In this final installment, the great jazz pianist continues to expound upon themes that will enlighten cinematographers of a certain type. And in doing so, it also affirms that Evans wasn’t just a brilliant musician and clear thinker, he was one cool cat!
Q: When you start playing, to what extent do you know what you’re going to do?
“Only that we’ve agreed on a basic structural plan harmonically in most of the things that we do. Other than that, certain things have fallen into place, as you can hear. They almost become arrangements. But sometimes we’ll destroy some of those things just to try to keep fresh. And of course, after the theme is stated, we don’t know at all. Except that we know about the idiom that we’re playing in. But we don’t know the ideas or how they’ll follow each other, or how we’ll be interplaying or anything like that.”
Q: What is your major challenge in your position?
“It’s sort of a feeling, I think…a melodic feeling, just to say a certain kind of a thing. To try to maybe show somebody something through music, even show myself something. Because as I’ve discovered in myself, it’s been a revelation to maybe reveal something to someone else through the music. Something that’s good and something that they feel that maybe enriches their life a little bit or makes them feel better as a person, or something like that. That would be the main guiding force.”
Q: What do you think of the avant garde?
“I think there’s a very healthy thing going on. I don’t think it’s gotten organized enough yet, maybe. The only thing I think is a danger about allowing yourself all of this freedom is that you could sometimes indulge yourself and express feelings that are too personal. I mean, too everyday-personal-feelings, things that might not relate to another person. And I think that you have to be very careful to have an aesthetic guiding force if you allow yourself this kind of a freedom. And also, be very selective in the feelings you want to express because otherwise you could get as subjective as an infant that’s crying in his crib. No one can deny that this infant is expressing himself, but no one would call it art.”