MSD: Interview

E: I think the jazz drummer that has influenced me is Tony Williams. He is the drummer that I have studied more in particular. I think they are all incredible: Jaco Pastorius, Cory Henry, Herbie Hancock and all of the old jazz era that kept playing. It seems to me that there’s a lot to study, but those, I would name them as the main ones, to which I have most studied.

J: One of my biggest influences would be Chick Corea, an american pianist and not only american, even in Venezuela there’re a jazz artists who are worthy of mention, because they have a lot of material: Gerry Weil, Andrés Briceño and the new generation, Freddy Adrián and Orestes Gómez, who are going around the world with their jazz. There was a time in which the rock was decanting in a closed language and jazz was taken as a sophisticated genre, then artists like Satriani, Steve Vai, among others, brings the rock at a sophisticated level such as jazz. Now, I want to know, you as musicians, who play this genre, in jazz there’s a change of language, now how have you learned to handle this language?

E: Historically, jazz came first. The rock part of the jazz, in fact, speaking of the battery, the pulse that comes from the rock is the same pulse of black that comes from the swing of jazz, that has been explained by awesomes drummers in clinics. Steve Vai is a guitarist who uses jazz language for rock, so that could be an example, but studying jazz you learn, basically, from all the genres that have branched out from it.

J: Starting from that moment when it ceases to be a genre and create what are the later genres such as rock, rebel, pop, etc. These have their roots in jazz, that's why it’s no longer a genre, but is part of a language where codes are used that can be used in any musical genre.

Why Jazz and not Blues? J: There’re many reasons, jazz transcends beyond a genre, it is a language, is like learning to speak a language. The blues, is still a language, but it’s more specific genre of American culture, in this case.