I've put already on the blog some impressions of the VEIN trio's music. The evening before the trio's two concerts in Krakow I had a little chat with trio's piano player Michael Arbenz. Here are some fragmets of the conversation:
1.
About how ”Porgy & Bess” trio recording fits into two great
traditions – that of Gershwin music and that of a piano trio.
I'd like to add another
tradition which Gershwin's music brings together. That's jazz music
and the classical. We all three studied classical music. We asked
ourselves how can we bring together our backrounds - jazz,
european, classical, how could we make the all meet in the american
tradition and Gershwin was kind of a perfect match. He's one of the
most popular composers but what was important for us is just that he
wrote great tunes. So many interpretions of Gershwin. „Summertime”
is the most recorded jazz tune of all time.
There's also the
tradition of playing „Porgy & Bess”, take Louis and Ella
recording, Miles Davis with Gil Evans and many more, it was another
one that we wanted to refer to.
As for the piano trio
it's always a great challenge, there were so many of them. Great
trios, so many great interpretions of Gershwin also. „Summertime”
is the most recorded jazz tune of all time.
This all being said, we
wanted to modify the tunes, make them a bit different. Gerswhin's
tunes are so strong that you can't change them too much so you don't
recognize them. We were searching the line, the way it would remain
the same tune but translated today world, language of today jazz.
2.
About the beginnings of jazz and music fascination.
Me and my twin
brother,Florian, we actually
started listening to jazz very early. Our parents had a record
collection, they're both classical musicians but loved jazz very
much. We started to listen to this music very early, quite by
chance. Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman we loved it all a
lot, also old piano players like Fats Waller, Art Tatum. We jost gut
sucked into it.
Later on, it would seem
strange nowadays, we loved Miles Davis, John Coltrane, we didn't care
much about pop music. Of course we liked in htese years guys like
Mike Stern, Brecker Brothers, fusion stuff. Maybe more than today.
We had listened to the
jazz history, starting with the old stuff and it developed from here.
I think it can be heard in our music that we are referring to the old
styles, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, all those influences are natural
to us and I can't really explain it.
