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Take Five With Igor Bezget

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Meet Igor Bezget:
Igot Bezget is one of the most influential guitarist, composers, and musicians in his field. Born in Maribor, Slovenia, Bezget started to play guitar in his late teenage years as a self- taught musician in rock bands. Later on, through listening to Miles Davis records he became interested in jazz and studied with Peter O'Mara while attending Bruckner University in Austria. Bezget developed interests for different styles of world music and started playing other plucked instruments like the Arabic lute, oud, and the Turkish saz or baglama. With his deep interest for North Indian music, Bezget began playing the sarod and studied classical North Indian music with Biswait Roy Chodury and Suresh Talwalkar.

Through the years, he developed his own style of playing and composing. Throughout his professional career, he has composed thousands of tunes and compositions. A lot of them can be found recorded on more than 70 projects as a leader or co-leader in smaller groups to large orchestras in many different genres. Aside from playing and recording music, Bezget also serves as a guitar and music improvisation teacher. Through teaching, playing, and composing, he has influenced a lot of younger musicians.

Bezget has performed, recorded, or has conducted workshops all over the world for different situations. He has played in many different situations from clubs to major festivals and venues with some of the greatest musicians on the planet.

Instrument(s):
Guitar, sarod, and oud.

Teachers and/or influences?
My major music teachers are Peter O'Mara, Biswajit Roy Choudury, and Suresh Talwakar. But since I am a self-taught musician, I am taught and influenced by everything that happens in my life. The music comes that comes out is a reflection of it.

Your sound and approach to music:
My approach to music is letting music approach me. I try to avoid the question, "What do I want from music?" I always try to ask myself what the music wants and needs from me.

Your teaching approach:
One of my great teachers, Suresh Talwalkar, once said "Music is not knowing, music is doing it."

Your dream band:
I try not to only dream a band, I try to make it happen. It is not always ideal, but that has never stopped me to always make the best I can out of it. I see myself as lucky because I make musical projects and work with great musicians who inspire me and from whom I can learn.

Favorite venue:
Anywhere where the audience is keen to listen and appreciates the music that we are bringing out for them.

Your favorite recording in your discography and why?
Every moment is special and the recording is the moment caught in eternity as long as it exists. So in all the recordings are special in its own special way.

What do you think is the most important thing you are contributing musically?
In the endless and eternal jigsaw of music, I am just a small stone reflecting the light of eternal power shining on it.

CDs you are listening to now:
I try to listen to silence. Silence is the universal source of music and where all the music is hidden. Only from silence can every possible sound and music can appear. Every sound and every music always comes from silence and will always return back to it.

How would you describe the state of jazz today?
In the technical sense, better than ever, but there is not a enough of a intuitive approach to music and there is too much of an academic formula along with marketing issues on how the music should be done. Expressing feelings and passion is what I think should be the basic purpose of music.

What are some of the essential requirements to keep jazz alive and growing?
Love it play it and listen to it.

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