Jazz interview with a bad musician, as if pianist Napua Davoy. An interview by email in writing. The interview is actually with a madman who has neither eyes to see nor ears to hear, certainly not in the literal sense. Perhaps, if each of you scrolls down and watches his video.
JazzBluesNews.com: – First, let’s start out with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music. How exactly did your adventure take off? When did you realize that this was a passion you could make a living out of?
Napua Davoy: – First of all I’m a singer, the piano and singing meld as one for me. I grew up in Beaumont, Texas, come from a Hawaiian family all of whom are singers. My parents loved music, I grew up never knowing anything but the love of music and singing naturally from the get go.
JBN: – How has your sound evolved over time? What have you been doing to find and develop your own sound?
ND: – I’ve learned through having become an actor and composer for theatre, to create for the moment and to sing with the required style whatever it be – classical, rock, pop or jazz.
JBN: – What routine practices or exercises have you developed to maintain and improve your current musical proficiency, in terms of both rhythm and harmony?
ND: – I do the best exercises regularly for singing and piano – Baroque, Bach for piano. For singing breathing, Lamperti, Vaccai – anything difficult.
JBN: – Have you changed through the years? Any charges or overall evolution? And if so why?
ND: – Absolutely I’ve changed: Vocally I went from folk, to pop, to jazz, to opera, to rock. to compose. To compose I took the same route and landed in musical theatre.
JBN: – How do you prepare for your recordings and performances to help you maintain both spiritual and musical stamina?
ND: – I meditate.
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JBN: – In your opinion, what’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?
ND: – What an interesting question. Intellect definitely takes a backseat to the soul altho both are necessary for a great performance.
JBN: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; are you okay with delivering people the emotion they long for?
ND: – Absolutely – I crave the connection.
JBN: – Can you share any memories from gigs, jams, open acts and studio sessions over the years?
ND: – I will share one instance from a month ago in performance in France. Performing music from Revolution about a school mass shooting: I started to give the set up for the song in French to a French audience of mostly artists of theatre, music and the visual arts. As I went into the reason for my writing this song, I conveyed that our country was in a heap of trouble.
JBN: – How can we get young people interested in jazz when most of standard tunes are half a century old?
ND: – Give younger people something they understand and add on the jazziness as you go.
JBN: – John Coltrane once said that music was his spirit. How do you perceive the spirit and the meaning of life?
ND: – For me, the learning of being on the spiritual side is what it’s all about. Life is so hard, so just to be happy, doesn’t seem to me to be quite noble enough to go through all this hardship and trouble. Aiming to make a difference, to make the world a better place seems to me to be a goal worth achieving. Given the mess we’re in, the power of music is one of the most helpful and powerful tools – so let’s get at it!
JBN: – If you could change one single thing in the musical world and that would become reality, what would that be?
ND: – That everyone could become educated.
JBN: – Whom do you find yourself listening to these days?
ND: – Right now I’m learning music by Claude Nugarro and Yves Montand.
JBN: – What is the message you choose to bring through your music?
ND: – I’ll give you one of my lyrics from This Girl which is in My First Revolution: Find somebody, Find somebody, anyone will do. Find someone who’s got nothing to lose. Give them everything to pull them through. And they will lift your spirit hight and they will turn your tears to fire.
JBN: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine: where and why would you really want to go?
ND: – I’d like to go into the future where we are actively changing the things needed – bring the temperature and carbon footprints down, ending the war machine, seeing the paradigm shift where the disparity between between the haves and the have nots is erased, where everyone has what they need instead of 1% of the population having 99% of the wealth for staters.
JBN: – So far, it’s been me asking you questions, now may I have a question from yourself…
ND: – How did you get to your spiritual level?
JBN: – Jazz is my life!!!
Interview by Simon Sargsyan
