The fifth International Jarek Smietana Jazz Guitar Competition in Krakow, from which musician/writer Sam Norris reported the results (link below), also gave him the opportunity to meet two of the international judges, Peter Bernstein, and Romain Pilon.
Sam Norris asked them to reflect on their own roles and priorities as competition jurors, what they looking for in the contestants. They also consider more broadly how competitions work. Peter Bernstein noted that : “This is a snapshot of where the contestants are at the moment” As Romain Pilon commented, “You never know…everybody’s story is different.”
Photo credit: Molly Mead
UKJazz News: Good morning both- thank you for sitting down with me. How was it being a judge in this year’s competition?
Peter Bernstein: There was so much great musicianship on display. It’s tough to choose between the contestants as they are all totally different musicians with different strengths and weaknesses. A bit like comparing apples and oranges… what seems to be the ripest? I might prefer oranges, but this orange seems a little green, and this apple is ready to go, so I go for the apple.
Romain Pilon: They all sounded really good, with different approaches to the guitar and it was a pleasure listening to all of them. There was one contestant in particular whose playing felt so easy, like he just woke up and picked up the guitar and played whatever he would play at home. It was really spontaneous and relaxed, it blew my mind actually. And there was another guy who was more intense when he played, I really appreciated his musicality and his choice of repertoire, which was very important in this competition context.
UKJN: It felt really powerful, like what he was doing was authentic to him.
PB: That’s what’s so fascinating- peoples’ personality really comes through in their playing.
RP: It’s also accepting yourself and asking ‘who am I?’. Young musicians may love one guy’s playing so much that they think it’s the only way to approach the instrument… it takes years and also some courage to let your voice speak out and trust what you really hear and most of all who you really are. Where you’re coming from and embrace all your various influences. It’s a long road and it’s hard not to care about what others might think- it’s almost like you have to create some kind of bubble around you to help you stay on your path.
PB: Really, to play music is a journey to try to get to the place where you play what you play because you have to. As opposed to the self-conscious thing of ‘whose licks should I steal to make me in vogue?’ One of the guys was telling he’d been listening to a lot of Bobby Broom and I could tell, and that means that what he played was honest because it’s in his head right now.
UKJN: Did you mark the contestants on the way they interacted with the house band (bassist Adam Kowalewski and drummer Grzegorz Palka) or on their playing alone?
PB: Their ensemble playing definitely factored in. The contestants that listened to the rhythm section, left some space for conversation, automatically sounded more musical. Cats played for 20 minutes – who would I want to hear play for 10 more minutes? Or 20 more minutes? That’s not necessarily always the most technically accomplished player, but whoever’s making it a more enjoyable listening experience for me, which is totally subjective.
UKJN: Competitions like this must give an interesting insight into the process of finding one’s own voice as an improviser.
PB: This is a snapshot of where the contestants are at the moment. If they can step back from it and take their ego out of it, not asking the question ‘did I win or did I lose?’ then they may be able to see it as part of a bigger process. That’s true for the people that won too- they shouldn’t trip on that. They got the highest grade on the test, but that doesn’t mean that somebody who failed the test can’t turn around and make innovations in the field.
RP: These things take lots of time. I remember playing with Lionel Loueke twenty some years ago and he didn’t sound anything like Lionel now. You could really hear [George] Benson and [Pat] Martino in his playing! This was when he was in his mid-twenties I believe, so it’s what you may consider late in a musician’s development! You never know, everybody’s story is different.
PB: I heard a similar thing about Al Foster. He was playing like Art Taylor, he was a young guy on scene learning what you’re supposed to learn in order to work. But then he heard Tony [Williams] who’s a couple of years younger, and Jack DeJohnette came on the scene, and they were playing differently to the older guys, adding to the language. So Al said I’ll take some time off and develop my own thing, and if that doesn’t happen then I’ll just quit. But he was also around at a time when people had personalities and it was less about virtuosity and more about your own original sound.
UKJN: Do you think individuality is becoming less valued as a whole in jazz?
PB: I think because there’s more virtuosity and everybody plays their instrument super well, the level of mastery goes up. But it can also follow that there’s a certain sameness to how people can just obliterate their instrument. As opposed to in the swing era- even before bebop, which required a level of virtuosity- when the emphasis was on how to stand out in a big band. How do you play your one chorus and make a statement?
RP: There was one contestant who stuck out as definitely developing his own sound. He didn’t sound too much like a guitar player to me- he sounds quite like a piano player, almost like Oscar Peterson. The timefeel was really on top of the beat and he was playing these bebop lines, but it didn’t really sound like a guitar player, which was interesting.
UKJN: Great to hear originality is alive and well at the competition! Finally, how well did you know Jarek Smietana’s (*) music before being asked to judge the competition?
PB: I’d heard of him as I met Jarek’s daughter Alicja through Larry Goldings, and Larry had met Jarek when he was on the road with [John] Scofield. That was a while ago though, because Jarek passed away 10 years ago, so I didn’t really learn about his music until after he passed. I’ve listened to his recordings as I was curious about how he played, and it was interesting to listen to the contestants play his tunes.
RP: I did a concert last year in Warsaw with the guitarist (and past Smietana competition winner) Szymon Mika. We played one specific recording by Smietana, the one with [John] Abercrombie*. We played the whole album as a tribute to him, so that’s how I discovered his music. The concert was recorded on Polish national radio.
UKJN: Thank you both for sitting down and talking with us, and for coming over to Krakow to judge the competition.
(*) ’Speak Easy’, 1999, PAO Records
(*) The competition is held in honor of (Polish guitarist) Jarek Smietana, and contestants in the competition had to play a Smietana composition as part of their three-tune set).
Sam Norris was a guest of the Jarek Smietana Competition.
