The artistic director for the Bergamo Jazz Festival 2024 was Joe Lovano, the tenor-saxophone titan whose recordings, awards, and posts on the faculties of the world’s most prestigious music schools are almost too long to list. He talks here about how he got involved in the festival, the challenges of curation, his exotic collection of reed instruments and percussion, his philosophy of music and influences, where jazz is coming from and going to, and more. Interview by Julian Maynard-Smith.

Joe Lovano – wow! I’ve been a fan ever since discovering his album From the Soul (1992), thanks to the The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD awarding it a coronet, the guide’s highest rating. My love for Joe’s playing deepened even further on hearing his performances with Henri Texier – his tenor solo on ‘Amazing’ (from the Texier album Izlaz / Colonel Skopje) is, well, amazing, and remains a firm favourite. As I’m waiting for Joe in the hotel lobby, who should turn up at reception to check into the hotel but another saxophone hero, Bobby Watson – also discovered through a coronet rating in the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, for his album Love Remains (1986). Minutes later, yet another musical hero and saxophonist turns up at the hotel reception to check in: Louis Sclavis, whom I discovered – the coincidences are piling up – through Henri Texier recordings. It’s an auspicious start to the interview…

I start by asking Joe how he became artistic director. ‘I’ve played here at the festival many times, and they approached me and asked if I’d consider the idea. It was quite an honour. It was my first time as an artistic director in Europe, but I’ve been an artistic director in the States a few times, such as for the Knitting Factory and for SFJAZZ [the largest non-profit jazz presenter in the world]. I was also artistic director for the Caramoor Jazz Festival [held in Katonah, New York State] for maybe five years. It’s similar to the Bergamo Jazz Festival, in that it’s held in beautiful settings. Everywhere you play has a charm of its own. Here in Italy, there’s also the Umbria Jazz Festival in Orvieto, held between Christmas and the New Year.’

When I ask Joe how he selected musicians for the Bergamo Jazz Festival, he replies, ‘My theme for the festival is “In the moment of now”. I wanted to have artists who represent the true spirit of music, from within the history and addressing the future: who you are, where you’ve been, projecting a journey about life and music.’ It’s a philosophy Joe also applies to education. ‘Doing workshops and concerts, I’m always addressing the future. Since 2001, I’ve held the Gary Burton Chair in Jazz Performance at the Berklee College of Music. With John Patitucci, through the Global Jazz Institute we address students from across the world in classes as well as ensembles, both compositionally and in terms of improvisation.’

Inevitably, though, scheduling performances for the festival wasn’t without its challenges. ‘There are many issues in selecting musicians,’ says Joe, ‘like the time of year. In March not many bands are on tour, so this time of year it’s hard to programme because of the expenses for just one concert. If it was June, it would be a different kind of festival. As artistic director you suggest things, ideas, but then the organisation is also involved in doing all the business.’ So, a mixture of passion and pragmatism, I say to Joe. But like the great improviser he is, Joe’s found ways to respond ‘in the moment of now’, such as a last-minute decision to join John Scofield on stage for a blistering performance on soprano saxophone of the Pharaoh Sanders composition ‘The Creator Has a Master Plan’. ‘Before the set John asked me to join. Nobody else knew this was going to happen.’

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As well as tenor and soprano saxophone, Joe plays the tárogató, a single-reed instrument associated with Romanian and Hungarian folk music that’s similar to the clarinet in having a wooden body but like a soprano saxophone in having a conical bore. It’s just one of many exotic woodwind and percussion instruments that Joe owns. I ask him how he acquired his collection, and how it affects his music.

‘Touring around the world, embracing a multicultural world, you’re always being inspired, by people and by nature. Asia, Europe, South America, there’s a feeling that comes through from the music and dance. When you explore instruments, and vibrate on different instruments – strings, percussion, wind – it’s a deep study. I have many instruments I’ve never recorded with, but it all inspires me. I got my first tárogató in 2003, when I was playing with Dave Liebman and Mike Brecker [in the trio they formed called Saxophone Summit]. Mike, Dave and I collected many instruments on the Istanbul tour. With most of these instruments, you can’t put a date on them and they have a very spiritual sound.’

Like the ney, I say, which is an end-blown wooden flute that dates back around 5000 years and which is still the main woodwind instrument in Arabic and Middle-Eastern music. I mention it because I heard one played that very morning in a performance by Franco-Syrian flautist and vocalist Naïssam Jalal, accompanied by double bassist Claude Tchamitchian. ‘I have one of those,’ says Joe, ‘and a kaval from Bulgaria, which is like a flute but you play it sideways. Michael Brecker was exploring this instrument. From 1999, when we formed the Saxophone Summit with Dave Liebman, Mike and I played together until he passed in 2007. I first met him in 1975, when he was playing with the Billy Cobham Band.’

Those early days were a very creative time for Joe. ‘I moved to New York in the mid-seventies, a great period with the loft scene. The guy who lived above me was a drummer. So many folks had lofts where you could create your own situations. I could invite people to my place. I lived there for over twenty years, till the late nineties.’ And it was during those twenty-odd years that Joe formed perhaps the most creative partnership of his career, the trio with Paul Motion and Bill Frisell. ‘Bill and I joined Paul’s band in 1981, and played with him till he passed. That was home, and everything else was an extension of that.’

One lesson that Joe says he learnt from Paul Motion was leaving space. ‘If you play with that approach, that’s where the magic is, the music within the music.’

I tell Joe I’ve always admired Bill Frisell’s playing, his use of space and texture, his almost painterly approach to sound. ‘Bill is an innovative player,’ says Joe, ‘but he has his roots and not just in guitar players. Originally he played clarinet, so he breathes like a horn player – when he accompanies horn players and singers, he breathes with them. John Scofield comes from being a trumpet player. As a saxophonist, I’m coming from Max Roach, Bud Powell. One of the most important things is not what you play but how. And in the moment of now.’

LINK: UKJN/LJN coverage of Joe Lovano