EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW - Roberto Muggiati

The journalist Roberto Cranfield Muggiati in recent years has been a true authority with regard to the dissemination of jazz among Brazilians. With several publications on gender, Muggiati can show the reader with a pleasant and elegant language, that jazz is not a man of seven heads and which is beyond a simple musical genre, and can be used as a source of inspiration for various situations and decisions throughout life.
This idea is reinforced in its latest release Improvisando Solutions: the Jazz as Example to succeed (Best Seller, 2008), where the writer cites several examples of jazzistas who overcame adversity the most varied to impose its art. Overrun and improvisation are part of history and aesthetics of jazz, where victorious players turned their experiences and feelings in a spontaneous art, which remains alive for more than a century.
Roberto Muggiati: With just over ten years of age, listening to those old wafers of 78-per-minute the sounds of Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, who realized that music was different from the others - was more alive, more intelligent, less predictable and programmed. Hence for the Bebop of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, for the inventions of pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, to cool the saxophone of Lester Young, was the discovery of modern jazz, supplemented later by the school's West Coast (Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers and his group, the Stan Kenton orchestra).
How to write little since the career gone into journalism (and then to the books) and write about jazz - the music that he loved most of all, was a natural step.

JM: Since 2005 we are taking an increasing wave of jazz festivals in the country. The Festivals of Black Gold and River Oysters are already recognized as some of the best in the world. Do you believe that municipalities, manufacturers and entrepreneurs are discovering the power of jazz?
RM: Absolutely. Have you heard of festivals in Manaus, from Guaramiranga (in Brazil), of Joinville (Santa Catarina) and dozens of other "pocket festivals" in the capitals of Brazil. The majority relies on public or private sponsors, an indication that marketers finally discovered the power of penetration of jazz and its mark of quality and sophistication.

JM: How do you evaluate the spread of jazz in Brazil?
RM: It is still small, despite the websites and blogs that exist. But specialist publications are rare, or seasonal. If you give an account of that magazine publisher on a large rock - the Bizz of April - left to move, the situation is even more difficult for the Jazz. But, thanks mainly to the Internet, the jazzófilo - as the jazzista - if you know your turn and find sources of information.

JM: In the book New Jazz: back to the future, you write about players who were known as the Young Lions, emerged in the 80 and 90 with the proposal to preserve a tradition jazzística. What are the differences between this generation and the more recent past, from the 60s and 70s, and that the contributions of the Young Lions for the future of jazz in the twenty-first century?
RM: The generation of brothers Marsalis & Cia had more access than the previous learning not only of jazz as the music in general. (Many, like his brother Wynton and saxophonist Branford, are also exímios performers from the register scholar). But this generation - while ringing admirably well - we have seen sentenced to a rereading of all schools of jazz that preceded it, without the ability to create something "new". (This problem of creating "new" applies equally to all other arts: painting, literature, theater, etc.. - Is a kind of characteristic of the time, a moment, perhaps, to grasp all that has happened before start something new, a time to hold).

JM: The English critic Stuart Nicholson, in his book Jazz Is Dead? (Or Has It Moved to a New Address), has generated controversy by saying that the European jazz holds the real innovators of contemporary jazz, because this generation of Wynton Marsalis in a crystallized the jazz music based on traditionalism and forgot the need for creativity and innovation. You agree with the words of Nicholson?
RM: Neither the jazz died, or moved to a new address (the community of euros). We can say that ever grew by a series of new addresses, and sign up there, beyond the European contribution, the contributions Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Mexico), Asia (Japan, China, etc.), African and here goes.

JM: How do you evaluate the players who emerged from the early 2000? What is the objective of the new generation?
RM: It is a pulsed generation of talent, experiencing all kinds of music formats and exploring all possibilities in the field of instrumentation. In my view, an important fact is the rise of women, no longer stuck to the role of Crooner, but competing with men on instruments "viris" as the bass, the drums, the trombone and saxophone. Not to mention that the big-band leader and orchestrator of the decade is a woman, Maria Schneider.

JM: Tell us a little about the Improvisando Solutions, his latest book. How did the idea to write it?
RM: How do I report on the same book, the idea took body from a course I gave in Porto Alegre in February 2006 in Cultural Santander, on the Hundred Years of Jazz, three lectures of three hours that had the occupation of Full room, including men and women in the age group of 16 to 80 years. The receptivity of the audience of nearly one hundred people I awakened the idea of writing a book on experiences of jazz, "without elaborate too much on the technical or musical, but emphasizing the lessons of life masters of improvisation.

JM: Neste livro, você relata uma passagem em que o jazz o salvou de um suicídio. JM: In this book, you reported a passage in which the jazz saved from a suicide. Em algum outro momento o jazz o influenciou em outras decisões importantes? At some other time to the jazz influence on other important decisions?
RM: Not only in this critical time, but in situations of day-to-day, the Jazz always had a lot in my life - in an attempt to play saxophone, studying ten years with Mauro Senise, as the coverage of concerts and festivals in discovery of new albums of the great masters and also of musicians "minor" but highly significant. The jazz always acted in my mechanism of memory as the famous "Madeleine" proustiana, each season or time of my life tied to any particular song. Just listen to today, for example, Sarah Vaughan singing Over the Rainbow accompanied by the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley that I travel in the time machine until that magical years of 1958, half a century ago, and relive exactly what I was doing, what I felt at the time .

JM: You covered the Festival in Montreux (1985 to 1988) and most of the old editions of Free Jazz. Quais as lembranças mais marcantes destes festivais? What are the most significant memories of these festivals?
RM: There are punti brightness, as the presentations of Hermeto and the duet with Hermeto Elis (1979), of John Gilberto (1985), returns to the stage of Miles Davis (1985), all in Montreux, the big band of Gil Evans at the Hotel Nacional, the show free of Sonny Rollins in the Park's Catacombs, in Rio, the exclusive interview an hour with Chet Baker and his presentation in the first Free Jazz in 1985, the Mingus Band with Elvis Costello at MAM, right there , Knowledge of new talents of Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, James Carter, John Pizzarelli, the moving presentation of Michel Petrucciani at the Hotel Nacional, and also there's the veteran violinist Stephane Grappelli, the mastery of veterans as Lee Konitz, Art Farmer and Johnny Griffin. Rever Griffin (in Rio) and Dexter Gordon (Sao Paulo in 1980 and Montreux 1986) was traveling back to London in 1962-63, when they each went a whole month in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. Dizzy Gillespie e sua United Nation Orchestra no Free Jazz. Dizzy Gillespie and his United Nation Orchestra in Free Jazz. Finally, there are moments of music that we do not ever forget.

JM: One last question to relax: the anthem of the Flemish there are verses that say: "I would have a profound grief / Where the Flemish missing in the world ...". If the Jazz were missing that, as it would be?
RM: I have a deep disgust that the missing jazz, but this will never happen. identally, there is a singing that rolls in stages between the Brazilian twisted it is pure jazz, the chorus of When the Saints Go Marchini 'In - tararará, tararará, tararará-ra-ra-ra-ra, tarará, Tara, tarára, tarará, ra-ra-ra-ra! I repeat to you the question that until now nobody answered me: how was that song is from New Orleans came up in the bleachers Maracanã? I have my own theory: it came through the fanfare, bandinhas of those fans, like the famous band of Charanga's Flamengo and Bangu, which raised When the Saints through disks, or through the presentations by radio and TV's incredible Booker Pitman. It is a mystery worthy of a thorough search.
JM Who is empowering?

Credit > For Leonardo Alcantara (Jazzman!)
Colaboration: Fernanda Melonio e Vagner Pitta Collaboration: Fernanda Melonio and Vagner Pitta