Appendix to Part Five

Quotations and recommendations

The subject matter of Part Five, Inspiration and Influences, is outside the scope of Interaction, which was directed as its subtitle stated, at 'Opening up the Jazz Ensemble'. There is therefore no precis here of any particular chapter from Interaction. What is included, as usual, is a selection of relevant quotes and some recommendations.

Quotes

Cezanne
'If the official Salons are still so inferior, the reason is that they employ only more or less perfunctory methods. It would be better to introduce more personal emotion, more observation and more character.
The Louvre is the book in which we learn to read. But we must not be content to memorise the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go out and study beautiful nature, let us try to discover her spirit, let us express ourselves according to our own temperaments. Time and meditation tend to modify our vision little by little and finally comprehension comes to us.'

David Puttnam
'The ultimate freedom for creative people is to allow them to work within specific and agreed bounds, bounds which they understand and appreciate. When I say I understand, I mean they understand the reason for their existence. It's that thing about Pip in Great Expectations being told to go and play. You can't tell a child to "play". You can give him two sticks and say, "Would you like to go and play football with these?" and he'll say "I can't". Or you can give him a patch of ground and a ball and see what he does with it. But you can't ask a child to "play". By the same token, I don't think you can just ask a creative person to create.'

Ralph Shapey
'If you want to call it religious, OK. call it religious; because for me, yes, great art is a miracle. Now if you've experienced these things, whether it's with art, religion - you call it a religious experience. I'm talking about an experience, in which, for the moment, you've lost control of your basic life, and lived in a different time element, a different sphere. You receive something so marvellous that you cannot define it. You want it again, despite an element of fear, you remember it as a moment beyond yourself! It's one of the most marvellous experiences of your life. If you've experienced that you know what I'm talking about. I believe great art can do that to you. I've experienced it. If you haven't, I'm sorry.'

Recommendations

There are far too many of my own inspirations and influences to list here, but what follows is a very partial list of people whose ideas, music and writings have been important to me in my development as a jazz composer.

- Jazz musicians from the obvious trio of Duke, Mingus, Gil to many of the relatively unknowns I have mentioned elsewhere such as Norwegian Jon Balke and, a new discovery, French tuba player Michel Godard.
- In contemporary orchestral writing the obvious names such as Bartok, Ives and Berio as well as the lesser known but, for me no less important, composers such as Allan Petterson and Thomas Ades, and Ralph Shapey, another recent discovery.
- Painters such as Van Gogh, Cezanne and Pollock
- Writers, the obvious Lowry and Faulkner but also Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Williams Gass and Gaddis.
- Critics (oh so few) such as Clement Greenberg and Malcolm Cowley...

The list could continue but the cumulative effect can perhaps best be summed up by looking at the Penguin's Writers at Work series. Nine books, mostly edited by George Plimpton, of interviews with writers originally published in The Paris Review . Writers as diverse as Pablo Neruda, William Faulkner and Christopher Isherwood are sensitively interviewed about their work and their methods. These interviews show that influences, inspiration, working methods, differ widely among writers - as they do with all artists. Reading how they react to different situations may make us feel less alone when faced with the start of a new project.

As always comments and contributions to this Discussion are welcome. Email graham@jazzcontinuum.com

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