By Luigi Santosuosso
AAJ: When you were born there was already a piano at your place;
your father was a guitar player. Was your family instrumental to your
musical education, did they push you to go in that direction?
MP: My father did not really force me towards music; you know,
forcing is hardly an effective strategy. However, he strongly encouraged me
to play. He was always very positive about it. He always believed in me
being a musician. At one point he asked me whether I wanted to learn to play
for real. "Of course" I replied with enthusiasm. My reaction clearly had to
do - at least in part - with some basic father's idolization; you know I
must have been five then. I started by playing the drums, which I hated
because I couldn't play any melodies. After that I just kind of gravitated
towards the piano. At the beginning I was a bad student but then I started
studying on all the major books; at one point I was proceeding at almost one
book a day. I had decided that I was going to learn everything. That was
when I was about ten.
AAJ: Did your father try and make you study guitar, rather than
piano?
MP: He thought that the piano was a better instrument than
guitar. He encouraged my interest in piano.
AAJ: what was your main musical interest. Did you start from jazz or
from some other music style?
MP: My father had a bunch of records by Oscar Peterson, Charlie
Parker and Art Tatum and also stuff from the Coleman Hawkins era. I played
them every now and then and I thought it was some kind of strange music that
I did not really understand, but I thought it was interesting, quite
different from classical music. At the age of twelve I was already the
strange guy in my class, the guy that was listening to jazz while everybody
else was listening to the Duran Duran and the Kiss... I wasn't very smooth
with expressing my thoughts on this point, condemning that kind of popular
music that I considered as pure shit... I was not very popular with my mates
as far as music was concerned.
AAJ: In the last decades jazz musicians from Denmark, Sweden, Norway
and Finland have become increasingly well established. Do you think it is
possible to speak of a Scandinavian way of making jazz? Usually the
stereotype is that Scandinavians give great importance to their folk roots.
MP: That's a bad question. I think it is more important to
concentrate one's efforts on making music rather than making a specific kind
of music. So when it comes to this kind of jazz tribes around the world... I
don't think that this is the right thing to do. For sure, it is possible to
distinguish that there are lots of different personalities and this is a
positive thing. But it doesn't mean that a Finnish musician, for instance,
is not able to play jazz. Nationality does not influence the music you play
at all. It is rather the community and the culture that surrounds you that
has an impact on your music. As far as Finnish and Scandinavian jazz are
concerned, I can't say to be very interested in it, but I know that there
are many talents that should concentrate on making their own music rather
than copying what has already been done.
AAJ: After studying in Stockholm you moved to the Berklee School of
Music in Boston. So you are in an ideal position to make a comparison
between two different ways of teaching music. In a way you have had the
opportunity to share the best of two words having been trained both in
Europe and in the States. Under what respects do you think that these two
educational systems differ or are similar?
MP: As for the US educational system I can't really generalize,
as I was only at Berklee. This school is a place which instead of being
based on a formalistic teachers/students relationship, you find more
experienced musician sharing their knowledge and experience with less
experienced musicians. This is very positive, because at a certain point one
only neede that kind of guidance. But for younger musicians - let's say
around the age of 14-15 - you probably need a more authoritative approach.
At times, while at the Berklee School I felt that everything was possible,
you know... We live in 2000 and anything can be done... But I do not
completely agree with that. One should be aware of what has been done, the
various kinds of theories... One should develop his or her own ear rather
than just playing their own fun tricks (which everybody is allowed to do as
we all live in a very liberal time).
Scandinavian education focuses more on theories and analysis. American
education is probably the opposite, it tells you that you can do this or
that but does not really analyze anything in depth (and as I said before my
evaluation is limited to Berklee vs. the Swedish Royal Academy of Music). I
think that neither of this approaches is valid by itself. It is necessary to
do the theory but it is also important to put it in practice. Actually the
one really valuable thing that I found at Berklee is that there was a very
strong playing environment. You had a "session culture" there that was not
present at all in Stockholm where the professional environment is so small
that people get very fast into money, so self-criticism disappears very fast
from them.
AAJ: At one point or another however one has to "kill" his/her own
teacher and travel the world with his own legs. At what point did you 'kill'
your own teachers?
MP: I think it was a subconscious thing - actually it was a
dream - that happened around summer or fall of 1993; in that period I played
at my first jazz festival. I had almost finished Berklee, there was just one
semester left and things were not challenging anymore the way they used to
be at the beginning, and I thought "who should I study with, now?" So while
I was pondering on where should I go next, one night I had this dream, I
understood that I had to go my own way. To a certain degree that made me
feel very lonely. However, I kept the highest admiration for my teachers and
still today, also those that may have not reached a very high musical level
in their production but that are great in giving you a lot of tools to
develop yourself. My greatest debt is for Alvaro Is Rojas. It's is a special
feeling you get when you realize that you have to start going your own way.
It's something that everybody needs to do, but some people never do it and
then they become "bitter teachers".
AAJ: When you went to Berklee you certainly encountered a very
competitive environment. Did you find yourself in an even more difficult
position because of your nationality? Did you have to win any initial
skepticism that - as a Finnish musician - you "did not swing"?
MP: Mostly when I say that I come from Finland the first
reaction is "Oh really? How interesting". Then whether they believe that I
am really able to play is a completely different matter. I haven't found too
much trouble being a non-American player. I speak out, and speaking out -
especially in New York - is the best thing that you can do.
AAJ: Now you have at least two different projects: MikaSonik and
MikaKosmos, plus several other projects. What are you trying to pursue
through each of them?
MP: I still have to really figure out what the difference
between these two projects is... But let's put it this way. At some point,
it might be within a year or so, I would like to have one band more on the
experimental and improvisational side, and the other band more on the
compositional side. There could be also the alternative possibility that one
band will stay in Europe and the other in the US. I am not yet sure about
what I want to do... But I decided 2 different names...
AAJ: I noticed during your concert that you had at least a couple -
if not three - tunes that were completely based on composition, with no
solos. What is the role of composition and improvisation in your music?
MP: That's an excellent question. I think that both composition
and improvisation are needed as they are both mediums for expression. The
latter happens at the moment of playing through your loosening yourself into
some creative act that you do not know where it will lead to. The former is
a creative process through which one agonizes for days, weeks or months. I
need both these mediums. There is not a concert that I could do with just
one of them. How much of each ingredient I will use if of course up to me.
Now I think I am using a little more composition than improvisation.
AAJ: When do you decide the "trend" of your concert? Do you opt for
more improvisation or composition before or during the concert?
MP: Well the mode we have at the moment is to focus more on
composition. It is nothing that really varies from concert to concert.
AAJ: In this tour you have been playing with Ben Monder. In your
debut CD Mick Goodrick was playing with you. How do you - a piano player -
conceive the relationship with a guitar player?
MP: Playing with Ben Monder or Mick Goodrick is not related at
all, even though they both play guitar. Monder is basically an excellent sub
for Chris Cheek. It may seem strange that I have substituted Cheek, a sax
player, with Monder a guitar player. The fact is that I am not very
interested in having a saxophone player in my band, but Cheek is such a
wonderful musician and amazing improviser that plays my compositions really
well, so it is a real pleasure to play with him. He was not available for
this tour, and so I took this opportunity to add a different color to my
music. What could I do? When such a leading voice in my band could not join
me I could only completely change the set-up. It would have been pointless
to try and reproduce it with a similar sax player. I would have never gotten
to the same level.
I think that it is very challenging to play with a guitar player. Sometime
we tend to come in at the same time, but things are not as drastically
problematic as they may seem. And especially with Ben.. He has great ears to
understand what I am doing and I do the same with him.
AAJ: As opposed to the past, it seems increasingly difficult to
maintain a band together for a long period and develop a sound and a concept
together. In your case, however, this does not seem to have been a problem
until now. You have already been together for several years now.
MP: Absolutely. Because of different materialistic reasons I
can't expect everyone to be available in any moment, unless I become as
famous as Frank Sinatra and I can offer them more money than anyone else,
but this is not very realistic in the world of jazz. I would say that the
people in the band, especially Roberto Dani that is not based in the US are
doing amazing sacrifices to be in the band. But I think that there is always
a common interest to keep this band together. Everybody has a personal
interest to keep it alive... and if it were a merely economic interest in
the first place we should not play jazz at all as it is a not very
profitable kind of music. But it is rewarding in a different way. Some
people forget this and start accepting every gig they can get and become
some sort of 'pop-jazz' musicians. I like to play in different kind of
bands, but I could not play in some contexts.
AAJ: At one point few years back you met Roberto Dani, and you
figured that he was the drummer that you had been looking for a long time.
What did strike you?
MP: A sax player from Rome, Marcello Alulli - a really funny
guy - introduced us and we started playing... At that point I was not really
looking to forming a band. I was just looking for people that I could play
with the music I had in my mind. It was much before I even started to think
about making a CD. This was around 1994.
This article is published courtesy of the Italian music webzine Musicboom.
