Geek Weekly #10

ReadAboutContentsHelp
Cover, 2 ... 32, 31

Pages

16
Complete

16

Alex Coke Interview

This interview was conducted by Carl Smith via email February 2003.

In what ways do you find meaning and fulfilment in creative music? Music is a force that has taken me all over the world and put me in contact with many friends and incredible people. The unknown can be a very beautiful and inspiring factor. To get up and practice in the morning is like going out on an adventure. Playing music with people has led me to many surprising and wonderful situations.

What attitudes or values do you view as most important in creative music-making? To me, the most important thing in any music is LISTENING. Listening is one of the hardest things for students to learn how to do. It's a paradox. How can you listen and play at the same time? Don't be afraid of the unknown. Music is like life, it's not always exactly the way you may have planned it.

What is your musical training and background? I started private lessons on flute with Mario Foster in Dallas in 1964. I rented a student model alto saxophone in 1969. I played along with the radio, records and friends that had blues bands or folk groups. I studied flute and received a B.A. in music from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I played tenor in the jazz band and basketball band. I played 3 nights a week accompanying modern/jazz dance classes. Two of the those nights with Andy Weyl, a pianist with whom I am still in contact. I studied Chinese music and philosophy. I took as many "ethnic" music classes as I could. I studied bamboo flute with G.S. Sachdev at Naropa Institute one summer and audited the Woodstock Creative Music Studio with Karl Berger, Eddie Blackwell, Don Cherry and Dave Holland. When I visited my parents in Dallas I always made an effort to go hear James Clay, Red Garland and Marshel Ivery at the Recovery Room. I moved back to Austin in 1977 and played with various bands, many of which included my long time worthy constituent Rich Harney. Rich and I played constantly and he's been a major influence on my harmonic thinking and development as a professional musician. In the 80s I played in as many groups as I could, including the A.C.C. Big Band and U.T. Jazz Ensemble to make a real effort to improve my reading. I met Tina Marsh at a jam session and we've been playing together ever since.

Knowing what you know now, how would you have approached your career differently? Hindsight and foresight are the subjects of many novels. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't know then what I know now.

Last edit over 3 years ago by whatsnotlost
17
Needs Review

17

What would you recommend as the best course of action for someone who wanted to begin as a creative musician? Play your instrument. Learn as much about your intrument and other instruments as you can. Play. Learn about aesthetics and question then. Play. Learn about yourself and question your values and tastes. Play. Immerse yourself in music. Play. Read Derrick Bailey's book on music improvisation. Play in as many situations an with as many people as you can. Listen to how instruments interact in all types of music. Play. Play as much as you can. Play until you can't play any more, then give up or keep playing. Learn about sound and acoustics, and their physical and spiritual manifestations. Keep playing. Respect other musicians.

What is your typical day like? Since having kids my life has changed a great deal. It seems both more fragmented and more regimented. I wake up around 6:30 and help take the kids to school. I come home, do some e-mail and then practice or rehearse. After lunch, I continue practicing, rehearing or taking care of business or errands until the kids need to be picked up from school. I have a handful of students. I've overcome my overly ambitious desire to play every single gig in the world. I value time with my family and private time for refelction and daydreaming.

What do you see in the future for creative music? There will always be a future for creative music. You can't digitize it. You can't replace or counterfeit a live improvising musician. There will always be people who want to dig a little deeper and express more of the mystery than is commercially accepted. With the internet, there's a lot more knowledge and resources floating around! How would you describe the music you make to someone not familiar with it? I hate describing music to people I don't know. I would encourage them to listen and have their own reactions. For example, When I sing and play into the flute, it may remind some people of Ian Anderson (from Jethro Tull), while it may remind others of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It may remind others of Bantu pgymy music. These are all personal influences, but I would rather that people listen open-mindedly and use their own imginations. I'm involved in many projects that have various aesthetics, so to ask people to listen for a particular thing would be misleading. I aspire to playing music that people can listen to. By that I mean, listen to on its own terms and not have to have some video or fashion statement tied to it.

What drives you to make the music you make?

Last edit almost 6 years ago by JQuach96
18
Needs Review

18

The unknown drives me forward and inspires me. The quest for the sound of surprise that may be over the next horizion keeps me going. The hope that I can improve myself and give something to someone which could delight them and/or provoke some thoughtfulness. There's a long list of techniques and ideas I would like to explore and cultivate. Playing with and for other musicians is also a major inspiration.

More information can be found at Alex Coke's web site: http://www.xs4all.nl/~alexcoke/ or you can subscribe to his semi-weekly newsletter by sending an e-mail to: alexcoke-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

- Carl Smith

[?]/28/99 DAVID I'm very happt to come to Austin and to meet you. Before I came here, I had not enjoyed traveling in America. I couldn't speak English well, so I couldn't enjoy anything. But thanks for your kindness, I enjoyed my stay. Thank you very much.

[paragraph in japanese]

I wish I could speak English well.

[Tomoyuki Kidimoto?]

Need a place to stay in Austin? Try a lovely neighbourhood bed and breakfast recommended by Geek Weekly!

Best Breakfast Around Tours Available The Summit House Bed & Breakfast 1204 Summit Street Austin, TX 78741 - 1158 http://summit.home.texas.net

Last edit almost 6 years ago by guest_user
19
Needs Review

19

an interview with rock critic JOE GROSS

I am from Falls Church, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, DC. There are a couple of places on the net for various bios where it's been described as "The Chocolate City's most vanilla suburb", and I can't think of a better description of it. It's a very strange place because it's an independent city -- it's two square miles. It's got its own school system and everything. You're right next to a metropolis, but my high school graduating class was like 89 people. Many of them I had known since I was five. This is not tremendously conducive to dating. I really couldn't have left high school fast enough. Horrible isn't the word. S: I was going to say, like most rock critics, you seem like you were incredibly popular in high school. It's true, yeah. S: Did your parents work for the government? My father is an attorney with the Department of Justice and has been for about 30 years. My mom is the associate director of a program called Community of Caring, which is a subset of the Kennedy Foundation. S: Do you have brothers and sisters? I do. I have two brothers, one who may be coming here for law school, actually. His name is Will. He lives in New York right now. Both younger. And I have another brother named John who still lives with my folks. J: Because he's young or because he's a loser? No, but because he's retarded. J: Oh, no. Wow. And he's much younger or were y'all close when you were growing up? I'm four and a half years older than Will and about seven years older than John. We got along fine, but I can never interest Will in the same things I'm interested in. I kind of blew it with Will and punk rock, I just shanked it. We're both heavily involved in music, him in a much more mainstream way. Like a capella groups in muisic. S: Really dorky music. He was incredibly good at it when he was like their arranger. He knows funda-mentally -- technically he knows a lot more about music than I do, we just have completely different interests. S: So did you write for your high school newspaper? Absolutely. My folks were literal baby boomers, they were born right after the war. So rock from the 1960s was always in the house, it was always present, and not just in some dumb hippy way, it was just around. I listened to Buddy Holly records when I was young, my father was a huge Creedence fan. My father Spring 2003

Last edit almost 6 years ago by JQuach96
20
Complete

20

was a big bluegrass fan, which is unusual for Jews from Maryland. J: But there was a big interest in roots music generally at that time because of folk music. It wasn't that, he had a roommate in college from Alabama and he just grew to really like it. So there was bluegrass around, Creedence was really big, Dylan was really big. And then later, my mom, she went to Stony Brook back when it was one of the hippest places in the universe, and I remember when I was in high school, I brought home a copy of Rock and the Pop Narcotic by Joe Carducci, and I put it on the kitchen table, and my mom walked over and took a look at it, and there's a quote on the back by Richard Meltzer, and she said, "Oh, I wonder if that's Ritchie Meltzer?" So through her friends in college she also had exposure to John Cage and John Fahey, and so these records were around my house and I didn't think anything about them. I distinctly remember my mom one day making me listen to Indeterminacy by John Cage -- I think I was like 14 at the time and thought "This is pretty cool." And my grandparents were very into jazz. So it was always around.

Last edit almost 6 years ago by JQuach96
Displaying pages 16 - 20 of 32 in total