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ITS FUTURE |
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"The whole approach to jazz will probably shift, though in what direction it is hard to say precisely—you just can't tell what kind of babies will be born.
"As for the merger between classical music and jazz, I don t believe in that. All that I Ve contributed, all my work through the years, has been deeply rooted in jazz and I see no reason to suppose that jazz is going to merge or be absorbed into anything else.
"Nor do I believe that classical musicians will necessarily acquire a greater ability to improvise jazz. The jazz musician will still have his own individual qualities.
"As for Dixieland and the other traditional forms, I suppose that if they have managed to survive this long, the chances are that they'll still be around a generation from now. Things of that kind often go in cycles, as fads.
"On the whole, though, I find it difficult to make any specific predictions; there are so many different directions in which the future may take us."
Gillespie's first observation was: "Twenty-five years from now? It'll be finished! . . . No, seriously, it'll still be around. I wish I could look in the crystal ball—I'd start working on it right now.
"It will probably be so mixed up with all these other different nationalities—Indian scales and so forth—it's getting around the world so fast now . . . their touch is going to seep into it. I believe we Ve gone as far with the European music as we're going to go.
That will be true also of the writing, which comes from the improvisation anyway—nobody writes anything unless they've heard it played first anyway.
"IVe actually been working along those lines myself—sometimes I've played some things that I heard in Pakistan. And a lot of musicians are going to be going over to Asia and everywhere and they're going to add to what they already know.
"Another thing/' added Gillespie. "I'm sure that by 1984 the American Federation of Musicians will have abolished the system of having white and colored locals. There'll be just one big union in every city—and that includes down South, too."
Jimmy Giuffre, the composer and clarinetist-saxophonist who |
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