Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter, and grew up in Oslo. He was effectively stateless until the age of seven, as there was no automatic grant of citizenship in Norway at that time. At 21, he married Vigdis. He is the father of musician and...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth4 March 1947
CountryNorway
If you feel you have the right key, you try to make some phrase or sound that will fit.
You have to react to what's around you in the moment, whatever the music is. Just think of it as some place you have to enter and you need to find the key.
Jazz, for me, is a closed circuit, like the term baroque in the world of classical music.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that's what we face when we're dealing with improvisation.
When we are on tour we also take chances.
I feel very strongly when there's no chance for me to find a key to a piece.
Other times I say: I would very much like to try to do something with this music, but after playing for a few minutes, I have to break off.
Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.
There's a certain phraseology involved in jazz, and I've moved away from that.
The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.