Interview with Gian Correa։ The little with soul is already a lot։ Video

Jazz interview with jazz guitarist Gian Correa. An interview by email in writing. 

JazzBluesNews.com: – Before we jump into anything historical, can you tell us about what we can expect musically this evening?

Gian Correa։ – I was born in Caconde, a small town in the interior of São Paulo, but I grew up in the capital. My father’s family had some musicians. My father always loved music, and although he didn’t know how to play it, he had a good ear and took the melody of some choros in the cavaquinho so he could teach me. He spent the whole night listening to vinyl records, the next day he would teach me the song and at the weekend he would take me to practice in some “roda de choro” in São Paulo.

JBN: – How has your sound evolved over time? What have you been doing to find and develop your own sound?

GC: – I’ve always really liked the tradition of Brazilian music, at the same time I got to know contemporary sounds from the world and fell in love, like jazz and classical music. I’ve been looking for a long time for something challenging in music, mixes that would impress, at this stage my heart searches for something natural, something that intertwines my soul with the listener’s soul.

JBN: – What routine practices or exercises have you developed to maintain and improve your current musical proficiency, in terms of both rhythm and harmony?

GC: – I like to compose things that transpose my harmonic and rhythmic knowledge. Then I start playing it daily, until I’m fluent.

JBN: – How do you keep stray, or random, musical influences from diverting you from what you’re doing?

GC: – I don’t worry about that, we’re in the 21st century, they’ve done a lot, we’re going to bump into them and that’s okay.

JBN: – How do you prepare for your recordings and performances to help you maintain both spiritual and musical stamina?

GC: – Brazilian music is made to celebrate things, to celebrate friendship, existence, an important date. I like to prepare myself individually as every instrumentalist should, but I love being able to be with friends, whether it’s rehearsing or having a beer and talking about life. I feel that when we are close and in tune it completely reverberates in the performances and consequently in the final result of the song.

There could be talk or advertising about your CD

JBN: – In your opinion, what’s the balance in music between intellect and soul?

GC: – The little with soul is already a lot.

JBN: – There’s a two-way relationship between audience and artist; are you okay with delivering people the emotion they long for?

GC: – More and more I have given much importance to exchanges. And for me the main exchange in music is between the musician and the story. It’s impossible not to think about what the public, music lovers in human history, will feel.

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

GC: – I think the basics, that youth need to know jazz and jazz needs to know today’s youth. Here in Brazil, access to education and culture is for few. These times I had quick contact with a 25-year-old girl who liked the sound I was playing, she said: what a peaceful, relaxing sound, when I said it was jazz she said she had never heard of it.

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

Probably he is not alive, but crawling because he did not answer the question.

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

GC: – Bring quality music to children. Every kind of music made with care is love, teaching them about it.

JBN: – Whom do you find yourself listening to these days?

GC: – Tom Jobim, Dino 7 cordas, Raphael Rabello, Shai Maestro, Allain Perez, Jim McNeely, Zeca Pagodinho, João Nogueira, Mestre Marçal Pixinguinha, Jacob do Bandolim, Cainã Cavalcante, Trio Corrente and many others.

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

GC: – My only goal with music is to be able to change my paths, my directions and my life goals alongside it. No specific direction from where or why to arrive.

JBN: – Let’s take a trip with a time machine: where and why would you really want to go?

A guitarist has no dreams, no imagination.

JBN: – So far, it’s been me asking you questions, now may I have a question from yourself…

GC: – What major changes in the music business would you like to see happen over the next 10 or 20 years?

JBN: – I would like that not after 10 or 20 years, but from 2023, Jazz rap and non-quality musicians, especially in jazz, would disappear.

JBN: – At the bottom line, what are your expectations from our interview?

GC: – I hope to collaborate with this project, so that more musicians from other countries can have access to the vision of a Brazilian musician.

Interview by Simon Sargsyan