By MARTA RAMON,
Published: November 22, 2012
Jonathan Kreisberg has filled a gap in the international jazz scene. This New York-based guitarist started with both rock and classical music, but from the beginning he paid attention to his father's great jazz music collection. For Kreisberg, jazz is a pure music based on feelings. He says that he first experienced the creative part of music by ear until J.B Dyas, his teacher in the New World School of the Arts, showed him how jazz worked.
His charismatic sound and his open conceptualization of music led him to take his place, as sideman or band leader, with musicians like saxophonist Lee Konitz, vibraphonist Joe Locke, organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, drummers Lenny White, Donald Edwards, Ari Hoenig andBill Stewart, bassist Larry Grenadier, and many others.
During its current European tour, his new quartet-saxophonist Will Vinson, bassist Rick Rosato and drummer Colin Stranahan- opened the famous Jimmy Glass International Jazz Festival in Valencia, Spain. Kreisberg presented his last CD, Shadowless (New For Now, 2011), but the public also got a taster of his upcoming album, One, which is due to be released in December. Kreisberg weaved a rich concert where different languages met through meaningful improvisations. And as he plays, he talks: Kreisberg is open and eclectic. Because, like when he improvises on a stage, he forgets everything when he sits down to reveal himself in a conversation, with a beer on the table.
All About Jazz: When did you realize that you wanted to express yourself through jazz?
Jonathan Kreisberg: I discovered very young that my string was being creative and being, maybe, possessed by the music. So even though I was learning scales and things about music, I was already making up songs, being creative, writing pieces or just playing freely. I just played music. So I think the tendency to improvise came very early.
AAJ: What does your wide musical experience give to you as a jazz artist?
JK: Because of my background, maybe I have a different way of expressing myself through jazz. Many guitar players start learning jazz and immediately they learn the music of Wes Montgomery or Charlie Christian, but I wasn't originally attracted to it. Now, of course, I believe those two guys are geniuses, but at the beginning my favorite music was listening to [saxophonist] John Coltrane and [trumpeter] Miles Davis, but then listening to Eddie van Halen and blues and rock players. Very different ways of expression. And then, Jimi Hendrix, John Scofield, Pat Metheny and George Benson. Then I realized there was a reason: Coltrane influenced all the others, there was a connection. They gave me a different way to think about the guitar.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=43282#.UK38b6UlYhQ
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