Recently, Mishko M'Ba & the Jaco Pastorius Tribute
Band performed at the Congo
square jazz fest 2014. Abhijit Ganguly spoke to Mishko M'Ba at the sidelines of
the event. Born in 1962 in France,
Mishko M'Ba is a composer, arranger, producer, bass guitarist and pianist. He
performed on numerous French and international scenes from the 80's.
How did your tryst
with music happen?
I have started the Music school when I was five or six year
old having an elder sister learning piano and a elder brother the violin (my
brother, Jam’Ba is now an excellent guitar player and producer in France). The
clarinet was my first instrument in Western classical. I wanted to join the
school earlier but reading was mandatory.
Jazz is a type of
music that is perennially said to be suffering, or said to be dying. Do you see
jazz suffering, financially, or creatively?
I think that a type of Music dies as a language when nobody
plays it anymore.
To speak about India,
I can see more and more young musicians interested by the Jazz, mainly
the harmony side, what I think is a main Jazz contribution to the Music along
with the sense of Freedom (the Jazz was born in USA during the slavery (Blues)
and segregation time).
Regarding the creativity, one can see new emerging Jazz
Musicians all around the world : Tigran Amasyan, pianist from Armenia, Dhafer
Youssef, singer and oud player from Tunisia or Hiromii Uehara, pianist from
Japan and the “old” ones like Herbie Hancock (USA, piano), Raul de Souza
(Brazil, trombone) or John Mclaughlin (UK, guitarist) who are still proposing
us new experiences, I would say that Jazz is a dying Music… in fine fettle !
The money side is more complex as since forty year and more
one use to evaluate something by his supposed price: A new phone will cost rs50000 against almost nothing for an old one (one year old). I think this cannot
work when it comes to Art or Music: Vincent Van Gogh, almost nothing alive
against some crores when dead… I am not sure that his paintings have changed in
between. Since long time the Jazz is no more a business matter (it was the
dance Music in the 30’s and 40’s) but one can find Jazz Festivals all around
the world filled with thousands people or Ahmad Jamal, I was told, playing a
concert in India for 1 Crore (all included).
One should not forget that as an improvised Music the Jazz is
changing at every moment. If one reads some definitions for Jazz, one will
think that Indian Classical Music fits in.
As a musician, how do you maintain creative
space and manage creative differences when your final output is a combined one,
whereas music is supposedly a very individualistic talent?
I don’t think the Music, unless for a solo performance, is
individualistic, It is the reunion of different lives to form one sound which
will be the result of the experiences of the members.
Concerning Jazz and Carnatic, for instance, I like to use
the word: Symbiosis..
I am part of different bands playing this “Symbiotic
Music” (Emergence, Mystic Vibes,
Krishna’s Temple Rock), this is why I came to India; one can watch and hear some
pieces on my FB Musician page or YouTube page.
With the very new one Band, Arka, we are recording a music
album which is the exact illustration of this interactivity. Coming from
different backgrounds the aim is not to express one’s talent but to add the
different qualities to found something that none from this band could have made
alone. The main difficulty is to go beyond the selfishness. But when the right
people are together, I think one can definitely say: 1 +1 +1 = 1 (the Music) ≈ ∞
Any collaboration
between Western and Indian sounds is instantly labelled as Fusion music, a tag
that was just for nomenclature, but lately it has also been attracting some
criticism. Your comments?
It is very difficult to describe the Music with words. I
think all types of Music are Fusion as nothing comes from nothing In the case of Indian and Western blend, one
is speaking of two Cultures having centuries of existence each with both of
them having a long way of thoughts and theorization in Music. My way of seeing
these two words is vertically about the Western side, based mainly on the
harmony and horizontally concerning the Indian side which, I think, is based
mainly on rhythm and melody.
This is why I would prefer to speak of “Symbiotic Music”
(Symbiosis: The intimate living together of two dissimilar organisms in a
mutually beneficial relationship). It will become a Fusion when a new type will
have been created.
About the criticism, it is quite normal. Music will be felt
differently by the Musicians who are building the Music and for the listeners
who are using It. Many people find difficult to change habits. Coming from France, the first meal in India is an
experience. It took me some time to enjoy it since I first have been sick with
spice. It is great sometime to be patient.
As the cookers the musicians practice a lot before to offer
something. So nothing is new at the time of the proposal for them. From the
perspective of the listener sometime the Symbiotic won’t work (It just means
that the piece is not good nor well played. I can play trumpet, very badly; it
doesn’t mean the trumpet is a bad instrument). But I think the Symbiotic Music
can work very well too. I will only name the band Shakti. This is one way to
propose something else.
I would want to add that it is maybe better not to merge
Western and Indian side because we would lose a lot of types of Music. I think
we do need the differences if we do not want to end with a “Cola” world…
Your views on Jaco
Pastorius?
To me Jaco Pastorius is the God of the electric Bass (Eb).
There is an Eb before and another one after Jaco. The Eb is a quite new
instrument created in 1935 (Paul Tutmarc) and used from 1951 (Leo Finder).
When Jaco came out the Eb was 22 years old only. Many
wonderful Bass players were already there as Stanley Clarke, Larry Graham to
name a few. From there Jaco took the Eb to another level introducing chords,
harmonics, solos, melodies etc and in short gave the full status of musical
instrument to Eb. This is the main reason of my deep respect to him.
Jaco Pastorius has been awarded best Bass player, best Jazz
soloist and his band Weather Report best band of the year. A first one for an
electric Bass Player !
By the way, a documentary Jaco: the Film should be release
very soon.
Your word of advice
to any budding musicians coming up?
Maybe even more than in some other fields, practice as much
as you can (it is said that Pat Metheny practice as much as 14 hours a day) and
as regularly as you can (7 days a week?). It is much better to practice 1 hour
every day than 7 hours one day and nothing the rest of the week. It’s not a
secret: the more you’ll practice the better you’ll be.
Listen carefully to all types of Music. Carefully means
listen and listen again one piece trying to figure out the melody, chords,
rhythm, parts of the different instruments, the “journey” of the piece. All
that done with ears and paper. Use internet only to correct yourself after your
work, not before.
Do not try to copy. It is a non sense to me to try to
simulate somebody as everyone is unique. I pay homage to Pastorius with the
Tribute but (unfortunately for me) it’s not a Xerox copy. This is this
uniqueness that makes the world so beautiful when many are put together (the
Unconscious will copy anyway).
Your upcoming
projects you are looking forward to?
Among the projects the very new one is Arka a band with
Selva Ganesh on kanjira, Singer Karthick, flautist Ravichandra Kulur and
guitarist Santhosh Chandran. It is based on the meeting of different
“aficionados” (somehow experts in their field), who share a same goal; continue
the journey of Musical experience of Life to find new paths. I can say it is a
collective work and composition. The result should be available hopefully next
year.
As I like to play different types of Music since long time,
I enjoy exploring new fields. So I have in mind to make an “almost” solo
project using loops and new technologies.
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