I often bring one of my grandchildren’s stuffed animals to concerts. I place it on top of the amplifier as a reminder of something essential: that perfection is pure unnaturalness — and that those who only seek skill (and no play) will find little of true value.
Behind the tunes on my new album Learning to miss a beat — some based on recurring figures or melodies I work with, one built on a written “head,” most arising purely from the moment — lies a realisation. My loving teacher/philologist father, a man right about many things, was wrong to spend so much energy on being right: on the precise pronunciation of a word, or on his childrens’ school results.
This album is about what I have learned since then: that a society which neglects creativity and expression is a poor nation, no matter how many straight-A students or disciplined children it produces.
One might say that not just this album, but my whole engagement with improvised music over the past thirty years, has been a deeply personal project — a dialogue between myself and my own history, including my long-departed parents, and with the world around me. The somewhat bleak slogans accompanying the album are, in that sense, reflections meant for myself, not prescriptions for how others should live.
Link to album: https://tellefogrim.bandcamp.com/album/learning-to-miss-a-beat
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