Interview with pianist Simon Bolzinger. An interview by email in writing. 

JazzBluesNews.com: – First, let’s start out with where you grew up, and what got you interested in music.  How exactly did your adventure take off? 

Simon Bolzinger: – Hello everybody! Well, I grew up in a family of musicians, my mother directed the choir of the university of Strasbourg, and all my brothers and sisters were practicing music at home. I began studying piano at 7 years old, and began composing at 14. As I moved in Caracas, Venezuela, for a scientific mission, I discovered traditional music and also a huge presence of the music in the way of living in South America. The scene and the composition became my passion.

OUR US/EU Jazz and Blues Festivals 2023

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

SB: – I first learned to play classical music as a child. Then jazz, Brazilian music, venezuelien traditional music and salsa music, during 15 years. In 2010 I realized that my own sound was a mix of all these influences and I began to develop it in jazz forms as quartet, trio and solo.

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

SB: – I practice piano every day and maintain permanent link with the scene and the composition. I don’t have any routine, what I am studying depends on the performances I have to prepare.
I’ve created specifics exercises for my pupils who want to learn piano salsa.

JBN: – Have you changed through the years? Any charges or overall evolution? And if so why?

SB: – Of course, because of the new styles and rhythms I discover each year and that I integrate on my way of playing and writing. To meet with other musicians has made me change a lot also, especially practicing traditional music from south America and Caribbean.

There could be talk or advertising about your CD

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

SB: – It depends on who is listening to it, and also on the context in which you’re listening. When you listen to the music, it refers to your own experience of living, and it can active either intellectual pleasure , or deep emotions from old memories, or spiritual extasis… there is no fixed balance, even for one single song for one single listener.

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

SB: – Of course yes! In fact, that’s the job of the artist, I guess.

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

SB: – I think that jazz can be taught with any kind of tunes. I don’t need to use a standard tune to teach. The interest comes from the pleasure. I always ask the pupil what he would like to play. It can be a standard, because some standard are really beautiful and full of interest ; but it can be anything else.

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

SB: – I would say that the music is life. My music is my life; your music is your life. We can share the same music as we share a part of our lifes. Coltrane’s life was very spiritual, his life was following his spirit, and so his music, maybe.

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

SB: – The economic system: musician should be able to live of their music, without depending on a rich sponsor or a major company.

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

SB: – Monty Alexander, Omar Sosa, Erik Truffaz …

OUR US/EU Jazz and Blues Festivals 2023

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

SB: – New York, 50ies, to know young Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans.

JBN: – Do You like our questions? 

SB: – Yes, your questions are fun ! and about essential points for the musicians.

JBN: – But you’re still a very unsuccessful musician and person, you can’t use a free interview for your own advertising, it’s immoral.

Interview by Simon Sarg

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