Name: Quinsin Nachoff
Occupation: Saxophonist, composer, improviser
Nationality: American
Current release: Quinsin Nachoff's Stars and Constellations is out via Adyhâropa.
Recommendations: Several Circles, Wassily Kandinksy; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

If you enjoyed this Quinsin Nachoff interview and would like to stay up to date on his music and current live dates, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.
 


Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in improvisation?

I grew up in a musical family, my parents were working with electronic music in the late 60s and early 70s, both experimental and commercial work. They did a lot of improvising with modular synthesizers and had me playing around with them from an early age.

I was also exposed to a wide range of music, ranging for example from Stockhausen to Paul Simon to Eric Dolphy.

So, for me, even if something is fully notated or through-composed, it can still have a feeling of improvisation. I feel a similarity to this approach in Baroque music where their practice included a lot of improvisation.

When did you first consciously start getting interested in musical improvisation?  Which artists, teachers, albums or performances involving prominent use of improvisation captured your imagination in the beginning?

I was fortunate to have a great saxophone teacher, Alex Dean, one of the heavyweight players on the Toronto scene from about 7th Grade into University. He played me recordings and guided me through the fundamentals of saxophone technique and improvisation.

At this time in my development, when I was in high school, the public library was a great resource for albums. I could take out 20 LPs and CDs at a time and their collection was broad and varied.

I was really drawn to John Coltrane (from Giant Steps to Crescent to the freer work of Interstellar Space) and the Bartok String Quartet’s (as played by the Emerson String Quartet, hearing his evolution as a composer as we got to the later ones) and heard a connection between these artists that’s stayed with me as inspiration through the years.



Tell me about your instrument and/or tools, please. What made you seek it out, what makes it “your” instrument, and what are some of the most important aspects of playing it?

Recently I’ve been collaborating with a physicist, Dr Stephen Morris from the University of Toronto, whose area of research is Emergent Patterns in Nature. This has led me to dive into working with computer software to help transform experimental data into elements of compositions.

I’ll set parameters using data and then improvise with it to create new musical forms, or melodies or harmonies that I wouldn’t have arrived at any other way. This is starting to feel like a new instrument through which to express my voice. Even though this is a very different process than improvising on the saxophone or composing with pen and paper, I still hear a connection to my other work.

You can hear a recent example of this with my piece “Pendulum” from my latest album, Stars and Constellations (Adhyâropa Records).



Here I’m using the physics of a pendulum to form the underlying rhythmic structure that the drums and bass are playing off. The two string quartets are the yin-yang of the pendulum swinging from side to side, continually contrasting with each other:

How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument – is it an extension of your self/body, a partner and companion, a creative catalyst, a challenge to be overcome, something else entirely?

A tool of expression. Like speaking different languages, different instruments have their idiosyncrasies, syntaxes, grammars, etc. that push and pull in different directions.

This becomes very apparent when writing for an orchestra. One can call on an instrument to do what comes easily to it, but also you can ask an instrument to act in an unusual way and that can elicit a different feeling or effect.

I certainly have a great deal of love for the saxophone generally, with its rich history to draw from, but also for my own particular instrument that I’ve played for over 30 years now. We have some history together. But I try to see it as a tool to express my artistic voice and feel there is a connection or correlation between my saxophone playing and my composing.

Do you feel as though there are at least elements of composition and improvisation which are entirely unique to each? Based on your own work or maybe performances or recordings by other artists, do you feel that there are results which could only have happened through one of them?

Yes, certainly some elements. It’s about time.

With composition there’s more time to meticulously plan formal elements and connect ideas in a very specific, prepared way. Also, if you want a long unison passage with the ensemble playing the same thing, or harmonized in a specific way, it very likely needs to be planned in advance.

For example, on my recent album, Stars and Constellations (Adhyâropa Records), for the piece “Stars and Constellations: Sagittarius,” I used physics to model the arcing of arrows, shot from an imaginary bow and arrow, and mapped this to the string quartet.

You can hear it in the opening of the piece and as a recurring motif:



While I could have implied a similar gesture with improvisation, it wouldn’t have the same precision and direct connection to how we see gravity working around us.

With improvisation there can be these amazing, serendipitous moments that leap out and are unlike anything planned, that come from deep listening and interacting with your fellow musicians.

For example, as the trio of bassist Mark Helias, drummer Dan Weiss and myself emerge from the string backgrounds in "Stars and Constellations: Scorpio" (around 13:20), I couldn’t have notated what we are doing with the same effect and spirit.

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, practice or previous performances? What balance is there between forgetting and remembering in your work?

At this point it feels more conversational. I’ll often return to topics I know more about and articulate them in a different way, but with a similarity to the underlying approach. It also really depends on the fellow musicians – they can lead the conversation into unexpected directions and draw out different responses!

I feel it is pattern-like only in the way that a language has a vocabulary and syntax. Within language this can be quite varied, ranging from a legal document to abstract poetry, and music is no different. That said, I don’t like to frame music as a universal language. There are a lot of cultural pillars that are learned, consciously or unconsciously, that define how we’ll respond. Something as simple as major being happy and minor being sad are not universal. Western tuning of 12 notes of equal distance within an octave are also not universal.

It also depends on the complexity of the material we’re engaging with. If the framework we are improvising with is new and challenging, I’ll work hard to prepare in order to have the most freedom when it comes time to improvise.

In my trio with bassist Mark Helias and drummer Dan Weiss, we explored a variety of methods and moods - Ethereal Trio (Whirlwind Recordings):



Are you acting out certain roles or parts of your personality in your improvisations which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life or other parts of music? If so, which are these? If not, what, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach?

This is very dependent on context. As a performer I often like to think of myself as an actor and try to exploit different aspects of my personality that are best suited for the demands of the composition. I’ll try to serve the intent and purpose of what the composer is communicating, forming a narrative around that specific piece. This gives me a broad concept and a range of emotion or stylistic approaches to take that can be specific to that piece.

If we’re improvising freely without any preset structure, then that’s more about listening, responding or instigating with the other musicians.

As a composer I sometimes like to think of myself as a screenwriter and director. If I’m working with musicians that I’m familiar with, I can imagine creating situations for them to respond to. It can be really rewarding, knowing someone’s strengths, to put them in an unusual situation to get a singular performance.

An instance of some of these ideas can be found in the arrangement of my saxophone solo in "Pivotal Arc" (around 7:30), where the composition undergoes a wide range of settings and evokes a broad range of emotions:



In the, to you, best improvisations, do you feel a strong sense of personal presence or do you (or your ego) “disappear”?  

It seems like the paradox of both. The ego disappears, but there is a strong sense of being very present in that moment. There is no active reasoning-type thinking: in improvisation there is no time for that.

In certain aspects, it takes on a more athletic nature: the hours of practice and training serve as preparation for the event, yet in the moment, you find yourself tapping into your instincts and training.

In a live situation, decisions between creatives often work without words. From your experience and current projects, what does this process feel like and how does it work?

Absolutely! When you find other creative people that share some of your aesthetics, very little needs to be said because you are drawing from common sources or a common goal.

I just finished an epic project, Patterns from Nature, working with a physicist, Dr. Stephen Morris from the University of Toronto, whose area of research is Emergent Patterns in Nature; filmmakers Tina de Groot, Lee Hutzulak, Gita Blak and Udo Prinsen; and scored for a chamber orchestra with featured soloists including pianist Matt Mitchell, drummer Satoshi Takeishi, the Molinari String Quartet, clarinetist François Houle, bassist Carlo De Rosa, trombonist Ryan Keberle and myself. Here is some more info about the project.

The physicist, filmmakers and I collaborated to develop the work and there was a great dialogue between our disparate areas to achieve a common goal. Dr. Morris gave the filmmakers and me a lot of information and source materials to use as inspiration. Working with each filmmaker, we then developed this forty-minute work, each filmmaker focused on a ten-minute Movement representing an area within Dr. Morris’ research: Branches, Flow, Cracks and Ripples.

In my role as the project leader, I rarely had to provide guidance. Only occasionally would I need to offer direction to ensure that their individual Movements aligned with the narrative arc of the work as a whole.

When it came time to perform the piece, working with the amazing cast of musicians, there was very little that I needed to communicate outside of what was in the score. They knew what approach to take, what tone and time-feel to strive for, etc. The best part was hearing the musical surprises that each individual brought that only added and augmented the composed parts.

I have been fortunate to collaborate with other excellent filmmakers where this has also been the case, on my most recent release Stars and Constellations. [Playlist here]

And on my album Path of Totality (Whirlwind Recordings). [Playlist here]



Stewart Copeland said: “Listening is where the cool stuff comes from. And that listening thing, magically, turns all of your chops into gold.” What do you listen for?

Yes, all the cool stuff comes from not just listening, but conversing and playing with a sense of the narrative: discussing an idea, elaborating, counterpoint, rhetoric, drama, surprise, resolution, contrast, climaxes, turning points, revelations, reversals, foreshadowing, etc.

There can be surprising moments during improvisations – from one of the performers not playing a single note to another shaking up a quiet section with an outburst of noise. Have you been part of similar situations and how did they impact the performance from your point of view?

Of course, this is what I live for! It’s these surprising and magical moments that we strive for and enjoy witnessing as listeners or audience members.

On my album Path of Totality, I created a wide variety of forms and narratives for all the musicians to interact with, leaving plenty of room for these moments of surprise.