Matt Mitchell – Sunday Interview

Jazz

Matt Mitchell – Sunday Interview

John Strange

April 7, 2024

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Photograph by Peter Gannushkin

What’s your best pleasure in
improvised music?

Perceiving the music because it flows previous in
time, feeling related, no matter that will
encompass in context.
What high quality do you most admire
within the musicians you carry out
with?

I worth most when musicians exhibit singular
focus, ensuing from intense and continued
research, to attain one thing new.
Which historic musician/composer
do you admire essentially the most?

Approach too many. Xenakis, Cecil Taylor, Zappa,
Miles. Bach, Chopin, Scriabin. Duke Ellington.
Morton Feldman. Monk. Stravinsky. Solar Ra. Additionally,
deep admiration might be a prerequisite when
voluntarily learning somebody. Herbie Hancock and
Keith Jarrett. Andrew Hill.
If you happen to might resurrect a musician to
carry out with, who wouldn’t it be?

I’d reasonably body it as attending to play with them
after they had been nonetheless alive however I’m “nonetheless me”.
Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers, Joe Henderson, Tony
Williams, Tony Oxley. Richard Davis, Gary
Peacock. Derek Bailey would have been a hoot. I
really feel like I’d have achieved properly in Zappa’s band.
Wayne Shorter might be an apparent selection however
he was by no means lower than goosebumps-inducing and
being within the midst of that may have been
one thing.
What would you continue to like to attain
musically in your life?

A lot of issues – persevering with the seek for new types
and sounds, maximizing what is feasible for me to do
in my waking hours.
Are you interested by fashionable music and
– if sure – what music/artist do you
significantly like?

Music usually doesn’t do properly when cash dictates the
content material even a tiny bit, which in a single sense is the
definition of pop music – music the place monetary
viability is a part of the purpose. However there’s tons of
pop/rock/soul/ music from the 60s to the current
which I like. Metallic and punk most likely depend as a
particular case since they initially had their
fashionable/populist components however proceed at the moment within the
extra underground sense, which is the place most
exploration of latest issues happens. However creatively
achieved music in these all these veins abounds and
at all times has. At present’s precise *pop music* is usually
dire, although.

I’d say Prince is an artist who was fairly skilled at
being supremely fashionable and extremely inventive for
a really very long time. I like his music.
If you happen to might change one factor about
your self, what wouldn’t it be?

An achievable factor, like “self-improvement”, or
science fiction degree? It might be actually cool
have scores and recordings of the music I hear
in my desires, which is after all at all times music
that my mind is improvising however doesn’t exist
in waking life. Often that is unbelievably
concerned music that’s untranscribable. Of
course typically dream music is actually silly
too.
Which of your albums are you most
happy with?

I’m very happy with each single one among my
information as a frontrunner or co-leader, all of them have
achieved precisely what I hoped they might, within the
macro- and micro- sense.

That mentioned, my I’m exceedingly proud of my
upcoming solo piano album Illimitable.
As soon as an album of yours is launched, do
you continue to hearken to it? And the way usually?

I do, however not usually. I’ll “test in” with an older
album somewhat simply to see how I nonetheless really feel about
this observe or that.
Which album (from any musician) have you ever
listened to essentially the most in your life?

Actually powerful to say, this goes again to after I was 12.
In all probability one thing between these albums. These are
albums that I really feel a type of “whole recall” with after I
hear them once more, and they’re all nonetheless full
masterpieces.

Miles – Nefertiti, In a Silent Approach, Bitches Brew
Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch
Herbie Hancock – Thrust, Maiden Voyage, The Prisoner
Jimi Hendrix – Axis, Daring as Love
Keith Jarrett – Dealing with You
Climate Report – Black Market, Heavy Climate, I Sing the
Physique Electrical
Stevie Marvel – Innervisions, Songs within the Key of Life
Sure – Relayer
What are you listening to in the meanwhile?
Solar Metropolis Ladies, Gorge Trio, Angelwings Marmalade,
Encenathrakh, Effluence, Vibrations Felt within the Void,
Contagious Orgasm, Roland Kayn, David Lee Myers, Jim
O’Rourke’s Steamroom collection, Grant Evans, Chris Weisman.
What artist exterior music evokes you?

John Ashbery, A.R. Ammons, Clark Coolidge, Wallace
Stevens, Pynchon, Nabokov, Beckett, Donald
Barthelme, James Joyce, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas
Ligotti, Laird Barron, Michael Cisco, Brian Evenson,
Matthew Bartlett. Chris Onstad/Achewood.

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