interview by sammy stein
Jan.20, 2013
Artist Profile: Mats Gustafsson – A Free Man
published here:http://londonjazz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/artist-profile-mats-gustafsson-free-man.html
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| Mats Gustafsson and Thurston Moore at Café Oto. September 2012. Drawing by Geoffrey Winston. © 2012. All Rights Reserved |
SAMMY STEIN WRITES:
Mats Gustafsson, the Swedish saxophone player, now based in Austria is a powerhouse, a passionate and diverse musician. Since 2009 he has been involved in his FIRE! project, delivering sets of power and passion to audiences across Europe. He played in 2011 at Cafe Oto, London with Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark as Sonora during Brötzmann’s Tentet residency, and more recently played at the same venue with Thurston Moore.
Mats sees music as a great tool for communication. He continues to push boundaries, developing his own style and way of playing, and can speak fervently about his wish to ignore set preconceptions, to take music to new levels, and to reach more people.
He was brought up on the improvised free jazz sounds of Europe, but is committed to incorporating sounds with influences from all over the world. In an email exchange, we discussed his influences, where he feels free music is going and the challenges for the future:
EARLY INFLUENCES:
Inspiration for Mats came from a surprising source. He says, “What got me going when I was about 16 years old was that amazing sax sound behind the great raspy voice of Richard Wayne Penniman (AKA Little Richard) on those early Specialty recordings. Other heavy DNA- changing reasons to follow the path of free music have been Lars Gullin, Brötzmann, Ayler, Bunk Johnson and Bengt Nordström. A bit later I understood what Evan Parker was talking about, ’My roots are in my record player’. I try to combine these truths on my own path”
Initially, Mats took up the flute, followed by the electric piano, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, contrabass saxophones,?fluteophones,?flutes,?weevil sax,?amplified saxophone & live-electronics (according to HIS WEBSITE) but now says, ” I am now trying to deal with all of them but my main focus is on the baritone and tenor sax”.
ON GENRES
“In the whole history of jazz”, he says, “there has been a striving for freedom in one way or another to improvise music until we get to what you call free form and free jazz. I prefer to play music where I feel challenged; music that kicks my mind and ass in new directions. What other people call the music, I don’t care. For me it is important with a certain element of improvisation in the music and that I really interact with the other people on (or off) stage.
Freeform was, for me, a very logical development of the music we had before and it was primarily for both political and artistic reasons that the music opened up and deepened. It was necessary after be-bop and hard-bop on one side and the extreme notation systems of contemporary classical music on the other. The only way to go was towards the open forms with electronic music, free jazz and more ideas- based music with, for instance, flux connection. In the ’60s when freeform really emerged, there was similar experimentation in other art forms like the theatre, dance, poetry, art and other fields.” (Brötzmann confirmed this when he commented recently to me that he was influenced by working with artists like John Cage). Mats says, ” Some players, of course, had a very direct connection to the political situation at the time but free form jazz, with some exceptions, did not have sharp connections politically”. To sum up, Mats says, ”No one is free. You create your own freedom. ’Form’ is what you do with others. Free forms you. ‘Free form’. ”And there you have it.
Many jazz musicians who play free form find themselves playing other genres purely to make enough money to keep going but Mats is adamant there should be no compromise with musicians playing other genres simply to make a living. His reaction is, “No way! We need to fight the stupidity back to where it belongs, ha ha! Really, for me, I would rather just work at a gas station or a factory (as I did for some years) and make the music that I want and need to do. I can only do music that I’m challenged by and that makes me develop as a musician and as a person. Music gives me new perspectives, with the help of others! Music and art is way too important for me to make any compromises.”
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| Mats Gustafsson playing slide saxophone at Café Oto. April 2010. Drawing by Geoffrey Winston. © 2012. All Rights Reserved |
ON LISTENING
Mats is a self-confessed hopeless discaholic and listens to a huge range of music . He says, “I eat anything on vinyl. ’A piece of vinyl a day keeps the doctor away’, as my dear colleague Olof Madsen used to say! I need my daily fix of vinyls/CDs with steaming be–bop, garage rock, west coast jazz and sound poetry! This morning on the turntable were a Bengt Nordström sax solo, Lars Werner and Christer Boustedt, some early Sun Ra on Saturn, Warne Marsh, Sten Hansson and Leif Elggren’s epic recordings made under Freud’s sofa in London” Classical composers also feature in Mats’ listening including, as he says, “anyone that kicks my ass (and mind). Recent ‘kickers’ include Dror Feiler, Pierre Henry, Ferneyhough, Staier’s recordings of Schubert´s piano music, Glenn Gould playing J.S. Bach (‘Always and Forever’) and Lachenmann of course.”
ON THE CURRENT JAZZ SCENE
When asked about how he feels about the current jazz scene in the UK/Europe Mats is confident yet adds riders. “It depends of course on how you define ‘jazz’ (he laughs) but regarding this creative music scene, as we call it, the ‘jazz’ I think that the situation is very bad, from an economical and work situation viewpoint. Many countries are cutting cultural budgets hard in order to save their own asses and this is having a severe effect right now.
On the other hand, the scene is more interesting then ever. There are so many more young players active now playing free and experimental music. You can’t even compare today to the ’70s or ’60s. The scene has never been so interesting and creative. More people are arriving to free form playing from a huge variety of places and backgrounds (electronic, rock, folk, rock and pop) and not just from a straight jazz background. I have to say I look to the future in a very positive way. There is a very fresh blend of different generations and also different musical dialects at the moment – I love it! There is so much creativity in the former Eastern European countries, such as Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and, Slovakia where there is a huge and young audience with a big and healthy appetite! There is a lot going on at the moment! We just need to put the light on it and make politicians and others aware of these amazing human resources!”
ON HIS OWN PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
For Mats, the future holds endless possibilities. He is the eternal optimist and considers music the way forward. He is a consummate musician and has the energy and ability to bring vibrancy and passion to recordings, concerts and projects. Mats is never still, he tours regularly, plays with a variety of fellow musicians and forms his own record labels just to get the music across to more people. He says, “There are always new things around the next corner… if you stay open, hungry and curious enough! Shedloads of projects are planned at the moment and it is hard to mention just a few… ( laughs). But there are intense plans right now with The Thing, FIRE! (including the 30 – piece Fire! Orchestra), Swedish jazz, Thurston Moore, Neneh Cherry (Don’s Step daughter with whom he has worked regularly, a new version of the Nu – ensemble, the Barry Guy New Orchestra and of course the 25th (!!!) anniversary of GUSHin May 2013! Gush is Mats’ trio, formed in 1986, when Mats joined forces with drummer Raymond Strid and pianist Sten Sandell). And there will of course show up new things that I m not aware of as of now… you just have to see/ hear it comin´!
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| Mats Gustafsson, from The Thing at Vortex. November 2010. Drawing by Geoffrey Winston. © 2012. All Rights Reserved |
“I PLAY MUSIC BECAUSE I HAVE TO. I HAVE NO CHOICE.”
Asked how he feels when he plays, Mats says, “A local presenter asked me in northern Norway after a gig with Fire!: – ‘What is this music all about’ ? – ‘It is about life’, I told her. When the music really works… no analyses are necessary. It is more a state of mind. It is all about communication.”
What drives Mats is an unquenchable thirst for musical development. His philosophy, simply is, “Music is like living, but better” and this is something Mats has told me before – it is his mantra for life. He decides to elaborate. “This music is about sharing, on all levels possible- sharing, listening and interacting. If you can learn how to listen freely, then you can learn to play freely, and then you can learn how to think freely and, finally, to act freely. This is very clear to me. This is also the reason why I play this music. It is a political act in itself. Sharing is about politics. Therefore, I share…”
For Mats, playing free jazz is tantamount to his reason for living. “We do this” he says, “to really become ‘one’ with the music and the ones you play with; to become in the same state of mind. It is really hard to describe but you know when it is happening; that is for sure. This interaction between people is something rather unique. I play music because I have to; I have no choice, in order to fight the stupidity back and to show new perspectives, new ways, and new doors. Influences might be basically anything that kicks me and that I can make into a personal statement. As long as you put your own personal language/ voice into it and don’t try to imitate or copy, you are cool, you are good. If you make music for other reasons, you ought to stay at home (laughs). I am not here to entertain.”
And yet, Mats does entertain. It is rare to meet such a passionate, ardent musician who truly believes in what he does. Mats and his generation are becoming the new vanguard of free music and it is the hope of many, that they will take it to new levels, reach a wider audience and make free music truly free, as it should be.
huge flamish article – ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’
Dec.06, 2012
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Gustafsson liet voor het eerst van zich horen aan het einde van de jaren tachtig, meteen al aan de zijde van percussionist Raymond Strid, met wie hij tot op de dag van vandaag nog regelmatig het podium deelt. De eerste samenwerking met Paul Lovens volgde twee jaar later, maar het scharniermoment van zijn vroege jaren zijn vermoedelijk de albums die midden jaren negentig op het Okkadisklabel uit Chicago verschenen, zoals Mouth Eating Trees and Related Activities (met Barry Guy en Paul Lovens), Parrot Fish Eye (met Jim O’Rourke, Gene Coleman en Michael Zerang) en Blow Born van FJF. Die laatste is niet enkel de eerste opgenomen release met strijdmakker Ken Vandermark, maar eentje die Gustafsson ook bekender maakte bij het Amerikaanse improvisatiepubliek. Iets later werd hij als enige mede-Europeaan ook opgenomen in het Chicago Tentet van Peter Brötzmann.
Tarfala Trio – Syzygy 2LP (No Business, 2011)
Swedish Azz – Azz Appeal LP (Not Two, 2011)
Akita/Gustafsson/O’Rourke – One Bird Two Bird LP (Editions Mego, 2011)
The Thing With Barry Guy – Metal! 2LP (No Business, 2011)
Ich Bin N!ntendo & Mats Gustafsson – S/t (Va Fongool, 2012)
Mats Gustafsson, John Russell & Raymond Strid – Birds (dEN Records, 2012)
Colin Stetson & Mats Gustafsson – Stones (Rune Grammofon, 2012)
new long interview
Oct.30, 2012
new interview. published oct 29th 2012.
SHARE THE MOMENT ———in “all about jazz” by John Sharpe— one of the most happening jazz mag´s.
see here:
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=43068&pg=1#.UJA0Vb-XXPA
BLINDFOLD TEST IN DOWN BEAT!
May.02, 2012
a classic blindfold test is just published in DOWN BEAT…. it looks like this:
http://www.downbeat.com/digitaledition/2012/DB201206/single_page_view/122.html
italian interview april 2012
Apr.09, 2012
a recent italian interview… in italian…. april 2012
great webzine!
swedish azz photos
Mar.03, 2010
photo: marek wajda
krakow, ALCHEMIA feb 27th 2010
photos: Krzysztof Penarski
ULF OLSSON TEXT ON MUSIC
Feb.13, 2010
Ulf Olsson
THE SAXOPHONE MACHINE: MATS GUSTAFSSON
”A library of sounds” – that is how Mats Gustafsson once described the knowledge and ability that the improvising musician possesses. A library made up not of written sheets of music, of notation, but of the possibilities that the body offers the musician. It is within the body that sound is stored: in the bodies of musician and instrument respectively. Improvising is, then, to actualize that library of sound.
For a long time you could speak of Mats Gustafsson as a “saxophone player”. He left his northern hometown Umeå at an early age, moved to Stockholm, locked himself up inside a soundproof wardrobe, and practiced on that instrument for a couple of years. He wanted to become a saxophone machine, a machine worker impossible to distinguish from his machine, the instrument.
But leaving the wardrobe, he started to play – silence. Playing is also knowing when not to play. To wait for the sound. To let the sound rest. I know of no other musician who can play, and play with and against, silence, like Gustafsson. And then silence becomes an expressive part of his music.
At the same time, the instrument makes demands its own. The saxophone is a machine, and the musician a worker at his machine, he is the one forced to go to work every night. Every day he has to put his mouth to the mouthpiece and breathe life into the machine.
With time, the music of Mats Gustafsson becomes physical, beautiful, repulsive, powerful: bodily, most of all. Watching him perform on stage, you realize his closeness to dance and choreography. His relation to his instrument is that of a dancer. A body in motion, moving in space. There is no given closeness between man and his machine; it must be produced anew, every day.
The saxophone machine forces the musician to a take a stand. The saxophone includes within it everyone that has played on it before: the tradition. And every time you pick up the instrument, the musician must ask him- or herself: give in to tradition, consciously or unconsciously – or try to do the impossible: invent the instrument again? Mats Gustafsson has always chosen the latter alternative.
Deeply oriented in tradition, familiar with all those who have made the instrument possible to play, Gustafsson still creates ongoing situations where the musician must initiate a new relation to the instrument. He does it very concretely: playing on the mouthpiece only. Or through playing on an instrument of his own making, the flutophone, or playing the impossible-to-play-on glide saxophone. Or stopping the sound from leaving the instrument by holding it against his thigh. Or playing in an acoustic situation where the sound is so high that the only remaining possibility is to scream through the instrument.
And through arranging situations that force the musicians to move outside their normal ways of playing. Improvisation not as playing whatever enters your mind, but playing what is made possible by the situation. Free improvisation is based on the library of sound and the saxophone machine, it has always been prepared in that configuration, and it presupposes a script, realized or not, that does not notate what the musician should be playing, but opens a space for him or her to explore. The improvising musician then has to situate the resulting music: make room for it; bring it into a material shape.
It all comes down to an attitude toward sound and the world where that sound is to be listened to, the context in which music sounds. Mats Gustafsson became a listener, the musician who is always listening for the spaces in between, the narrow gaps and openings, the possibilities. And those possibilities are often to be found in other spaces, in new constellations. Don’t ever be scared of trying: playing solo or in a group, play for or play against. That is why the musician is not only an instrumentalist; he is also an agitator. And an organizer. Mats Gustafsson belongs to the kind of musician that is constantly looking for new spaces, and if they are not to be found, he tries to create them. He sees to that the most remarkable music can be heard in small provincial towns of Sweden as well as in London or New York.
Mats Gustafsson has become an international star within improvised music. His discography is already impossible to take in; he has played with almost every name within this type of music. But throughout this career, all along the way, he has slowly and firmly been moving into a new position: the improvising musician becomes a sound artist.
The foundation is broadened. What was from the start an obsession with sounds and, most of all, with his own, has become something larger, wider. But all the time, this search is situated within something tangible, material, physical. It is not by accident that Gustafsson is one of those artists that, in re-establishing contact with the improvised music of the Sixties, also have come to engage with its avant-garde poetry, to art as a happening. There, in something happening, sound improvisation and words meet and form something new, something else.
Or, a shape of music to come.
This text was originally an oral presentation of Mats Gustafsson, broadcasted by the Swedish Radio Channel One on May 7, 2005. – Ulf Olsson is a professor of Comparative Literature at Stockholm University. He has also published extensively – but in Swedish – on improvised music, from The Grateful Dead via John Coltrane to Anthony Braxton.
2009 interview in french
Dec.07, 2009
by guillaume belhomme
Sous le nom de Sonore, Fire!, The Thing ou encore en tant que membre du London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Mats Gustafsson voit aujourd’hui paraître quatre de ses récents enregistrements. L’occasion de revenir sur son parcours, son rapport au jazz, ses besoins de rock ou… de vinyles. Rapide, précis et électrique…
… Tous les sons sont de la musique… Tous les silences aussi… Alors, pour ce qui est de mon tout premier souvenir musical, j’évoquerais le souvenir d’un vinyle… Ca devait être un EP d’Elvis qui venait de la collection de disques de ma mère. C’était vraiment bon, mais un peu plus tard, j’ai goûté à Little Richard, le vrai roi du rock’n’roll… Ce qu’il est toujours !
Comment êtes-vous arrivé à la pratique de la musique ? Par ces disques, justement… Et aussi parce que j’avais 14/15 ans lorsque le mouvement punk a véritablement explosé en Suède…C’était plus que simple de se laisser gagner par le mouvement et de commencer à jouer dans des groupes, c’était tout naturel. A 14 ans, j’ai d’abord monté un groupe qui mêlait punk, improvisation et jazz rock : ça s’appelait Nirvana, un vrai truc de sauvage ! Et puis, un très bon club de jazz de ma ville, Umeå, programmait Steve Lacy, Per Henrik Wallin, Lokomotiv Konkret, Lars Göran Ulander et tant d’autres. Tout ça c’était la même chose pour moi : jazz, rock, punk. Tout ça c’était de la pure énergie !
Quels ont été vos premiers instruments et les musiciens qui vous motivaient le plus alors ? La flûte dès que j’ai eu 7 ans, et puis je suis passé au piano électrique mais c’était vraiment monstrueux de le transporter ici et là… Alors, après avoir assisté à un concert de Sonny Rollins en 1980, je suis passé au saxophone ténor. Quant aux musiciens, mon seul et véritable héros a toujours été Little Richard. Allez écouter les instruments à vents qui jouent derrière lui, ça aussi c’est sauvage !
Comment se sont passées vos premières années en tant que musicien à Stockholm ? Eh bien, j’avais 19 ans… La première année, je l’ai passée à m’entraîner au ténor dans mon placard à balai la nuit et à travailler à l’usine le jour. Et puis, je suis tombé sur des musiciens incroyables qui m’ont accueilli parmi eux et pris sous leurs ailes : Dror Feiler, Raymond Strid, Jörgen Adolfsson, Sten Sandell et d’autres encore… Ils constituaient alors une jolie petite scène à Stockholm…
Que vous ont-ils appris ? Enormément ! Ils m’ont apporté un soutien monstrueux ! Dror m’a beaucoup appris en matière de politique et d’idéologie autant qu’en musique. Il a été très compréhensif avec ce jeune type du Nord que j’étais alors. Ce que Raymond et Sten signifiaient pour moi était tout aussi énorme… Ils sont épatants ! Nous avons joué / improvisé ensemble régulièrement pendant des années, plusieurs fois par semaine. Nous avons beaucoup exploré ensemble, c’était une époque magnifique et très créative, propice à toutes recherches… Quant à Jörgen, il est sans doute le musicien le plus déprécié qui ait jamais existé. Son jeu d’alto est tout simplement « fanfuckintastic ».
Les musiciens américains ont aussi une importance particulière dans votre éducation musicale… Pouvez-vous me parler de ce voyage à Chicago que vous avez effectué au milieu des années 90 ? Eh bien, il s’agissait surtout pour moi d’aller y chercher des vinyles ! Mais c’était une époque de référence pour la musique créative, ils étaient tous à Chicago : Ken Vandermark, Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs, Hamid Drake et tant d’autres. A cela, il fallait ajouter l’explosion du mouvement post-rock, la présence incroyable de la communauté du free jazz et puis la naissance de labels comme Okka Disk. Je suis très heureux d’avoir contribué à ce qui s’est passé à Chicago à cette époque. Cela signifie beaucoup pour moi, encore aujourd’hui…
Avec quels musiciens êtes-vous d’abord rentrés en contact là-bas ? Ken Vandermark, Hamid Drake, Michael Zerang, Kent Kessler, ont été les tous premiers… Et puis j’ai eu la possibilité de renouer avec Jim O’Rourke, ce qui m’a permis de collaborer avec Gastr del Sol et David Grubbs. Encore une fois, le milieu des années 90 à Chicago a été une époque formidable, tellement de choses se passaient là… Chicago est une putain de ville dans laquelle les choses se passent ! Beaucoup de super bars, de gens et de… vinyles.
Comment s’est fait votre recrutement dans le Brötzmann Chicago Tentet ? Joe McPhee et moi avons été appelés pour venir renforcer l’octette et le groupe s’est depuis consolidé autour de cette formule. C’est un groupe puissant, très rock, dans lequel on trouve des personnalités vraiment très singulières. C’est une sorte de volcan en fusion d’esprits créatifs dans lequel j’ai aussi beaucoup appris.
Vous parlez souvent de rock… Pouvez-vous évoquer ici vos relations avec Sonic Youth ou Cato Salsa Experience, par exemple ? Eh bien, ce sont des groupes qui produisent une musique terrible, et j’essaye de mettre mon grain de sel là-dedans. Il s’agit avant tout de confiance et de respect mutuel, et aussi de l’envie d’essayer des choses et de voir comment ça se passe. Ces musiciens s’intéressent tous beaucoup à la musique, à l’art, donc : en un sens, collaborer avec eux est très facile… La première fois que j’ai joué avec Jim, c’était à l’occasion d’une Company Week qu’organisa Derek Bailey en 1990… Il est tout simplement l’un des esprits les plus brillants que l’on puisse trouver dans le milieu de la creative music, voilà ce que je peux dire !
Pensez-vous appartenir à ce que l’on pourrait définir d’Internationale bruitiste qui rassemblerait des musiciens venus d’un peu partout qui mêlent jazz, noise, drone, etc. ?Peu importe comment tu appelles ça… Je n’aime pas catégoriser la musique. La musique est bonne ou ne l’est pas et s’il vous est donné de rencontrer des personnes qui font une musique tout autre que la vôtre, le résultat peut être passionnant. Mais il s’agit surtout de savoir qui est la personne avec laquelle vous jouez et non pas d’où elle vient, que ce soit géographiquement, historiquement, originellement ou musicalement. Il s’agit avant tout de qui vous êtes. Il y a de la super musique (et de la très mauvaise) partout dans le monde. Il suffit simplement de l’attraper…
The Thing fait une bonne balance entre free rock et free jazz, c’était le but de la chose ? Nous n’avons pas de but en particulier avec The Thing, si ce n’est celui de jouer une musique qui te botte le train, avec des éléments de musiques que nous aimons (ou détestons). Il s’agit surtout d’alchimie entre nous, nous jouons ce que nous jouons et nous jouons aussi qui nous sommes.
Avez-vous l’impression de jouer en ce moment la musique pour laquelle vous êtes fait ? Peut-être est-ce la musique qui joue de moi, qui sait ? Il n’y a pas de destin de cette sorte ; chacun se créé son propre destin. Tu crées ta propre musique, je crois que c’est comme ça que tout marche. Pour moi, en tout cas, c’est comme ça que ça marche.
Discaholic Corner
