José Duarte - what kind of music did you first start to appreciate?

David Murray - my mother was the musical director, pianist, organist in the church of god in Christ in Berkeley California. My father played guitar, my brother clarinet. When i reached nine i received a alto sax at school. that night i played it in church. I probably sounded pretty bad but as the weeks passed i began to fit in. I owe a lot to gospel music as i learned to improvise from the very start in church .                   

JD - did your father enjoy the waltz?
 
DM - Yes, he was in the navy during WW2 so he learned to sing and play songs like Waltzing Matilda. When I dedicate a song to him it its always a waltz, and of course his first name was Walter.
 
JD - nowadays your music incorporates latin-american percussion and  voices how did it influence your music?

DM - I have always had a strong sense of rhythm as a result of playing with great drummers especially Eddie Blackwell and Andrew Cyrille. Their subdivisions are very complex. Since moving to Paris I have had the opportunity to work with percussionists from Guadeloupe,  Senegal and other parts of Africa and Cuba. Afro-Cuban music has enhanced my arranging skills immensely having recorded several discs down there. As to the influences of the voices I recently completed my first opera in collaboration with Amiri Baraka in which learn a great deal about. the vastness and the precision of the human voice            
 
JD - was Coltrane a big influence on you?

DM - Not in my early years because I was always a Rollins man. There were many players that were crazy about John and I didn't want to sound like them . Finally most of them hit the Coltrane Wall and lost their own identity, there is only one TRANE. One of my last octet recordings is some research of Giant Steps where i orchestrated his solo as I had done with Paul Gonsalves.This approach deemed most successful rather than trying to copy a genius, anybody can do that.
 
JD - and Ornette's work?

DM - i met Ornette in San Francisco in 73 with James Ulmer and Billy Higgins. His harmelodic concept has always opened doors for me. I recently had seen him in New York at the Jazz Standard while i was performing with Bobby Bradford who has always been my mentor and was the cornetist on science fiction. The Texas connection looms very large bin California. Ornette is a true original who epitomizes the wit a soulfulness of contemporary jazz.
 
JD - and Hawkins or Webster and Byas?

DM - the tenor saxophone became popular by Hawkins. Webster brought the romanticism element to the horn and Don Byas showed us another way of playing the tenor that was unlike anyone before him.
 
JD - your music career is divided between the US and Europe - what are the advantages to spending your time on both sides of the Atlantic?

DM - i get the distinct advantage of being a citizen of the world. i don't have to conform to or be put in a box in terms of the music that i play. My objective is to play my own music and develop my craft as a composer. In Paris i have time to accomplish that  

JD - what defines Jazz besides the Improvisation aspect of it?

DM -jazz is a music created by the descendents of slaves brought to the United States against their will and forced to assimilate into a hostile environment thus forcing them to incorporate and utilize all of the cultural and religious material around them. As Africans in a unfamiliar place and in languages different from one another, these incredibly adaptable people immolated their captors, learned their folk songs, studied their bibles and religion, used their harmony and created what we now know as jazz and then invited everyone else to play it.
 
JD - what makes you love Portugal and its people?

DM - they love to cook great food and have a good time. Their sense of humour is always enchanting. Their fado hits a part of my heart and the women are easy on the eyes.
 
JD - what European jazz musicians do you like to hear?

DM - i like Toots Thielemans, Zé Eduardo and his drummer Sonia little bee, they really played well on our concert in Faro.
 
JD - when and why do you choose the bass clarinet?

DM - my brother played the clarinet when we were kids. After he quit i got it took a few lessons and put it down. When i was in New York as a wedding present James Newton gave me his bass clarinet, i think i was about 22.

JD - do you listen to classical music? which composers?

DM - i studied classical music in college at Pomona with the Israeli composer Karl Kohn, his wife Marguerite taught me Bela Bartok Microcosm's as well as Faure on flute. i studied many classical composers like Ravel, Messian, Stravinsky, Mahler, and many more as well as Ellington, Oliver Nelson and Julius Hemphill. To me a great composer can come in any style of music like Stevie Wonder who i met in Ghana. I couldn't believe he knew who I was.
 
JD - do you remember Dick Wilson tenor solos?
 
DM - I'm sorry i don't recall him.
 
JD - is Blues music important in your work?

DM - yes the blues is a feeling that i cannot get rid of.
 
JD - do you think Portuguese audiences have a good knowledge of what jazz music is?

DM - yes thanks to people like you who constantly educate new listeners on programs like 5 minutes of jazz, i actually hear it in my car every time i drive in Portugal, bravo.
 
JD - what is the importance of Ayler for you? and for the history of jazz?

DM - Ayler freed the expression of the tenor sax, he developed the multiphonic into jazz nomenclature and said that music is the healing force of the universe
 
JD - the importance of Obama being the U.S. President?

DM - this is the most important thing since the twin towers were attacked. Obama saved wall street and will eventually convince banks to make loans more accessibly available to second mortgage seekers and new home owners as well as beginning a new era of health care in America, but of course the opposition be it republicans and even some democrats will never give him the credit that he deserves because he is a visionary, a blackman, and brilliant.

JD - why jazz is not known in Africa?

DM - jazz is only at the dawn of its rise in Africa because more jazz musicians need to collaborate with Africans in different African nations. We have made many dedications to the spirit of our ancestors but have we invested any musical education into these nations that would lead us to believe that the next Coltrane will come from Africa. Until there as many jazz schools in Africa as there are in Europe or the US. Can we expect jazz to be known, but there is a lot of raw talent there, for sure.
 
JD - have you ever felt racism in the US or Europe?

DM - yes on both continents, everyday. 

JD - is Jazz the Great Black Music?

DM -it is definitely one of them.
 
JD - what is your favourite jazz standard and why?

DM - Body and Soul because Hawkins made it a must play for anyone who wants to be  part of the true tenor tradition of jazz.
 
JD - did Jazz stop with Trane and Miles's death?
 
DM - No. We are Tranes children, Dukes children, Birds, Ella, Louis, Colemans Hawkins, Cecils, Rollins, Monk, Mingus and James P Johnsons children, we cant let them down, they are listening.
 
JD - thank you mr. David Murray