Part 3

For many artists, life-changing musical experiences take place live. How do you see that yourself?

FR: Absolutely. The live experience has been far more important to me than my record collection. The communing of people in a space, the energy exchange, the camaraderie, seeing choices being made live, is powerful.

IGF: Totally, for me live music is what we do it for. May that be by listening to a concert or giving one. I compared it to a ritual as I mentioned before. That Axis Mundi that cuts through our perceptions of space and time.

When opening those gates, we find ourselves in that vortex, and yes, for me, that can be life-changing. Especially when the personality of the artist I witness is somehow palpable, filled with meaning, at service to the music and the moment at hand.

If there is no other purpose than that, we all kind of disappear! I love that, the trance-like collective sonic memory it can take us to. I experienced that when seeing ensembles like Master Musicians of Jajouka (MA). Recommend!



How, would you say are your live performances and your recording projects connected at the moment? How do they mutually influence and feed off each other?

FR: I see the medium of a recording as a completely different form than a live concert, so I treat them differently.

I’m informed deeply by the exchange of energy between performer and listener in a live setting. Also, our attention span is different when we listen to a record, generally. That informs my decisions on what goes on a record or what is played live.

A 22 minute improvisation means something completely different to me on record than on stage.

IGF: In our case our latest record MESTIZX was recorded under an intense energy of inspiration. Like downloading a mountain or so ahhahah. It felt like that to me, or channelling some kind of lightning code that was coming at us in the form of songs. It was beautiful!

And in the context of that record I have deep reverence to that moment in time (recording). It influences the energy of the live performance, those songs or worlds within the songs are entire stories that are woven in the tapestry of the notes, harmonies, melodies and words. They then reflect, bounce and mirror themselves back in a live setting.

Even though live performances of this material are totally different, it is as if the songs on the record are the spinal column that carry us through the concert as well. And depending on the audience and their openness to co-weave with us, those spaces open wider and wider, making those songs almost like gatekeepers, inviting us to go to unknown places.

Improvisation is obviously an essential element of jazz, but I would assume that just like composition, it is transforming. How do you feel has the role of improvisation changed in jazz?

FR: Nowadays, I often experience improvisation as a practice over something deeper. Free improvising in 1965 meant something different than people rehashing it in 2025. When I hear improvisers currently, I am often asking myself, “what is this person saying?” But that’s me. It’s a taste thing.

I find it important to hear and feel some kind of necessity on the stage, informed by something beyond than oneself. The podium has become codified, and the way people consume/respond to it is based on many crystallized traditions. I miss real danger and bravery. I don’t feel it happens much. Hell, I see myself not being brave at times when I play, and I hate it.

In the case of improvising free, as a form, I owe it to myself and to everyone in the space to reach beyond oneself and to take real chances, to listen deeper and allow myself to be informed by unknown forces. For me, being on a stage is a privileged paradigm, with no time taking anything for granted … but time for shaking the ego.

IGF: I think improvisation is like quantum physics hahahaha, I laugh but I also mean it. It is an open place, that (yes) is informed by our background, influences, what you hear and resonate with and so forth. But it also brings you to a cellular/synaptical levels of ignitions and it makes you discover, pushes you to find places alone or together. It is a tremendously brave practice in my opinion, specially when it is not manipulated to our own expectations.

And for me, it is a core element in composing. The moment it bores me is when I experience default in it, I get totally excited when myself and other people make choices based on non fear. As if the electricity of the bodies and minds start flowing to fresh gateways of interconnectivity, and that ‘otherness’ starts taking the lead.

In various conversations I asked Frank historically who was the first person in the jazz canon to start breaking from the standard or form? Because wow that moment in time was important! and what was driving those people to do it? Like Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman to give two examples.

I saw it under the light - as something political as well - thus literally freeing the standard, the form, the predetermined agreed sound. I also compared it to protest music, like in South America, with very clear examples like Victor Jara in the 60s, who played folk song forms - but they were charged with such power that, for that moment in time, it could ignite a revolution! The same reason he was tortured and killed by the dictatorship in Chile, for singing for freedom.

Improvisation for me is more than an exercise, if I look at it from that angle, it breaks the conventions of how we won’t conform to the established sound or status quo, when sound is perceived as a continuation of our root anthems and what we are willing to bring to light within ourselves and our community.

Cecil Taylor - “The piano is 88 tuned drums …”, “Jazz Advance,” 1956 Ornette Coleman … overlap of consciousness.



What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation?

FR: At my best, which isn’t all the time, it’s emptying myself and allowing to be taken by those unknown forces I referred to earlier. Making the really hard choices, without leaving everybody out to dry, of course.

So, staying connected. Being willing to disappear, to let things go. Finding means to continue surprising myself, and staying close to my voice, despite habitual impulses or things that simply ‘work’.

IGF: Curiosity, playfulness, commitment, listening, fluidity, vanishing.

FR: Yes! Vanishing!

Are there approaches, artists, festivals, labels, spaces or anyone/-thing else out there who you feel deserve a shout out for taking jazz into the future?

FR: International Anthem, Longform Editions, KMRU, Ben LaMar Gay, Jeff Parker, Rewire Festival in The Hague, Church of Sound in London, CTM Festival, Kate Dumbleton, Dave Rempis, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Space is the Place in Amsterdam, Plantage Dok in Amsterdam.

[Read our Ben LaMar Gay interview]
[Read our Ingebrigt Haker Flaten interview]

IGF: Ben LaMar Gay, Moor Mother, Jeff Parker, International Anthem, Gilles Peterson, Nonesuch Records, Space is The Place in Amsterdam, Church of Sound in London, Rewire Festival in The Hague, Le Guess Who in Utrecht, Überjazz in Hamburg, L’Alarme in Berlin (sadly stopped by lack of funding), Hyde Park Festival in Chicago.

The Montreux Festival intends to preserve its archive of recordings for future generations. Do you personally feels it's important that everything should remain available forever - or is there something to be said for letting beautiful moments pass and linger in the memories of those that experienced them?

FR: Well, they were recorded for preservation. For reference of human progression.

So yes, I feel like ALL information about anything should remain available. People can make their own choice about allowing the lingering memories or transcribing a Pharaoh Sanders solo note for note.

IGF: When preserved in the right way, meaning really understanding the context wherein the music was happening is very valid I think.

Being able to time-travel to the past is an encyclopaedia of sorts and it allows people to tune in into that energy, worldviews and sound memory.