CS: What has been inspiring you lately?
IHF: Reading Anthony Braxton Forces in Motion. Playing with a lot of amazing musicians every day (to many to mention here). Seeing Maggie Nichols performing in Oslo in May. Listening to a lot of new music from young up-and-coming musicians that I am releasing on my label. Producing my own music and preparing them for album releases this fall.
CS: Favorite musicians, artists, thinkers and why (current or general)?
IHF: It’s so many. But a few comes immediately to mind like Cecil Taylor, Joe McPhee, Anthony Braxton…. I’m finally getting around to read ‘Forces In Motion’ by Graham Lock, something that feels 15 years late because a lot of the musicians I have been playing and touring with over the last 15-20 years have been heavily inspired by Braxton, actually a lot of the music I have been playing those years have been inspired by Braxton’s music for sure. So, it’s been very interesting to read the book now knowing it was written almost 40 years ago. His thoughts on Music, on composition, on history, on race, on astrology and mysticism, among so many other subjects, are just mind altering and should be curriculum in all art and music institutions! I am touring a lot with Gerry Hemingway these days also and his stories and knowledge on Braxton are just amazing. It all comes together when the time is ripe, I guess.
CS: Favorite films, books, etc. and why (current or general)
IHF: I was just touring with Polish saxophone player Mikolaj Trzaska and we discussed movies, his been doing soundtracks for many, one of them is The Clergy about pedophile Catholic Priests in Poland. Extremely heavy with beautiful soundtrack by Mikolaj!! Forces in motion again here of course, and on a different spectrum – and actually happened in the same year as Forces in Motion came out – I also just saw the ‘Greatest Night in Pop’ about the making of the We Are the World recording. It’s totally bizarre but also very fascinating!! Just the amount of logistics and planning and the madness around getting all the biggest stars in the US to perform together and seeing the dynamic between them all. You don’t have to like or even listen to the music, luckily, it’s not really about that. It was almost as good as seeing The Beatles Documentary Get Back by Peter Jackson a few years ago, inspiring I though also, it made me think a lot about band dynamics with people you’ve spent so much time with on the road and how beautiful but also complex and difficult that can be sometimes, Ike a dysfunctional family.
CS: Favorite record no one else has listened to?
IHF: I have two 7” singles from Sun Ra at Pit Inn / Tokyo which I believe are rare. But I might be wrong of course. Anyway, the music is completely magic!!
CS: Best thing you’ve seen on Youtube (recently)?
IHF: Was just made aware of this recording of Tea for Two by piano player Casino Simpson. His playing was so far ahead of his time, wow!!!
CS: Dream trio/quartet/quintet with historical figures?
IHF: Trio with Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman.
CS: Last performance you saw that expanded the way you think about your own work?
IHF: The performance of Maggie Nichols in Oslo!! It’s been staying with me since, what a wonderful improviser!
CS: Record you most wish you had played on?
IHF: That’s a hard one and I don’t know, but I do have some projects I wish were recorded or realized, like when I played one concert in Austin – must have been around 2012? – with Hamid Drake and Edward ‘Kidd’ Jordan, it was so great, and I am so sad that gig wasn’t recorded… RIP Kidd Jordan❤️ I remember Kidd turning to me sometimes during the concert – during a stretch I was doing some arco noises in the high register of the bas – and shouting out with a big smile : ‘do you know how old I am’, and then turning around and blowing his ass off!!! It was incredible!! And also; I was really sad we never got to record the follow-up album with The Cherry Thing (The Thing with Neneh Cherry), Neneh wanted to bring in Ornette Coleman on that album, which was as an uncle for her she told us. Sad it never happened!!!!
CS: Recording people would be most surprised you listen to?
IHF: I love The Stone Roses first album, and specially the song ‘I Wanna Be Adored’, that bass line!
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Enjoy Ingebrigt’s Artist Profile at the Soundstream!