Only If You Like Jazz

There was a programme on TV about the origins of Bosa Nova. As is usual, it was my wife Tamara who found the programme and got me to sit and watch it with her. She is marvellous. Where does she find these programmes?

So part way through the programme the interviewer is talking with a pianist. And there is an intro of a few bars and my ears perked up. The pianist is Cliff Korman and I googled his name. It turns out he is from New York and lives in Brazil.

Here he is playing Manhã de Carnaval with the Brazilian clarinetist Paulo Moura.

It’s less that 10 minutes long – so not too much to listen to if you don’t like jazz. But I am willing to bet that you will like it.

Don’t you just love to find people you want to listen to. It’s strange how one can feel a kinship with them. I don’t know Korman’s politics, for example. And yet I think I probably know how he thinks about things.

I had this discussion with someone years ago. It’s the question of interpretation versus explanation.

When we know something about the person who makes the music or writes the novel or the poem, or makes the film – does it alter the thing they have made?

Is it we who cannot remove ourselves from the narrative we construct as we interpret the piece?

Or is it there, right in the very piece itself and knowing something about the person is part of unfolding the piece?