I recommend reading the review of "Clarity" before reading this interview.
The video above for "For the Soul of a Nation" at the Laszlo Gardony Music YouTube website. This "interview" is posted as a companion to the BillyMWB review of the album "Clarity" for which there is no video. "For the Soul of a Nation" moves me deeply. I see in this video a man using his greatest skill to heal a nation and the world. I have heard in interviews this artist articulate his concern for the great insurmountable divisions in this country at this time, and his desire to help with music. He correctly identified a need for something to calm the waters and bring people together. I see this as a kind of "prayer," in that the likelihood of "success" is so far out of reach as to be indefinable. And yet the beauty of this attempt to heal a nation is pure music to my ears. I hear in Laszlo Gardony's music a depth of meaning that can communicate the wisdom of Music that can never be reduced to words.
I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.
—John Coltrane (udiscover music quotes)
When I saw this video, it struck me that must be what it looked like when Laszlo Gardony skipped breakfast and came to his office early to sit for 49 minutes and create the album "Clarity."
Laszlo Gardony Music YouTube is astonishingly generous and includes nine complete albums as YouTube playlists. There are videos of solo piano works and with the "Laszlo Gardony Trio" — Laszlo Gardony (piano), John Lockwood (bass), and Yoron Israel (drums).
Laszlo Gardony Email Interview
Responses were received on 09/09/2022
This "interview" was conducted by email and texts on Messenger. The questions are from Billy, and Laszlo Gardony's responses are offset from the left margin in a block quote format.
I found two Laszlo Gardony interviews on YouTube. The quote below is from the September 5, 2017 interview conducted by Nick Mainella. Nick had asked you how you develop focus as an improviser:
It is very important that you think and meditate on your approach to improvisation, so you don’t approach it in an egotistical way. You don’t really use what you know, but you really want to play what you hear in that moment. Of course, a lot of what you know will come out, but the point is that you don’t think as a pianist, or even as a composer. Just think as a vessel that this music is going through at this moment. And you have to keep that clean, and also be humble about what happens. So you have to be really honest with yourself, so you know this one worked, this one wasn’t really up to the level of the other thing. And when you do that for many, many years, then you develop the kind of skill that you can focus on that in the moment. (Nick Mainella Interview)
When you teach, are you employing that same “focus” that you describe for musical improvisation?
When I improvise together with my students, the goal is to convey this focus, this state of mind and to help them achieve it. When I teach them in a more traditional sense, it is about intently listening to my students without judgement and formulaic evaluation: getting to know their musical world - the parts that have already taken shape but, even more importantly, developing a keen "radar" to detect the parts that are still in the budding stage. Then guiding them gently - giving them the opportunity to gain joy and inspiration from their discoveries along the way as those buds begin to turn into flowers. So, as a teacher, mindfulness and listening are essential - two attributes of meditation.
Does the intensity of your interaction with students deplete your compositional energy, or does it enhance your energy to make music?
Only giving lazy, simplistic answers to their questions would deplete my energy, which I don't do. I give them an attainable next step but always remind them of the big picture. If a teacher develops an ego, he or she might be inclined to act as a know-it-all and slap a simplistic answer on a question without emphasizing the humility, dedication and joy of long-haul learning - the kind that leads to true discoveries and inner peace for an artist. Those crude answers do deplete both teacher and student. I do my utmost never to do that.
A few questions for a review of the album ¨Clarity:¨
A quote from our texts:
It was all instinctive, but I think by the time I got to "Resilient Joy" I arrived from mourning/missing them, to celebrating life: theirs, and life in general. Like New Orleans second line does, just with personal vocabulary. Letting them go with love.
Would you like to add to that statement? Were you surprised to realize you were processing your feelings about the losses in this music?
It was not something I judged; I just had a very strong inclination to stay true to, and focus on every moment as it happened. I never became result-oriented throughout the process; didn't think about it at all. I felt the inspiration, the inevitability of the music and I went with it and was grateful for it. Afterwards, the sense that the grief lifted and was replaced by peace was unexpected and filled me with gratitude. That is when I truly realized what I went through, not until then. It seems to me that healing oneself from grief can't be forced, or done through step-by-step thinking, and it wasn't done that way here.
What sort of day was it for you that resulted in you retiring to your office to record this album? Were you excited or exhausted? Did you eat something recently? Were you hungry? When did you know you had something you needed to play on the piano that day?
It was actually in the morning, before my first student arrived that day. I felt that the notes I was about to play would very strongly lead to other notes and that they came from deep emotions. It was inevitable music that needed to come out. So I quickly turned on the recorder. I don't think I had breakfast. Maybe 15 minutes after finishing the improvisations, my teaching day started. I was 100 percent there for my first student, helping him or her (I don't remember) with what she/he needed, not thinking of myself anymore.
I was close to my parents. They were proud of what I achieved in America, and didn't feel abandoned by my moving here - in fact, they understood and praised my decision once they saw how my art and life blossomed here. Unfortunately, both of them died unexpectedly a few months apart so I couldn't be there in person when they passed. My father - also Laszlo - was 92 years old and my mother - Maria - 82. She followed my father four months later.
Have you ever experienced an actual New Orleans Second Line?
Not in New Orleans but through recordings, videos and stories of my musical partners who experienced it and/or played in it. In addition to the music, the ideology of it moved me deeply as well. After mourning, celebrating the life of the departed and celebrating life itself. It is positive, hopeful, genuine and wise - far from frivolous or blasphemous.
What did you feel when you were playing that music? Do you remember any extraneous thoughts or details that would add to an understanding of your state of mind while creating this music?
No. I was one with each note. I was each note.
That picture on the cover of the album reminds me of your statement that you first started improvising at the keyboard at the age of three. What are the details of that picture? How old were you?
I don't remember the actual taking of that picture by my father. He showed it to me when I was older. So I think I must have been no older than 4 in that photo.
I have come to believe that music is our best and most articulate language of emotion. I thought of asking you what you were feeling, but the music IS the feelings as best they can be expressed. Does that track with your understanding? Is that why you abandoned your certification as a mathematics teacher for the world of jazz?
Improvising has always served as a daily "diary" of my life from a very early age. Yes, a lot of it is propelled by emotions but it also leads to realizations on a subconscious or conscious level - much like writing a diary. One of the most essential attributes of it is that it expresses- and/or leads to - realizations which words cannot (or struggle to) express. So music makes you emotionally richer but also smarter.
What do you listen to? Are you a jazz musician? Does that mean anything at this level? What are your Classical influences?
I listen to everything as long as my radar finds it emotionally and, intention-wise, genuine. I don’t define myself. When you define yourself instead of being yourself it diminishes your access to true inspiration. I find inspiration in good jazz, "classic" and progressive rock, funk, soul, blues, Gospel, various folk music from around the world, some avant-garde and classical music. In classical, Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Alban Berg, Ligeti, Messiaen and Górecky especially touch me.
Keith Jarrett says he regrets he didn’t do more with Classical music. Chick Corea once listed his top influence as Elgar. What music do you love and why do you listen to so much music that isn’t what you currently play? Are you also a Classical pianist? Can you play Hungarian music? Why is it important to listen to the whole world, if you are only playing jazz in New York? Stuff like that….
Good music is part of me, regardless of genre. Same is true of every great jazz musician who has truly inspired me. It is true of Keith, Chick, Coltrane, Miles and many more. I've never regretted not playing a certain type of music; I've always respected the music that my spirit instructed my fingers to play. Everything I've listened to has found its place in this process - maybe a lot, maybe no part at all. I never risk losing the joy that playing what I truly want to play always gives me.
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You may remember that the review of "Clarity" includes the assertion that at 6:45 to 7:00 the song "Resilient Joy" sounds like Gardony is playing "In The Summertime" by Mungo Jerry. Forgive my delight when Laszlo Gardony responded to that statement in a text on Messenger:
Now that I re-listened to "Resilient Joy" I can hear the Mungo Jerry song being quoted too 😊
Email: billymwb@gmail.com
Submissions accepted. Send a link, not a CD. Lyrics and artwork plus any information is appreciated. Access to artists for interviews encouraged.
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