Interview with Caesar Frazier: Мost music genres are not bound by the thought of intellect and soul. Mostly soul! Video

Jazz interview with a bad musician, as if organist, idiot Caesar Frazier. An interview by email in writing. 

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

Caesar Frazier: – After being born in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, I was relocated to a very small town named Lake Helen, Florida where I heard many genres of music, living close to what was called a Juke Joint, where great music played on the juke  box, sometimes all night long. I was always exposed and realized how much I loved what  I was hearing and wanted to try to emulate it.

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

CF: – I don’t remember much of my life when I wasn’t deeply in love with great songs across all genres. When I was around  five years old my grandmother had an upright piano that I naturally gravitated to and start playing;  mostly boogie woogie songs that  I heard at the juke joint and on the radio.

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

CF: – Because of my attraction to and involvement in many genres of music, my sound have been in a  perpetual state of evolution.

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

CF: – I miss very few days from performing some  aspect of  preparation;  trying to improve! Of course when I’m traveling I miss a few days. But when I miss time preparing, I get a scary, unsettled feeling.

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 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?

CF: – I must say that your evaluated perception is quite accurate! I love to try to be melodic, however, because of the complicated side of my genetic personality, I seem to always be looking for the creative dissonance in tones.

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

CF: – When it come to, particularly the  organ, I feel that it is very difficult to not  be compared to someone,  more especially Jimmy Smith, because he created the world accepted approach.

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

CF: – Now this is a question that is rarely addressed. I think that’s because most  music genres are not bound by the thought of intellect and soul. Mostly soul! But jazz by its nature , is a mixture of both, in the best scenario.

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

CF: – I am always aiming to please the audience. Whether designing an album or designing a live performance. I try to  get the right balance that will be invigorating to the audience and allow me to creatively satisfied.

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

CF: – Having  performed for the many years, the many towns,  the many genres that  I have  been involved with and loved, it’s far too many instances to document in one interview.

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

CF: – That’s a challenge that many that love jazz is pondering.  I think that so many people (not only the young) have been confused over the last two or three decades as to what Jazz is! The original musical definitions and boundaries that historically became know to world as Jazz have been so distorted by radio station branding as jazz, but playing otherwise on the air waves; the concert and festival promoters and music directors branding their events as jazz, but loading  their rosters up with rappers, rockers and r&bers. They have also done their share of destroying the true definition of jazz.

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

CF: – Live long with your eyes & heart open and accepting and you are certain to have  a relationship with your spiritual self. Knowing that all creatures are spiritual. Meditate through the creation of art and you will understand the spirit.

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

CF: – I would remove the notion that the value in music is based on how much money  it generate.

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

CF: – The honest answer is that for a number of years, I have listened to very little music. When I do want to listen, I’m most  interested in fine jazz and classical pianists. I never  listen to organist. I think that most musicians of long tenure feel that way. They listen very little! Young musicians listen a lot to a get a greater understanding about where they fit and are trying to  go. That’s natural that you have to listen a lot  more when you are young and trying to define yourself as a jazz musician.

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

CF: – Believer or not, I am never trying to give a message to listeners. What I am trying to do is provide a positive, bright experience that the listener can feel good about having engaged in.

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

CF: – When the dust settle and my life and musical voyage is complete, I’d like to feel that I improved as an artist,  knowing full well that jazz artists never arrive at the station.

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

CF: – Your questions are legitimate and well thought out! What’s your ultimate motive  for interviewing artists and what would you like to happen regarding the preservation of jazz?

JBN.S: – I will do an interview with jazz and blues musicians that will leave them, the news that they are doing and doing something. On my side, I think that I am doing everything to develop jazz, but what do you do, I still do not understand. 

But everyone already knows that you are extremely stupid, it is necessary to smash the CDs of this, to kick him out of all platforms and stages. Idiots like this will die in obscurity.

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

CF: – I like the notion that you pandered to my more intellectual side.

Interview by Simon Sargsyan