... ... like that. Or perhaps I feel that, no, even though the melody sounded like that, maybe it is supposed to be interpreted as ... ... which is a whole different mood. So essentially I am constantly as an improviser providing information to myself, and the trick is to interpret that correctly. It's a really fun process. I was very fortunate to have been Miles Davis' pianist for two years: 1989 to 1991. And I am still trying to assimilate some of the lessons I learned from him. He was scary. I would get calls in my hotel room at 4 o'clock in the morning, and he would proceed to chew me out for something I played, or didn't play, or something like that. Then I would run into him at the airport the next morning. I would go up to him and say "Chief, I am really sorry about last night." And then he would look at me and say "I have already forgotten about it." When I came here 10 years ago, I thought of the various ways this jazz program could be nurtured and what some of its philosophies could be. But I decided probably the most important thing was allowing each student essentially to develop and express their own individuality. Because after all this art form, improvisation and jazz music, is a very personal art form. The whole point is that if you have five musicians, even if they might be playing the same composition, they are supposed to express five different world views. And because that has always been an integral part of jazz, I decided that the program that I would like to put together would really allow students to explore that part of it. Always take chances. Be responsible for what you do. But for everything you learn, there is a completely different way to do it.