American
Musician
American Musician
5
I do very few standards. Hardly any. Other people's tunes that I do are usually obscure tunes, for the most part, although I do a couple of Duke Ellington tunes that are well known.
3
I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.
2
And Lennie Tristano I like a lot, I still like him.
1
I can't judge my own stuff. That's for others. But those are the three things that I admire.
I been getting good crowds. It only took 50 years.
-1
At this point, I don't listen to other people too much. I'm not really that affected by anyone.
-3
But I got an audience that knows what I do. They usually show up, so I usually do pretty good.
All of the great jazz players have had instrumental personality. You can recognize them by the way they played.
-6
As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.
