Live and Local: NEA Jazz Master Gary Bartz in Denver this week
NEA Jazz Master Gary Bartz visits Dazzle Denver for sets on May 1 and May 2. Carlos Lando caught up with the legendary alto saxophonist for a conversation about the state of jazz. With a storied career behind him, including a stint with The Jazz Messengers, more than 45 solo records, and collaborations like “Bird at 100” with Bobby Watson and Vincent Herring, as well as being featured on the ever-progressive “Jazz is Dead 006.” Bartz and Lando chop it up on what pushes the music forward: consistent work with a band, lifelong study and practice, and no music on the bandstand.
This portion of the interview above has been edited for length and clarity:
Carlos Lando: At this stage of your career, that you're working with younger musicians and younger people that are trying to stretch the boundaries of this music that's under this big umbrella we call jazz, how do you find the state of the music today through your eyes and ears?
Gary Bartz: Well, to be honest, it's stagnant. It's not going anywhere right now, and the main reason is because there are no more bands. This music only grows from working bands because each band is like a university. When I joined Art Blakey in The Messengers with Lee Morgan, I mean, today there's not many places to go like that. I mean, I'm playing every night with front line with Lee Morgan, and he's standing behind me sometimes, especially when I was playing a ballad, he would stand me on me. He said, 'Man, play the pretty notes!' And that kind of encouragement, and he was only two years older than me, but he had much more experience. When I joined Max (Roach). Max was the one that taught me no music on the bandstand. He said, 'there's no magic. If you have to get up and read music on the bandstand, you're rehearsing.. We don't do that.' You never saw (John Col)Trane, Miles (Davis), Dizzy (Gillespie), you never saw any of them reading music on stage. So this comes from, your heart, doesn't come from reading something somewhere. So, right now it's being taught in universities rather than people going out on the road learning how to do it in the trenches. It's kind of like you can train to go to war, but if you never go to war, you don't really know what it's like, and you can't grow like that.
CL: There is a lot of redeeming value in the fact that, because of the universities, you get these young people being exposed to certain elements of jazz and the history of jazz, and what they do with it is really up to them, moving it forward. But I concur with you that you're absolutely correct.
GB: You cannot grow in this music, which is composing music on the spot, is what we do. They try to tell us we are improvising. I say, a monkey can improvise, give him a saxophone, he'll throw the saxophone up in the air - That's an improvisation! He cannot play 'I Got Rhythm' changes. So, what we are doing is we are composing, it's based on an old musical concept called theme and variations of the theme. Anybody by themselves can take a theme and vary it, but to do it with a group of people is an amazing feat. I think it's the greatest art form ever created. Like a basketball team, since the playoffs are on now, I mean basketball teams, they have to be able to know each other to know that what they're going to do before it happens in other words, they have to see the future. So, as musicians doing informal compositions, we have to hear the future. So, that takes another kind of mindset. So, when you go to school, if you are trying to learn how to play jazz, you're going to get lost. If you're trying to learn how to play music, now you're onto something.
CL: Given of everything that you've spoken about here in the last few minutes, in terms of you personally - you're playing a couple of nights here in Denver next week, is it fair to say, obviously you live in that moment when you're on that stage and you're doing what you do and people are connecting and so forth. When you get back home, what is it that triggers that next thing that you think, wow, whether it's something that doesn't come as frequently as it used to? I guess it's my way of asking, are we in a little bit more, in terms of you personally, in a more fertile period of saying, Hey, you know what? There are a lot more things that I want to be able to lock into or to bring to the table musically. Does that make any sense? GB (04:59): Yeah, makes perfect sense. Yeah. You know who Pablo Casals was?
CL: Of course.
GB: Okay, so the great cellist, when he was in his nineties, someone asked him the question, 'Well, Mr. Casals, you're the greatest cellist probably ever. Why do you still practice?' And his answer was, 'well, I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this,' and that's the way I feel. But in reality, I realize no one has ever or ever will learn music. It's impossible. It's like the universe. All you can do is study it. And that's the great thing. And so, every day I am studying it every day, every day, all day. Just like when I first started hearing this, I have not faltered in all these years. I've been disappointed many times about many things, but the music always took me out of it. And that's why I say music is my sanctuary. I tell people, that's my religion. Music is my religion. I think nature gave music to us as a religion.
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Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy of Gary Bartz
