Jazz interview with jazz trumpeter Luis Vicente. An interview by email in writing.
JazzBluesNews.com: – First, let’s start out with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music.
Luis Vicente: – I grew up in a small town near Lisbon, by the sea, called Atalaia (which means a high point of lookout). My first connection with music started when I was 3 years old, I remember my great-grand mother singing songs they use to sing while they were working on the fields. Besides that the only music I remember was when I use to go every Sunday on church. Later on when I was 6-7 years old my father took me to the marching band in the village and I started there, also by that time was given to me a trumpet where I learned self taught.
JBN: – How has your sound evolved over time? What have you been doing to find and develop your own sound?
LV: – It was a very spontaneously process, I got into it in a very natural way, since very early I found it and kept it, even after stoping playing for a long time. I keep playing long notes, that’s a way to keep connected with a “sphere of sound”.
JBN: – What routine practices or exercises have you developed to maintain and improve your current musical proficiency, in terms of both rhythm and harmony?
LV: – It’s hard to keep a routine, I’ve been trying since ever but always unsuccesfully, anyway I do always a warm-up, blow few long notes smoothly, some lip flexibility, move fingers the fastest possible with control, play together with records, play what I hear in my mind developing some melodies and try to play with other musicians..
JBN: – How do you keep stray, or random, musical influences from diverting you from what you’re doing?
LV: – I don’t even think about it, it’s something I’m not concerned with, I believe you’re influenced by everything that surrounds you.
JBN: – How do you prepare for your recordings and performances to help you maintain both spiritual and musical stamina?
LV: – I avoid to think too much about it before I operate and try to be fresh, relaxed and let things flow.
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JBN: – In your opinion, what’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?
LV: – One serves the other, sometimes one comes before the other and vice-versa, I believe there is no rule to follow. One day you’re more intuitive the other you’re more cerebral, I prefer the intuitive way though.
JBN: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; are you okay with delivering people the emotion they long for?
LV: – As someone said there’s the vibe on stage and the other on the audience and an interaction between each other. You can always opt to get influenced or may be not at all, it’s always great when the audience is vibrating together with you.
JBN: – How can we get young people interested in jazz when most of standard tunes are half a century old?
LV: – Jazz has been changing all over the years, is permanently mutating in that sense I believe there’s many kinds of music that can fit in that definition of the so called jazz.
JBN: – John Coltrane once said that music was his spirit. How do you perceive the spirit and the meaning of life?
LV: – Music is art, creation, that comes from the inside, from your soul, a reflection of you, all your life experiences are turned into something, a creation that can take several different shapes, sound, form, color..
JBN: – If you could change one single thing in the musical world and that would become reality, what would that be?
LV: – The business world is probably the less attractive for all the reasons we know.
JBN: – Whom do you find yourself listening to these days?
LV: – I’ve been listening to a lot of radio, just turn it on a classical/jazz radio and that’s it. I obviously go back to the same usual suspects I always loved: Don Cherry, Ornette, Coltrane, Eric Dolphy..
JBN: – What is the message you choose to bring through your music?
LV: – I don’t chose any in particular, I believe each person who listens, feels it and gets touched in a different way. Depending on the mood I trust I can bring some light, hope or even the opposite to the listener who is experiencing that moment.
JBN: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine: where and why would you really want to go?
LV: – I’d like to go to a place where people could live without money, more sincere, peacefuly, without pollution, no burocratic issues, where time would run slow, a place that doesn’t exist.
Interview by Simon Sargsyan
