Marta Blažanović was writing her thesis about Berlin’s improvised music scene. In January 2009, as a preface to a larger face-to-face interview, she sent me these few introductory questions via e-mail.
January 16th, 2009:
I would like to start by asking you to tell me how you’ve got into music, when, why, and with what instrument?
I started studying and playing the drums at the age of 14. The reason was that my best friends at that time wanted to form a rock band and they needed a drummer.
I played rock music for roughly 3 years and then I switched to jazz. I played standards for a couple of years and then I moved onto avant-garde and free jazz. Then I discovered European free improvisation through a friend of mine who was always much more curious about music than me (Gabriel Paiuk). We played together since I started playing jazz, and then we moved onto free improvisation together. The scene in South America was very small (even smaller than in Europe) and our only reference point was a few CDs. We didn’t even have videos. It took us a few years to be able to tour and see other people improvising in real life.
Who were your first influences, how did your music develop before you came to Berlin, when, why?
I was influenced not only by the music I was listening to, but also of course by the books I was reading, my friends, my teachers, and my life in general. If you’re asking only about musical influences, the list would be too long and of little relevance, because I guess it’s about “how” you listen and not about “what” you listen to. However, just to mention a few names: Thelonious Monk, Ed Blackwell, Mel Lewis, Frank Sinatra, Carlos Gardel, Enrique Norris, Morton Feldman, Freddy King, Ringo Star, Steve Lacy, Derek Bailey... whatever, but I really think listing names means nothing.
How come you came to Berlin?
I came to Berlin for a variety of reasons. In 2004, I felt that I had reached a plateau in Buenos Aires. I felt that I didn’t have people to play with any more. On top of this, I never liked the way the people relate to each other in Buenos Aires. Over there everything is based on conflict and I cannot relate to that. It’s not that I specifically decided to come to Berlin, but that I escaped from Buenos Aires. I chose Berlin because you cannot find another city in Europe that is central and affordable at the same time. I knew the city from before and I liked it. The music people were playing here was interesting. Nevertheless, it took me too long to fill all the legal requirements to be able to move (they make it very difficult for people coming from the third world, so I had to look for alternative ways). Once I finally managed to establish myself in Berlin, I was not playing music anymore, the city had changed a lot, and the interesting things that had been happening in the music scene where not there anymore. Anyway, for more than a year I kept working with the musicians in the improvised music scene as a dancer and performer. Now it’s not clear if I will continue doing it.
What’s the story of “alberto ukebana”?
About “alberto ukebana”: I decided to open a space (like a small theater) because I was tired of asking for permission every time I wanted to present my work. “alberto ukebana” is no one. I called the space like that because I wanted to avoid any “cool” or pretentious name. The name is not even cool in the way that “what is not cool is cool”. It’s just not cool, it’s ridiculous; and I looked for this because I have fun listening to certain people when they are forced to say something ridiculous. I also wanted to avoid having people using the space just to write down one more line in their CV (I guess no one can be proud about doing a project in a place called “alberto ukebana”).
While the room was working out ok, my needs changed, as well as and my ideas about what I wanted to do artistically. I understood that I was not going to need the room any longer, so after less than a year I decided to close it. The decision was also influenced by the fact that I was not happy about what the rest of the people were presenting or wanted to present in the room. Suddenly I found myself working on projects I didn’t believe in. However, the experience was very good for me because it made me understand both what I want and what are the people doing better.
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January 16th, 2009:
How has the city changed in the last five years? What interesting things were happening and when did they stop?
The first time I came to Berlin was in 2001. The Eastern part of the city still looked quite abandoned. This situation attracted different kinds of people and events, enabled by a lack of social control, which is always conducive to creativity. Nowadays you can still feel this in some little parts of the city, but Berlin is not what it was. This is part of East Berlin’s chaotic transformation into a capitalist city.
In those days, within the free improvised music scene, it was possible to see how a small group of musicians – the group Phosphor, as well as some others – was developing new ideas that lead to innovative music. Improvised music was until then more “expressive,” based mainly on developing flows and constant mutual reaction. During the late 90s, in Berlin and a couple of other cities, the improvised music found a new way. Musicians were emphasizing silence and low dynamics, and the music was based more on events than on flows. The interaction among musicians, which was until then mainly based on immediate reactions, shifted towards constructivism. Musicians started to think of their material as playing a specific function in each moment of the piece. This was a departure from a more traditional mode of improvisation, in which musicians played counterpoints and to a certain degree still used jazz-based instrumental functions and timbres. In those days, one felt something new was happening, and could sense an intensity of thought. This doesn’t mean that all the concerts or CDs released were good. A good concert or a good CD is always rare. Nevertheless, the energy of being there, witnessing something new was very intense, regardless of whether or not the concerts failed. These failures had a sense and a purpose.
This innovative phase progressively ended (sometime between 2002 and 2004, though it’s not possible to name an exact time), and the music established itself within these new elements. This way of playing informed a “style” and became a formula. This intense feeling of experiencing the birth of something new was not present in concerts anymore. Only people new to the scene– and most typically new to Berlin– were excited to see something that they had been told was new and original. This still happens and it’s kind of funny to see. However, what people were playing had lost its vibrancy. Gradually, many of the musicians that had participated in this new way of playing, moved away from it and started exploring other material. From my point of view, these actions have not yet had any strong effects or results. Other musicians are still copying this way of playing and some others are even going back to a more hectic way of improvising. This style has always been more appreciated by the audience, (probably because it’s closer to jazz and popular music, more frenetic and active in its appearance, which makes it easier to grasp). Since this period in the late 90s, I haven’t witnessed another moment of collective innovation in Berlin. What´s also noteworthy about this period is that since then improvisation, as a practice, has become more widely adopted by musicians. More people are improvising now than before (most of them use electronic media). Despite this increase in participants, one cannot really say that the music produced over the past several years has been very interesting.