- 531Recommend It!
- 10,071views
Interviews
Pruning the Tree: Seven Decades of Jazz with Toots Thielemans
Terry Perkins
Terry is a freelance journalist living in St. Louis who writes about jazz for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Downbeat and All About Jazz -- and other outlets.TP: You and Kenny seem to have a special rapport – one that transcends any generational boundaries.
TT: Well, I think we both have a love of melody. You know, some of the younger musicians play all the notes and can do it very fast and are clever with scales. But in these fast flurries of notes, no melody comes out – at least to my ears. Kenny tells me that sometimes he tells young guys like that, “You cannot play a melody. Buy a bunch of Toots Thielemans records and learn how to do that.” Clever notes and chords are not necessarily music. And clever words and expressions are not necessarily poetry.
TP: When I saw you in St. Louis in 2001, you brought your guitar, but you only played it on one song in the set. Will you be playing more guitar on this tour?
TT:
Visit Toots on the web at www.tootsthielemans.com .
Photo Credit
Dennis Owsley
