Interviews

From Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant, an interview with Daniel Tammet:

Mind: You advocate a theory of creativity defined by a cognitive property you call “hyperconnectivity.” Could you explain?

Tammet: I am unusually creative—from visualizing numerical landscapes composed of random strings of digits to the invention of my own words and concepts in numerous languages. Where does this creativity come from?

My brain has developed a little differently from most other people’s. Aside from my high-functioning autism, I also suffered from epileptic seizures as a young child. In my book, I propose a link between my brain’s functioning and my creative abilities based on the property of hyperconnectivity.

In most people, the brain’s major functions are performed separately and not allowed to interfere with one another. Scientists have found that in some brain disorders, however, including autism and epilepsy, cross-communication can occur between normally distinct brain regions. My theory is that rare forms of creative imagination are the result of an extraordinary convergence of normally disconnected thoughts, memories, feelings and ideas. Indeed, such hyperconnectivity within the brain may well lie at the heart of all forms of exceptional creativity.

The fine folks at 50 Miles of Elbow Room have a great William Parker interview up (it reads more like an essay, with only one question prompt given).

Some of the content is particularly interesting given recent discussions about the do-it-yourself ethic, surrounding the recent publishing of Marc Ribot's essay. From the WP interview:

When I was in high school, there was always a community center that was there for us - "us" meaning the kids who lived in the projects - to play basketball and have some activities[....]There was that and then later on, on Boston Road, up the hill from where I lived, there was the Black Panther office. They were organizing things. There were the Black Muslims in the Bronx who used to sell Muhammad Speaks, a newspaper that my father used to buy every week. In this paper Elijah Muhammad would talk frequently about black economic power and self-determination, having your own land, your own houses, your own base of operations. Those ideas were around in that time, to be self-motivated and to do for yourself, because if you didn't do for yourself, who would provide for you? You really couldn't depend on the government or what they call the system to provide the things for one's survival.
[....]
That crossed over to the ideas laid out by John Carter and Bobby Bradford. They recorded a record called Self-Determination Music. Charles Mingus had this track called "Fables of Faubus". Archie Shepp put out a record called Fire Music. All of these things were on the perimeter of doing for one's self, self-promotion, and self-development, and to mirror self worth, which was very important at the time.
[....]
Bold gestures are always inspirational. I read about Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in California, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music, the Liberation Music Orchestra. So politics were in the air but also politics of human beings were in there too, spirituality and all that. But the motivation was to do, to get up and move and make things move when you got up.

There's more at the interview, which is definitely worth reading.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this interview with Police drummer Stewart Copeland in which he discusses his distaste for the entire genre known as jazz, puts down "A Love Supreme" and says most of Miles Davis' output is crap. I still can't decide if he was being inflammatory for the sake of it, if he's ignorant, or if he's bitter and has issues with his Dad who apparently was a jazz musician. In any case, although I enjoy their music, I've never been a huge Police fan so it doesn't really bother me on any visceral level.

For another take on the Jazz establishment and creative music practices, take a look at this interview with Roscoe Mitchell, one of my favorite musicians and composers. I have to pick up his latest RogueArt release, the trio 2 CD set No Side Effects, soon - I really dug the other release on the label, Turn.

In a related interview, check out what Lester Bowie has to say about music and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, one of my favorite groups.

Sorry for the lack of substance in this post and the last one. I'll get down to some nitty gritty original thinking and writing, as well as some previously promised CD reviews, as soon as things slow down a bit on the work front.

In honor of Valentine's Day, here's Charles Mingus doing Flowers for a Lady with some incendiary playing from George Adams on tenor, Hamiett Bluiett on bari, Don Pullen on piano, Dannie Richmond on the drums, and of course Mr. Mingus on bass.