Interview with Paolo Sorge (September 2016)
Hello Paolo, it’s a bit that we haven’t a good talk, I would say that by your excellent Tetraktys cs (2010) has been a while, now you got this Triplain cd after passing through Ringlike (2015), listening to these discs and knowing well your music I would say that you have followed a new path while maintaining your artistic integrity ...
Dear Andrea, you know me and follow my artistic career for years with a focus that gives me a sincere gratitude’s feeling! Already in our conversation some time ago (which you decided then to publish on Chitarre Visionarie‘s book) I explained how important is for me to keep an open musical vision as a place of synthesis of opposites, the confluence of diversity. I try to maintain the widest possible spectrum of my musical experience to an attitude of genuine curiosity.
In jazz and the music that come from that tradition, in which I recognize myself, the important thing is the ability to offer a very personal synthesis to a contemporary audiences, rather than simply reproduce past’s models, which is also important to know and assimilate. For this reason my different interests about the music with which I meet come together in a very open and multifaceted vision of contemporary jazz, my personal synthesis.
You have defined Ringlike as a “cycle games for seven instruments (and so many ears!)” The game’s component, also mathematician, really seems to be one of the characteristics of your music ….
Certainly, I stress the word “game”.
I don’t take it too seriously about the serialism or the cyclical nature of Schillinger and Slonimsky, there is a lot of fun. These are structures that I have studied and used for years enjoying myself to draw interesting compositional materials.
All the music that I write for my projects passes through a second phase of development – just as fun – when it’s performed and interpreted during the concerts, usually from a jazz background musicians with a very mature improvisational skills. I write starting with rigorous material, but then I rely a lot on the development and impromptu game, with a typically jazz practice.
What hit me in Triplain was the music’s”density”, the first time I heard it I haven’t looked at the playing time in the CD and I didn’t realize that lasted only 33 minutes, I noticed it just by reading the notes in your website, you have really put a lot of things togheter so quickly ..you, Cusa and Evangelista have pulled out are lots ideas ….
I thank you for putting your attention to listening to my cd! It’s a practice that is likely to disappear nowadays. That attention to listening is exactly the secret ingredient to appreciate and make our music grow. Through music among musicians and listeners differences are canceled out, you can lose a bit of that sense of time “chronometer” which we are subjected every day with our watches, our agendas, smartphones and appointments to meet.
In your website you talk about storytelling without words refering to Triplain, but in the end all of your music has always been a continuous narrative, that with this latest album has achieved a remarkable artistic maturity, where do you think your guitar will get you this time?
My definition is based on my propensity to instrumental music, storytelling without words.
Who knows what’s coming on, maybe this could be the right time to make a voice project!
In the meantime, more concretely in my immediate future I will try to lead to a further maturation my trio with Evangelista and Cusa through the upcoming gigs, which I hope will be numerous and soon announced on my site! Through concerts, my guitar and the musicians who attend will take me without a doubt to the next phase of may personal and musical growth.
Let’s talk a bit about Improvvisatore Involontario, this independent musical project is going on from a very long time, which will be your next projects?
We are just about to publish some works of young improvisers / composers who need more media visibility, and with Improvvisatore Involontario from about twelve years we are committed with a non-profit and without subsidies of any kind to inform and to spread existing creative music which to some extent and in various ways comparing with improvisation. We have set up an important meeting place for this music that we feel similar to our vision.
The last question, the classic one: your next projects?
Lately here in Sicily I try to follow to younger players. Here there is a new generation of talented musicians who needs to interact creatively with people who has more experience and has worked for years on the territory. Artistic forms need to practice, a learning experiences and meeting at all levels. Young people now travel a lot and have a more open mind. I’m thinking about new projects based on these premises.
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