Interview with SIMON DE SOUZA

I talked with the very friendly Simon de Souza when he was playing at the Snowdrop in Lewes. Lovely lyrical sounds. My kind of jazz.

"The tune is the most important. Harmony and rhythm are equal to each other, but not as important as the tune for me" he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"The tune gives you the language you can play, the tune can make you smile, can make you sad, can make you feel"

Simon plays with a completely different feeling for each song. Playing a difficult Hoagy Carmichael song "Stardust" he gave it a very romantic feeling which was echoed by Terry Seabrook on keyboard. He references the songs but you have to listen hard for them. He likes to use pairs and clusters of patterns displaced around the song.

"Most of the time I'm playing on autopilot - I play for myself really. But you've also got to think about and be aware of what the others are doing"

Simon writes for video game producers, is a composer using advanced music technology, music educator, player of renown. He teaches on the Chichester Jazz course.

http://www.souzamusic.co.uk/home.html

John


In this blog We will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation.
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