Rebroadcast August 24, 2020.
There’s a school of thought among some jazz musicians that you should learn all you can– study, practice, master every scale and every mode– and then on the bandstand you leave all that behind and simply play, as a child plays. No one embodies this ideal more than Keith Jarrett; he is renowned for sitting down at the piano with absolutely no pre-conceived idea of what he is going to play. What emerges is a spontaneous composition.
When you listen to Jack DeSalvo, it’s immediately apparent that he has an enormous musical vocabulary. Renaissance classical, garage rock, straight ahead jazz, downtown skronk and traditional mandolin melodies are all part of his musical DNA. But when you hear DeSalvo improvise on classical guitar, you’re hearing music of that precise moment. He has many influences (and there are as many poets, philosophers and thinkers as there are musicians) but his original inspiration for pure invention is Keith Jarrett.
I can’t wait to hear Jack DeSalvo’s decades of hard-earned wisdom with Keith Jarrett’s instant music. Insights will abound. This Monday from 6pm to 9pm on WKCR 89.9FM, WKCR HD-1 and wkcr.org.