Last week ahead of my Ibiza Jazz Festival's concert  I had a short email  exchange with  Spanish writer Chema Garcia Martinez (El Pais). We discussed topics to do with  Jazz,Culture,  USA, Palestine, Israel and  Jewish identity. I guess that the followers of my writing  and music may find it interesting. 

update:

To read Chema's article on El Pais

Q: Is there any reason to keep on playin´ jazz in 2010?

GA: I don’t play Jazz for a ‘particular reason’; I am not committed to this form of music ideologically or religiously. I just love it. I am entertained by the idea of reinventing myself on a daily basis and Jazz allows it to happen. However, the collapse of the music industry allows us to look at music in broader terms. While in the past we had to play within a defined style just to make sure that the record company knows how to shelve it in the record shop and in the market place, nowadays the boundaries are disappearing. At last we are free.

Q: What does the word “jazz” mean for you?

GA: Jazz is innovation, it isn’t just beauty, it is beauty in its making. Jazz is freedom. It is freedom to think and the freedom to express. Jazz is a celebration of one’s symptoms. For me Jazz is the ultimate art form. Yet I hear Jazz in Bach and even Palestrina, I can read Jazz in poetry, in visual art and architecture. Jazz is the attempt to constantly define and re-define the notion of itself. From that perspective Jazz is similar to philosophy. For philosophy is also engaged in an attempt to redefine itself through the act of philosophizing.

Q: Is it necessary for a jazz musician in 2010 to play in the US?