“All of these amazing personalities in the music I embraced and really tried to understand the music and the feeling behind the rhythm of it all.
Because everybody has their own rhythm.
And when you can execute your own rhythm inside the harmony, with the melody, then all of a sudden you’re starting to say something, and not saying something somebody else said. You’re saying it on your own because you’re feeling it.
Creating music within the music.
You have all these spring boards along the way that happened in your development and in your personal history as an improviser and a storyteller. When you’re playing with some beautiful storytellers, that influence stays with you. It goes beyond a technical approach on your instrument.
You have your technique together. You have to get around your horn. You have to play in all 12 and you have to deal at all tempos. But then to be expressive within that is another element of storytelling.
That’s what jazz it all about; the blues, trying to tell your story within whatever the music is.
…really developing inside the music you’re playing.
The music is one thing. Now, how to create music within that music, for the moment, and have its own life; not just playing the tune.
Your sound is your approach.
And the more you can develop within the different approaches of improvising, the more you’re going to be able to say something in the music.
To be a stylist without style inside the feeling, the spirit of the music, the rhythm spirit, the harmonic and melodic spirit.
Miles Davis set the pace. And today in 2022, he is still sett’n the pace about telling a story and being yourself; and technique is about expression.
When it’s not about flying around your horn and trying to “Go for House”, which a lot of folks do… that’s easy… To say something and to play a ballad, to really be expressive in the music… Man, Miles Davis changed the world, man… You listen to him today on any of his recordings and you feel what you’re listening to.
You have to be sincere and really get deep into the feeling of the music, not just the notes. It’s how you play those notes.”
– Joe Lovano