Name: Fred Frith
Nationality: American
Occupation: Composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist
Current release: Fred Frith teams up with Sudhu Tewari for Moving Parts, out via Theresa Wong's fo’c’sle imprint.

[Read our Theresa Wong interview]
[Read our Sudhu Tewari interview]

If you enjoyed this Fred Frith interview, and would like to find out more about his music, visit his official homepage.  



When did you first start getting interested in musical improvisation?  

When I was able to reach the keys of my father’s piano.

Which artists, approaches, albums or performances involving prominent use of improvisation captured your imagination in the beginning?

First of all, records my brother Christopher gave me - Django Reinhardt (Mélodie au Crépuscule) and Alexis Korner (R&B from The Marquee).



Later I became deeply engaged with jazz – Miles Davis, Coltrane, Mingus, Ornette Coleman.

In 1969 I went to a concert of Ustad Vilayat Khan which changed my life. Not long afterwards I heard Barre Phillips first record, Unaccompanied Barre. It was inspiring, and then I kind of knew what I wanted to do.



What was your own learning curve / creative development like when it comes to improvisation - what were challenges and breakthroughs?

The learning curve never really ends does it? You try to listen, and hear, better.

Sometimes the biggest challenges are to do with playing with the same folks over a long period of time, the process of endless re-invention. I’ve been doing duos with Chris Cutler, for example, for fifty years! And sometimes they come from new encounters – “Who are you?” Who am I when I play with you?” I find it fascinating after all these years that I can still sometimes “discover” my instrument as if I’d never really heard it before.



Some players will bring that out of me. Annie Lewandowski, for example. She allowed me to hear things differently ...



When you're improvising, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

I guess I could answer “yes” to all of those proposals! Maybe patterns is not the perfect word, but obviously every performance or preparation for a performance becomes a part of your DNA going forward.

So yes, I feel like I’m inventing something on the spot, and it will necessarily always be an amalgam of things that I “know” and things that I don’t. That’s kind of the axis where improvisation happens isn’t it?

What were some of your earliest collaborations? How do you look back on them with hindsight?

The most important epiphany for me was being invited to play for a dance performance by Tim Hodgkinson.

It was an improvisation on the subject of Hiroshima for violin and saxophone, and it felt like we’d just invented something. I didn’t know about the London improvisation scene then, and I suspect if I had I wouldn’t have been able to engage so freely, which is rather ironic! My naivety and lack of awareness helped me to just be myself ...

Obviously the ten years I spent with Henry Cow changed my perspectives profoundly, but that’s what most collaborations do. It’s why you collaborate! I could talk about working with Tom Cora, Zeena Parkins, Zorn ...



How do you feel your sense of identity influences your collaborations? Do you feel as though you are able to express yourself more fully in solo mode or, conversely, through the interaction with other musicians? Are you “gaining” or “sacrificing” something in a collaboration?

Well I don’t think you can ever really get to grips with improvising unless you accept yourself for who you are. That let's you just get on with it without judging yourself.

I don’t really think of it in terms of gain or sacrifice, I’m busy wrestling with the material as it unfolds, whatever the context.

If it goes well I don’t think it has much to do with self-expression actually. It’s deeper than that.

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? In which way is it different between your solo work and collaborations?

Well, I do try and empty myself of intentions and start from a blank slate. Easy to say ...

But the approach is the same whatever the context. You empty yourself, you are open to whatever will happen, and you get on with it! Whatever “it” turns out to be …

How did this particular collaboration come about?

Sudhu was studying at Mills College, I was teaching there. I found his ideas interesting not to say inspiring.

I told him about my home-made instrument period in the 1980s, and he encouraged me to revisit them, so I did, and our duo—Normal—was born!

What did you know about each other before working together? Describe your creative partner in a few words, please.

Well, the great thing about studying together is that you get to know each other on a pretty essential level quite quickly.

Sudhu is a quick thinker, always looking for solutions to problems you may not even have noticed yet, always willing to give the most unlikely ideas a shot, someone who never throws anything away because he can pretty much guarantee he’ll eventually find a use for it.

This natural love of “bricolage” coupled with having had the discipline to study tabla for ten years is a unique combination when it comes to making music!

Before you started making music together, did you in any form exchange concrete ideas, goals, or strategies? Generally speaking, what are your preferences when it comes to planning vs spontaneity in a collaboration?

Well yes, because the relationship was all about “exchanging ideas, goals and strategies”. Discussing those things is a fundamental part of teaching and learning.

As for planning vs spontaneity, I don’t think the two things are necessarily in opposition to each other. You can plan for a performance—decide what instrument(s) you will play, how you will set them up and amplify them, whereabouts you will situate yourself in a space and in relation to each other, and so on—but the performance itself will be completely spontaneous.

It’s different bits of the brain, as John Cage pointed out.

What do you look for in a collaborator in general, and what made you want to collaborate with each other specifically?

I like working with people who are open to possibilities, who have humor and don’t take themselves too seriously, who are disciplined when it comes to preparing and rehearsing, and who are not afraid to stand up for their ideas. For example.

Sudhu ticked all of those boxes!

Tell me a bit about your current instruments and tools, please. In which way do they support creative exchange and collaborations with others?  

Well between us we have invented and constructed about fifteen, maybe more, different instruments. There are string instruments of many different kinds, amplified percussion instruments, variations on certain themes (like the no-strings guitar).

We use whatever tools make sense at the time, and it changes constantly. They support creative exchange and collaboration in exactly the same way as any other instrument, it’s up to the players, as always, to connect with each other and develop material together.

Is there a piece which shows the different aspects you each contributed to the process particularly clearly?

Probably not! When I listen I can’t always tell who’s doing what, and we do sometimes switch around which instruments are played by whom.

So it’s difficult, but anyway it doesn’t strike me as necessarily particularly important in the end.

What tend to be the best collaborations in your opinion – those with artists you have a lot in common with or those where you have more differences? What happens when another musician takes you outside of your comfort zone?

I don’t think it breaks down that easily. And it also depends on what you mean by differences.

The best collaborations are the ones that work! Meaning, at least for me, that you get a result that combines contradictory elements in surprising and magical ways – coherent (or incoherent) flow, predictable (or unpredictable) resolutions, virtuosic (or non-virtuosic) proposals, and so on. Such results are possible both with those who you think of as having differences and the opposite.

I’m not sure what my comfort zone is at this point, but if someone takes me beyond it I will probably be delighted!

In a way, improvisations remind us of the transitory nature of life. What, do you feel, can music and improvisation express and reveal about life and death?

I think all art, at its most sublime level, can express and reveal all kinds of things. Improvisation is no different. I think it would be dangerous and futile to think that improvisation is somehow MORE capable of that than other ways of organizing sound.

And in any case I generally believe that the act of trying consciously to express something about life and death likely results in work of great banality! I believe that Francis Bacon’s paintings are profoundly expressive, but I appreciate very much that he said:

“I am not trying to say anything with my paintings, I am trying to DO something!”