PACHI TAPIZ: Can you tell us about your earliest musical memories?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I wanted to be a pop singer since I was 5 years old, so I just passed my time in front of the mirror singing famous Italian songs.
PACHI TAPIZ: When did you begin to listen jazz?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I was 11 years old; it was a record by Charlie Parker; but I already listened to (and tried to play) some ragtime.
PACHI TAPIZ: Why did you choose piano?
STEFANO BOLLANI: By chance. We had a keyboard home. And I started having lessons at the age of 6.
PACHI TAPIZ: In jazz there’s a main concept: the tradition. What means tradition for you? Who are the musicians and what music are in “your” tradition?
STEFANO BOLLANI: “Tradition” is the history of this music. It’s a big and great history; in only 100 years we had a lot of revolutions and innovations. To study them is a necessary point of departure to build something else.
PACHI TAPIZ: Who are your all-time favourite piano players?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I have too many favourite piano players: from Bill Evans to Art Tatum, from Martial Solal to Keith Jarrett. I do think that piano players from the beginning of the century until the fifties (let’s say, from Teddy Wilson to Hampton Hawes) built the language and the grammar we’re still using.
© Matthias Creutziger
PACHI TAPIZ: Can you tell us about some interesting musicians playing music just now?
STEFANO BOLLANI: There are a lot, and everywhere in the world. I love all the “honest” musicians, simply trying to play good music and not demonstrating they are the best. Some names? Egberto Gismonti, Brad Mehldau, The Bad Plus….
Stefano Bollani - Piano Solo (ECM 1964)
PACHI TAPIZ: Let’s begin with your last recording in ECM: you played music from Prokofiev, Brian Wilson (the Beach Boys), a tango, an old time classic from ragtime as Maple Leaf Rag, you also played do you know what it means to miss New Orleans… Why did you choose that so many different themes?
STEFANO BOLLANI: Simply, I don’t think the repertoire is so important. What matters is THE WAY you play, not WHAT you play. So I chose some songs that could stimulate me in creating something different. This doesn’t mean they are my favourite songs; on the opposite side, as an example, I’m in love with Billy Joel - as a listener - but I rarely play something by him because I don’t see what I could build starting from his compositions.
Stefano Bollani Quintet - I Visionari (Label Bleu
LBLC 6695/96)
PACHI TAPIZ: You’ve just also released a double CD on Label Bleu. Why did you choose to call it I Visionari?
STEFANO BOLLANI: That name is coming from the first three compositions I wrote for them, two years ago: “Visione numero uno”, “... due” and “... tre”. And I liked the idea of “talking” about “visionari”, people who had visions. Not necessarily good visions… I mean that you can think of Jesus Christ or Gandhi but also of Hitler. I’m just pointing on the power of imagination. We’re not using it, recently. We’re just standing and watching what happens in the world, pretending we understand.
PACHI TAPIZ: l Visionari could have been a single CD for a jazz quintet… but in the middle of this recording (at the end of the first CD, at the beginning of the second one) some guest musicians appear (Mark Feldman on violin, Petra Magoni singing…) and everything changes… you played some traditional and popular songs, a jazz standard (“Alone Together”)… Why is this a double CD? What’s your purpose on doing this that way?
STEFANO BOLLANI: This is the CD of a band. Everybody brought his own experience; so did the guests. And we needed more space to let everybody be himself and say something. That’s why it’s a double CD and that’s why the repertoire and the way to treat it is so various. What keeps everything united - I hope - is the sound of the band.
PACHI TAPIZ: Can you talk to us about the time you played with Enrico Rava? What it means to you?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I’m still playing a lot as a duo with Rava. We started in 1996 and since then we recorded 15 records and played all around the world in different settings. I owe him so much; when I met him I was the keyboard player for a famous Italian pop singer called Jovanotti. He helped me starting my career as a soloist. I met all the important people of my musical life through him.
Enrico Rava - Stefano Bollani - Montreal Diary B (Label Bleu
LBLC 6645)
PACHI TAPIZ: In Montreal Diary you played songs from Miles Davis songbook. Can you tell us about your creative approach to that repertory?
STEFANO BOLLANI: That was a project, the encounter between Rava and Fresu, that started on Chet’s repertoire. It should have been just for two concerts, so nobody really prepared any arrangements. We just started playing and having fun. And the band (with Pietropaoli, Gatto and me) kept on having concerts (and two records) for three years.
Stefano Bollani - Concertone (Label Bleu LBLC 6666)
PACHI TAPIZ: Are you planning to record some other recording with orchestra? Are you satisfied with Concertone? If it could be possible, you’ll record it the same way as you did?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I don’t have plans to record with a symphonic orchestra by now. I’m satisfied about the sound and the musical result of that project. The question was: can we build a strong cage (using the classical concerto form) and try to escape from the inside of it with a jazz trio piano-bass-drums? We tried. And it wasn’t easy because, still, at the beginning of the 21st century, it’s hard for classical musicians and jazz musicians to communicate. Too many differences in the approach to the music.
PACHI TAPIZ: Can you tell us about the Italian scene?
STEFANO BOLLANI: It’s growing. A lot of young people is coming to the concerts; jazz music is “fashion” nowadays in Italy. This of course is helping us in our work; we can survive playing only the music we love. And a bunch of younger musicians are behind us waiting for their own turn.
© Stefano Bazza
PACHI TAPIZ: Does humor belong in music?
STEFANO BOLLANI: Of course yes. If you’re having fun on stage, why shouldn’t you communicate it to the people in the audience? And, most of all, what I like about music is the chance music has to switch almost immediately from one kind of emotion to a totally different one. This means that in a concert of one hour and a half, you’ll go through a lot of feelings; you’ll cry, you’ll smile, you’ll laugh, you’ll think… and humour is an important element to surprise people, because the audience cannot imagine what it’s going to happen the next minute on stage.
PACHI TAPIZ: Can you talk about your current projects?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I just released a book. It’s a novel called La Sindrome di Brontolo. It came out only in Italy, by now. I hope it will be translated some day. It’s a day in the life of five characters. They just hang around meeting each other; they’re not able to catch the chances life, or the writer, is offering them. It’s like having five melodies trying to build something but going nowhere. Literature is another good way to play with structures.
PACHI TAPIZ: And about the future ones?
STEFANO BOLLANI: I’m recording a duo with Rava for ECM. I guess it will come out next year. |
