QUARTETO NUEVO FAQ PAGE
WHAT YEAR DID YOU START QUARTETO NUEVO?
1998
I had been hearing music in my head with this specific instrumentation -
acoustic guitar,
woodwinds
and
bajo or cello,
and I really love the sound of that combination of instruments,
and very few were using it in an improvisational setting, then or now, and I had composed
music and really wanted to hear it, and every time I composed a piece I wrote
NEW QUARTET on it and put it in the pile,
and my ancestry and culture is Mexican/Sicilian
hence the name QUARTETO NUEVO.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT QUARTETO NUEVO IS A WORLD MUSIC ENSEMBLE
THAT PLAYS JAZZ, A CLASSICAL ENSEMBLE THAT PLAYS WORLD MUSIC, OR
A JAZZ ENSEMBLE THAT PLAYS CLASSICAL MUSIC?
Yes
QUARTETO and its various incarnations (6 as of this writing) have always been about composing and playing
music that moves us, that has INTENTION, INTEGRITY, and INTENSITY
We love to learn to play what we can't, where we can learn to improvise within various formats
e.g.,
some of the structures are harmonically based,
some are melodically based,
some are rhythmically based
and some are a combination of all of the above or not
Jazz is just one music that utilizes improvisation and most world music cultures
think of improvisation differently then jazz musicians do.
Jazz musicians tend to play what works instead of what they hear.
?????
If you ask a musician trained to play jazz to sing his solo before he plays it,
then ask him to play it on his instrument the majority of them cannot, while this is
exactly what musicians from world cultures do as they are trained to play what they hear
not hear when they play.
They can hear it, sing it, and then play it on their instruments whereas most western
trained musicians concentrate more on facility on their respective instruments and less
playing what they actually hear.
It has more to do with their training and their teachers
than anything else
i.e.,
one is not better than the other but it is what it is.
I remember seeing a Paco de Lucia interview where he said that he did not improvise,
but that he played flamenco". Flamenco was his vernacular at that time, and he was talking
about having a hard time when he first started to work with John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola,
because he did not hear music that way, but he changed his mind after he became
immersed in the spirit of it and took his flamenco vernacular with him and revamped and
changed the way he thought and the way he played.
Each musical culture has its own vernacular, i.e. the way you improvise in North Indian
is different then the way you improvise in bebop, baroque, Mexican indigenous, jazz etc.,
and it took a long time for western musician to understand that.
For many years (western) musicians would just find out what scale worked and would
improvise using that without taking into account any of the rhythmic or melodic sensibilities
of the music cultures they were invited to participate in.
One of the more practical things that I am blessed to be able to bring to the MUSICAL table
is that I rehearse weekly with 3 to 5 different ensembles on different world music instruments
as well as on drumset with musicians from different parts of the world including China,
Japan, India, indigenous and folkloric Mexico, which allows me to learn about the music,
the instruments, structures, the culture, the food, sounds and more. The other 3 members
do not have that daily EXPERIENCE.
That practical experience allows me to bring that back into every musical environment
I make for myself or as a guest for someone else, and since I do it every day of the week,
year in and year out, it is very organic and not manufactured or contrived i.e., I play what
I hear, or try to play it anyway.......
Being able to make the music I want to, with the people I want to, on the instruments I want
to every week 150 to 200 days a year NOT including actual performances, which usually comes
out to 45 to 100 plus days of performing music which I love to play, with people I love to play
with, in various countries and continents and it all comes with great sacrifice and definitely a
luxury to say the least, but it is the world I have surrounded myself since
1980 in order to play my instruments in a musical setting as often as possible.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE LUCKY TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT?
No, luck has has very little to do with it, it is actually very hard work,
but I am blessed to have been doing this for quite some time, (1980)
i.e.,
being invited to perform and improvise the music I love to play,
within many world music, jazz, rock, chamber and symphonic contexts with
musicians from Africa, Japan, India, Mexico, Lebanon, Egypt, China and beyond.
Every time I play my instruments it is in making music of my choice with like minded
musicos who want to make music with me either here or abroad.
But if I wouldn't do it for FREE
I won't do it for any amount of money. If the MUSIC doesn't move
me, it isn't worth doing, no matter how much money someone is willing to pay.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER QUARTETO MEMBERS?
Their musical income comes primarily from teaching and definitely not
from playing their own music, or their own compositions.
Most musicians, unfortunately, either have to teach to pay their bills or play music they don't
want to, in order to survive, but I would rather work doing something non musical instead of
playing music with people that I don't want to play with in order to pay my bills, but that is
what works for me and my familia.
We all make and find our own path and there is no criticism for those who march to their own drum,
as we all do, but, as with everything, there are always exceptions to the rule.
There will always be exceptional people. exceptional musicians and exceptional teachers
and I would not be able to do any of what I do if I did not have that experience at CAL ARTS
with John Bergamo, Pandit Taranath Rao, and Swapan Chaudhuri, each of those men
taught and concertized and made that balance for themselves.
I remember that John (Bergamo) would play with Amiya Dasgupta 2 to 5 times a week. He
would get to school early, before he had to teach, and they would get together for the sake
of making music, i.e., they were not practicing for a performance they were just MAKING MUSIC.
A few years ago I taught a a conservatory and was surprised to find that most of the teachers
there did not play music for a living and Definitely did not play their music, usually at all, and
that comes across to the students. It was a JOB and a CHORE for them and a drag for the
students. Every time I subbed for a teacher that student would want to study with me which
caused problems for all concerned.
HOW OFTEN DOES QUARTETO TOUR?
Not very often, even though we have had festival offers in Europe but never enough to build a
tour around, and not everyone has road experience, doing 26 concerts in 30 days across
several time zones for months and/or years at a time. Thinking about it and doing it are
VERY FAR APART from each other. I continue to tour the world since 1980.
HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO DO REPLACE A MEMBER DUE TO THEIR WORKING SOMEPLACE ELSE?
QUARTETO has always tried not to do a gig with a substitute, but it is difficult as I tour 60
to 100 days per year with various ensembles, and the other members don't hit the road that
hard or that often, but we have done it twice since its inception, and while the musicians
were GREAT and did a great job PLAYING the music it was not up to our usual performance
standard, just because of not playing the music enough.
ARE YOU THE PRIMARY COMPOSER IN QUARTETO?
No.
Every version of QUARTETO NUEVO bring in their personal original compositions
which becomes transformed the more we play and refine it.
We also play compositions by our favorite composers:
Bergamo, Corea, Gismonti, McLaughlin, Mingus, Satie, Zappa etc.
We rehearse pretty regularly and play thru new music
sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't
the one thing it has to do is grab us on some level in order for us to work with it,
and there has to be INTENTION behind every note.
Lots of ensembles rehearse and/or play the same music over and over
again and stop growing as ensemble when that happens.
That is not how or why I do what I do the way I do it.
HOW LONG HAS QUARTETO NUEVO BEEN IN EXISTENCE?
Our first performance was in November 1999, and I founded the group in 1998.
DO YOU STILL THE SAME MEMBERS YOU STARTED WITH?
No.
Members have come and gone over the years for various reason.
QUARTETO is currently in our 6th performance incarnation
go to the bottom of the page and look under HISTORY for that one
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO USE A CELLIST INSTEAD OF A BASSIST?
Bassist Alfred Garcia took a sabbatical and I was looking for a bassist when Alan Lechusza
invited me to work with his Side A/Side B ensemble which featured cellist Carolyn Tyler.
We did quite a few rehearsals with Carolyn and a handful of performances, and it was very
very different - the bottom end opened up sonically, and since Carolyn was a classical
musician who improvised, it became a very different ensemble.
We had to find another way to play, it didn't feel like a bass or sound like a bass, so instead
of treating it like it was a bass, we all had to regroup and figure out what worked for us.
You can't play the same way with a cello in the group, as you can with a bassist
well you can, but what would be the point
which is something I enjoy doing, the search for what works.
WHAT IS THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORKING WITH A BASSIST AND A CELLIST?
With a cellist the lowest frequency in the band becomes the bayan, the low drum of the tabla
set. When you are working with a bassist, the bayan has a tendency to get lost with the bass,
because they are fighting for the same frequencies.
So you have to play differently, i.e., you don't play 1 with a bassist
because you won't hear it.
With the cello, I have more choices
I can play tabla and not worry about the timbres clashing, because they don't, and I invited
cellist Jacob Szekely whom I had met thru Maestro Harry SCARY Scorzo, the only violinist that
I know, who has learned, assimilated and improvises within the language of bebop and beyond
on a string instrument.
WHAT HAS CHANGED SINCE YOU STARTED THE ENSEMBLE?
The music, because it reflects the members of that particular configuration and the
configuration has changed 6 times since its inception.
We have new music, because everyone composes,
and we are still doing some of the older pieces with a lot of additional new music added
by the band, new rhythms new harmonies, new approaches to the tunes.
This happens every time the ensemble reforms, but a different set of players, even if they
are playing the same written music, always sounds astoundingly different.
You can listen to any Bartok or Beethoven string quartet by 3 different string quartets or
different versions of Captain Beefhearts MAGIC BAND and know what I am talking about.
One isn't better than the other, just a different take on the same music.
the major difference being that we also improvise
We are also utilizing the gifts everyone has brought to the table. We are going thru some
"fixed" compositions to see what we can learn and do with it. For some reason folks think
that if they are going to cover another piece of music that they need to tweak it rhythmically,
melodically or harmonically to "make it their own" and I always tell them that when they
speak in their own voice, they do make it their own without changing a thing.
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE MUSIC IS IMPROVISED AND WHAT IS WRITTEN?
That depends on the piece, what the intention is behind it, according to the composer, and
what he wants to hear. But we are all grounded in some type of improvisation and each type
of improvisation has its own set of ground rules.
WHAT HASN'T CHANGED SINCE YOU ORIGINATED THIS GROUP?
Willingness, commitment and intent. I am not into pulling teeth
if musicians have better things to do with their time then improve
the sound of the ensemble then they should do that.
QN4 continues to rehearse regularly
2 to 3 hours a week, every week except when I am on tour,
which is often,
it is the only way to transcend the written material when that stops,
when the musicians can no longer make the time to rehearse to transcend
their limitations then it is just a waste of time as the music and the ensemble no longer moves
forward and there are literally hundreds of other musical environments that musicians can do
that in
i.e., their own, or as a sideman with virtually anyone else.
That has never been what QUARTETO is about.
That is not why I created it.
QUARTETO has always been about doing what we cant, learning, cultivating
and refining and MAKING MUSIC not playing music or rehearsing only to make
a buck.
In order to MAKE MUSIC you have to put in the time as a unit,
that what make's the music ORGANIC
for music has always been communal,
and I see more and more groups playing the same pieces over and over and over again
because they don't make the time to rehearse, perform and record.
Which is not what I do or what I am about.
One of my favorite Wayne Shorter quotes is that
"you have to bleed in order to compose and to make music,
and most musicians are not willing to....they just want to be seen in airports...."
WHAT NEXT?
I continue to go where the music takes me,
still worldwide and portable with 80 to 100 concerts
per year of my music............
A TREMENDOUS BLESSING
GARCIA contiinues to travel the world composing, performing and improvisting
WHAT YEAR DID YOU START QUARTETO NUEVO?
1998
I had been hearing music in my head with this specific instrumentation -
acoustic guitar,
woodwinds
and
bajo or cello,
and I really love the sound of that combination of instruments,
and very few were using it in an improvisational setting, then or now, and I had composed
music and really wanted to hear it, and every time I composed a piece I wrote
NEW QUARTET on it and put it in the pile,
and my ancestry and culture is Mexican/Sicilian
hence the name QUARTETO NUEVO.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT QUARTETO NUEVO IS A WORLD MUSIC ENSEMBLE
THAT PLAYS JAZZ, A CLASSICAL ENSEMBLE THAT PLAYS WORLD MUSIC, OR
A JAZZ ENSEMBLE THAT PLAYS CLASSICAL MUSIC?
Yes
QUARTETO and its various incarnations (6 as of this writing) have always been about composing and playing
music that moves us, that has INTENTION, INTEGRITY, and INTENSITY
We love to learn to play what we can't, where we can learn to improvise within various formats
e.g.,
some of the structures are harmonically based,
some are melodically based,
some are rhythmically based
and some are a combination of all of the above or not
Jazz is just one music that utilizes improvisation and most world music cultures
think of improvisation differently then jazz musicians do.
Jazz musicians tend to play what works instead of what they hear.
?????
If you ask a musician trained to play jazz to sing his solo before he plays it,
then ask him to play it on his instrument the majority of them cannot, while this is
exactly what musicians from world cultures do as they are trained to play what they hear
not hear when they play.
They can hear it, sing it, and then play it on their instruments whereas most western
trained musicians concentrate more on facility on their respective instruments and less
playing what they actually hear.
It has more to do with their training and their teachers
than anything else
i.e.,
one is not better than the other but it is what it is.
I remember seeing a Paco de Lucia interview where he said that he did not improvise,
but that he played flamenco". Flamenco was his vernacular at that time, and he was talking
about having a hard time when he first started to work with John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola,
because he did not hear music that way, but he changed his mind after he became
immersed in the spirit of it and took his flamenco vernacular with him and revamped and
changed the way he thought and the way he played.
Each musical culture has its own vernacular, i.e. the way you improvise in North Indian
is different then the way you improvise in bebop, baroque, Mexican indigenous, jazz etc.,
and it took a long time for western musician to understand that.
For many years (western) musicians would just find out what scale worked and would
improvise using that without taking into account any of the rhythmic or melodic sensibilities
of the music cultures they were invited to participate in.
One of the more practical things that I am blessed to be able to bring to the MUSICAL table
is that I rehearse weekly with 3 to 5 different ensembles on different world music instruments
as well as on drumset with musicians from different parts of the world including China,
Japan, India, indigenous and folkloric Mexico, which allows me to learn about the music,
the instruments, structures, the culture, the food, sounds and more. The other 3 members
do not have that daily EXPERIENCE.
That practical experience allows me to bring that back into every musical environment
I make for myself or as a guest for someone else, and since I do it every day of the week,
year in and year out, it is very organic and not manufactured or contrived i.e., I play what
I hear, or try to play it anyway.......
Being able to make the music I want to, with the people I want to, on the instruments I want
to every week 150 to 200 days a year NOT including actual performances, which usually comes
out to 45 to 100 plus days of performing music which I love to play, with people I love to play
with, in various countries and continents and it all comes with great sacrifice and definitely a
luxury to say the least, but it is the world I have surrounded myself since
1980 in order to play my instruments in a musical setting as often as possible.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE LUCKY TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT?
No, luck has has very little to do with it, it is actually very hard work,
but I am blessed to have been doing this for quite some time, (1980)
i.e.,
being invited to perform and improvise the music I love to play,
within many world music, jazz, rock, chamber and symphonic contexts with
musicians from Africa, Japan, India, Mexico, Lebanon, Egypt, China and beyond.
Every time I play my instruments it is in making music of my choice with like minded
musicos who want to make music with me either here or abroad.
But if I wouldn't do it for FREE
I won't do it for any amount of money. If the MUSIC doesn't move
me, it isn't worth doing, no matter how much money someone is willing to pay.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER QUARTETO MEMBERS?
Their musical income comes primarily from teaching and definitely not
from playing their own music, or their own compositions.
Most musicians, unfortunately, either have to teach to pay their bills or play music they don't
want to, in order to survive, but I would rather work doing something non musical instead of
playing music with people that I don't want to play with in order to pay my bills, but that is
what works for me and my familia.
We all make and find our own path and there is no criticism for those who march to their own drum,
as we all do, but, as with everything, there are always exceptions to the rule.
There will always be exceptional people. exceptional musicians and exceptional teachers
and I would not be able to do any of what I do if I did not have that experience at CAL ARTS
with John Bergamo, Pandit Taranath Rao, and Swapan Chaudhuri, each of those men
taught and concertized and made that balance for themselves.
I remember that John (Bergamo) would play with Amiya Dasgupta 2 to 5 times a week. He
would get to school early, before he had to teach, and they would get together for the sake
of making music, i.e., they were not practicing for a performance they were just MAKING MUSIC.
A few years ago I taught a a conservatory and was surprised to find that most of the teachers
there did not play music for a living and Definitely did not play their music, usually at all, and
that comes across to the students. It was a JOB and a CHORE for them and a drag for the
students. Every time I subbed for a teacher that student would want to study with me which
caused problems for all concerned.
HOW OFTEN DOES QUARTETO TOUR?
Not very often, even though we have had festival offers in Europe but never enough to build a
tour around, and not everyone has road experience, doing 26 concerts in 30 days across
several time zones for months and/or years at a time. Thinking about it and doing it are
VERY FAR APART from each other. I continue to tour the world since 1980.
HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO DO REPLACE A MEMBER DUE TO THEIR WORKING SOMEPLACE ELSE?
QUARTETO has always tried not to do a gig with a substitute, but it is difficult as I tour 60
to 100 days per year with various ensembles, and the other members don't hit the road that
hard or that often, but we have done it twice since its inception, and while the musicians
were GREAT and did a great job PLAYING the music it was not up to our usual performance
standard, just because of not playing the music enough.
ARE YOU THE PRIMARY COMPOSER IN QUARTETO?
No.
Every version of QUARTETO NUEVO bring in their personal original compositions
which becomes transformed the more we play and refine it.
We also play compositions by our favorite composers:
Bergamo, Corea, Gismonti, McLaughlin, Mingus, Satie, Zappa etc.
We rehearse pretty regularly and play thru new music
sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't
the one thing it has to do is grab us on some level in order for us to work with it,
and there has to be INTENTION behind every note.
Lots of ensembles rehearse and/or play the same music over and over
again and stop growing as ensemble when that happens.
That is not how or why I do what I do the way I do it.
HOW LONG HAS QUARTETO NUEVO BEEN IN EXISTENCE?
Our first performance was in November 1999, and I founded the group in 1998.
DO YOU STILL THE SAME MEMBERS YOU STARTED WITH?
No.
Members have come and gone over the years for various reason.
QUARTETO is currently in our 6th performance incarnation
go to the bottom of the page and look under HISTORY for that one
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO USE A CELLIST INSTEAD OF A BASSIST?
Bassist Alfred Garcia took a sabbatical and I was looking for a bassist when Alan Lechusza
invited me to work with his Side A/Side B ensemble which featured cellist Carolyn Tyler.
We did quite a few rehearsals with Carolyn and a handful of performances, and it was very
very different - the bottom end opened up sonically, and since Carolyn was a classical
musician who improvised, it became a very different ensemble.
We had to find another way to play, it didn't feel like a bass or sound like a bass, so instead
of treating it like it was a bass, we all had to regroup and figure out what worked for us.
You can't play the same way with a cello in the group, as you can with a bassist
well you can, but what would be the point
which is something I enjoy doing, the search for what works.
WHAT IS THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORKING WITH A BASSIST AND A CELLIST?
With a cellist the lowest frequency in the band becomes the bayan, the low drum of the tabla
set. When you are working with a bassist, the bayan has a tendency to get lost with the bass,
because they are fighting for the same frequencies.
So you have to play differently, i.e., you don't play 1 with a bassist
because you won't hear it.
With the cello, I have more choices
I can play tabla and not worry about the timbres clashing, because they don't, and I invited
cellist Jacob Szekely whom I had met thru Maestro Harry SCARY Scorzo, the only violinist that
I know, who has learned, assimilated and improvises within the language of bebop and beyond
on a string instrument.
WHAT HAS CHANGED SINCE YOU STARTED THE ENSEMBLE?
The music, because it reflects the members of that particular configuration and the
configuration has changed 6 times since its inception.
We have new music, because everyone composes,
and we are still doing some of the older pieces with a lot of additional new music added
by the band, new rhythms new harmonies, new approaches to the tunes.
This happens every time the ensemble reforms, but a different set of players, even if they
are playing the same written music, always sounds astoundingly different.
You can listen to any Bartok or Beethoven string quartet by 3 different string quartets or
different versions of Captain Beefhearts MAGIC BAND and know what I am talking about.
One isn't better than the other, just a different take on the same music.
the major difference being that we also improvise
We are also utilizing the gifts everyone has brought to the table. We are going thru some
"fixed" compositions to see what we can learn and do with it. For some reason folks think
that if they are going to cover another piece of music that they need to tweak it rhythmically,
melodically or harmonically to "make it their own" and I always tell them that when they
speak in their own voice, they do make it their own without changing a thing.
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE MUSIC IS IMPROVISED AND WHAT IS WRITTEN?
That depends on the piece, what the intention is behind it, according to the composer, and
what he wants to hear. But we are all grounded in some type of improvisation and each type
of improvisation has its own set of ground rules.
WHAT HASN'T CHANGED SINCE YOU ORIGINATED THIS GROUP?
Willingness, commitment and intent. I am not into pulling teeth
if musicians have better things to do with their time then improve
the sound of the ensemble then they should do that.
QN4 continues to rehearse regularly
2 to 3 hours a week, every week except when I am on tour,
which is often,
it is the only way to transcend the written material when that stops,
when the musicians can no longer make the time to rehearse to transcend
their limitations then it is just a waste of time as the music and the ensemble no longer moves
forward and there are literally hundreds of other musical environments that musicians can do
that in
i.e., their own, or as a sideman with virtually anyone else.
That has never been what QUARTETO is about.
That is not why I created it.
QUARTETO has always been about doing what we cant, learning, cultivating
and refining and MAKING MUSIC not playing music or rehearsing only to make
a buck.
In order to MAKE MUSIC you have to put in the time as a unit,
that what make's the music ORGANIC
for music has always been communal,
and I see more and more groups playing the same pieces over and over and over again
because they don't make the time to rehearse, perform and record.
Which is not what I do or what I am about.
One of my favorite Wayne Shorter quotes is that
"you have to bleed in order to compose and to make music,
and most musicians are not willing to....they just want to be seen in airports...."
WHAT NEXT?
I continue to go where the music takes me,
still worldwide and portable with 80 to 100 concerts
per year of my music............
A TREMENDOUS BLESSING
GARCIA contiinues to travel the world composing, performing and improvisting