This book includes 82 new interviews I made with some great jazz musicians from Americas, Europe, Asia, and other well known people with whom I also talked about jazz, between 2010 and 2016.
I have carried out these interviews mainly by e-mail, allowing no restriction of time and space for the answers given: sometimes I received a feedback within a few hours; sometimes it took several weeks. Some of the answers were simple, some more elaborate.
Over the last few years, I have translated the contents of many of these interviews into my language (Italian) and published them in whole or in part in magazines or newspapers. But in this book all of the 82 interviews appear in their entirety, without any changes.
Many of these interviews follow a basic question-answer scheme: I usually start by asking the artist about their new release; then I ask him to retrace his professional life and explore his philosophical view on the nature of music and of jazz in particular.
I have arranged the interviews in alphabetical order, without adding any comments, just some notes on the artist’s nationality and the instruments he plays.
This is just a limited glimpse over a vibrant musical scene, as the number of great jazz musicians in the world today number to at least a hundred. I have interviewed many others jazz artists in some of my earlier books, such as Jazz Is A Woman; Speak Jazzmen; El Jazz habla Espanol; I mestieri del jazz (The Works of the Jazz); Una carezza sulle ali (A Caress on the Wings).
In these interviews one can perceive a widespread optimism, which is brilliantly affirmed in the words of all the protagonists, and which reveals a great future for jazz.
Guido Michelone
