Interview with Eden Bareket: The intellect so it‘s a useful tool to express your soul: Video

Jazz interview with jazz baritone saxophonist Eden Bareket. An interview by email in writing. 

JazzBluesNews.Space: – First let’s start with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music?

Eden Bareket: – I was born in Buenos Aires, but my family moved to Israel a year later so I was raised in a small town called Hod-Hasharon. I was always attracted to music and would pretend to play all kind of imaginary musical instruments.  When I was 9 I wanted to learn how to play the saxophone, so my parents rented an alto.

JBN.S: – What got you interested in picking up the saxophon? What teacher or teachers helped you progress to the level of playing you have today? What made you choose the saxophon?

EB: – I think I chose the sax becasue my dad told me he played it once as a kid so I was curious. I went through many teachers in my first years, some were good some not so much… Around age 15 someone told me about Erez Bar-Noy who was teaching at the conservatory in Tel-Aviv. Luckily enough he lived close to me and I was able to start studying with him. After our first lesson he told me I was the most difficult student he’d ever had, because I kept questioning everything he said, but he didn’t give up on me and the following year I started studying with him at the conservatory in Tel-Aviv. That’s where I met the rest of the teachers that influenced me the most, like Yuval Cohen and Amit Golan. I switched to Baritone sax at 16. My high school music teacher couldn’t find anyone that wanted to play the bari for his saxophone quartet so he tried to convince me, he brought the bari to my school for me to try, and I really liked it. So i joined the quartet and got a bari for free for the year. By the end of that year I was playing mostly bari but I had to give the horn back. So I bought my own horn and I’ve been playing that one ever since.

JBN.S: – How did your sound evolve over time? What did you do to find and develop your sound?

EB: – The thing is I never actually liked listening to bari players so much, I just liked playing it. So I think not being influenced by the tradition of that horn allowed me to play it a bit differently. Another big influence was a book recommended to me by a great sax player named Asaf Yuria, it’s called Top-tones by Sigurd Rascher. Once I got into overtones and altissimo I was fascinated by it and I think those are some of the best exercises for developing your sound.

JBN.S: – What practice routine or exercise have you developed to maintain and improve your current musical ability especially pertaining to rhythm?

EB: – I do all the usual stuff like scales and arpeggios. Early on when I was getting serious, one of my teachers was a great trombonist Avi Leibovich, told me I could always add a rhythmic aspect to any exercise, just by using the metronome more creatively, so if I play a pattern or a song I put the metronome at different places in the bar, or different groupings. That way you could work on two things at once. Later on when I moved to New-York I took a lesson with Ari Hoenig, and I saw how deep this rabbit hole can go. It can be very inspiring and scary at the same time to see someone who is that good at something you’re trying to learn.

JBN.S: – Which harmonies and harmonic patterns do you prefer now? You’re playing is very sensitive, deft, it’s smooth, and I’d say you drift more toward harmony than dissonance. There is some dissonance there, but you use it judiciously. Is that a conscious decision or again, is it just an output of what goes in?

EB: – I’m just being honest with myself and playing the harmonies that I really like hearing. Harmony can be very emotional, and some of the more dissonant harmonies just don’t fit with the kind of emotion I try to convey.

JBN.S: – How to prevent disparate influences from coloring what you’re doing?

EB: – I stopped transcribing solos for a long time because of that. There are a few artists I stopped listening to for a while because I felt they were influencing me too much. Eventually everything is influencing my music. But I’m very critical of my own music, and if it sounds like an imitation of something else, I really try to get that out of my system and put myself in a place where I have to come up with my own ideas.

JBN.S: – What’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?

EB: – You want to train your intellect so it‘s a useful tool to express your soul.

JBN.S: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; you’re okay with giving the people what they want?

EB: – Yes I’m ok with that, I think everyone just want to feel connection. But people have different ways of getting there. Aa an artist I want to show connection in new places and with new forms.

JBN.S: – Please any memories from gigs, jams, open acts and studio sessions which you’d like to share with us?

EB: – My first gig was at an open stage night when I was 14, we played Billy Cobham tunes. My brother was also in that band, so I guess I can we’ve been performing together for more than half our lives.

JBN.S: – How can we get young people interested in jazz when most of the standard tunes are half a century old?

EB: – First of all you can record your versions of newer songs, I did a Peter Gabriel song on my first album. And a lot of people are doing that. I think young people like things that break the old rules and say it like it is, which is the spirit of Jazz.

JBN.S: – John Coltrane said that music was his spirit. How do you understand the spirit and the meaning of life?

EB: – It’s about connection, a group of people feeling the same beat, same harmony, sharing an experience. Music really only exists in our minds, a group of people listening to music is like a group of people having the same dream at the same time together.

JBN.S: – If you could change one thing in the musical world and it would become a reality, what would that be?

EB: – I’d have people make $0.5 for each play or stream on all the digital platforms.

JBN.S: – Who do you find yourself listening to these days?

EB: – Looking at the last few albums I listened to… Doudou Ndiaye Rose, Bach, Duke Ellington, Chaka Khan, Nusrat Fateh ali Khan, Caetano Veloso, Wayne Shorter, Lester Young, Oscar Peterson, Nick Drake. I guess it changes all the time, but these were the recent ones.

JBN.S: – What is the message you choose to bring through your music?

EB: – That it’s ok to be who you are. Each person has a unique experience and whole universe inside of them. We’re totally alone in a sense, but we can connect and have a shared experience of life.

JBN.S: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really wanna go?

EB: – I’d Like to see some extinct animals like the Dinosaurus or the Megatherium.

JBN.S: – I have been asking you so far, now may I have a question from yourself…

EB: – If you could bring three people back to life who would they be?

JBN.S: – Thank you for answers. My father and two friends.

JBN.S: – So putting that all together, how are you able to harness that now?

EB: – I feel confident I chose to do what I love with my life.

Interview by Simon Sargsyan