Singular creator dedicated in body and spirit to music and to John Coltrane, mythical' drummer but above all unique composer, Christian Vander pursues a course on the fringe, the quest for the absolute truth.
FS: why have you created a new label, AKT, in parallel with Seventh Records?
CV: I have many concerts and tapes in my archives, which I have always hesitated to release because they are not completely successful works. AKT permits me to present these things which I do not want released on Seventh Records, because Seventh is intended for finished work and an idea of a particular musical sound, just as there was on certain labels in the seventies, like Tamla Motown, Blue Note or Impulse. On AKT, there are no overdubs; the pieces are rough cuts.
FS: These are exclusively old tapes?
CV: No, 'Les Voix' by Magma and 'Les Voyages de Christophe Colomb' date from 1992.
FS: The second production by AKT,'Nëhèh', which dates from 1973, is rather disconcerting...
CV: Yes, I don't really know who it is aimed for. It was a particular moment that we captured. Those who have listened to the tape have not had any rapport with what we were doing musically at that time, since that was the night after recording 'M.D.K'. It is by Jannick Top, René Garber, Klaus Blasquiz and myself, and something real is passing between us. The essential thing is to find somewhere else, on another musical terrain. Jannick had been playing organ since two o'clock in tile afternoon in the studio with a window that looked out onto a cemetery. We listened to this strange music, this very special ambience. It is a strong moment that I have memorised, which is not the case with all the improvisations of this type.
FS: Are there many things from this era, which you don't want to listen to again?
CV: No, not particularly. I forced myself to remember the good parts. There is always something that interferes with and disturbs the music. So it needed to have a permanent record of an improvisation.
FS: How did you compose the sound track for the Christopher Columbus show?
CV: In a hurry. I had it all composed and I recorded it myself on keyboards, in ten days, around the basis of the texts and the storyline of the show. When I heard about the project, I thought for just ten seconds and I already had the theme. I quickly got under the skin of the character reading the text. I adore the narrative side, I found the best things were more evocative when spoken over the music rather than sung.
FS: Les Voix de Magma has nothing to do with a "new" Magma?
CV: No. Les Voix is one of Stella's ideas. We have re-worked a repertoire, which everyone could practise, using nine vocalists, a double bass and keyboards. The formation is very supple, which permits us to go wherever we want; to evolve freely. I play one or two themes on drums for the pleasure. A piece like 'Zëss' does not seem difficult to begin with, but in fact it is a nightmare to stage. We have only performed an extract of the definitive version (which is always in gestation, as it has been for a long while).
FS: What will the "new" Magma album be?
CV: I dreamt the seven Kobaïan titles one night in Brittany. I wrote them out straightaway. It is the first time in my life that I had the titles and ideas before the melodies. I do not yet know the significance of the words in relation to the tempo and again this is new to me. I might say it took me a while to comprehend their meaning. Except musically, I have ideas about the rhythms but I don't know how they will be tangled up. Will one provoke the other? I'm going to produce this album practically solo. I wish to push it to the extremes of what can be done. I don't know what the results might be. Above all it is a proposition that is wild from the beginning. If someone could conceive today what I want to do, I would not do it since it would be too late. I wish to propose something that is inconceivable. To give you an idea, it will start with a ballad with an incredible rhythmical division on which to build little by little into something else. Then, in the first four beats I will play a symphony within the harmonic base. The distension of time will be like I was concentrating on counting 1 and 2. Within the 1 and the 2, the world will pass by. The rhythmic base will be quite high at time level of the splitting of the cosmos, so that will bring about something for others to discover - which will be underneath my original proposition - a fragment which will fall apart. This will not be positioned such that the rhythms are squeezed. I only use rhythms that I know. It needs to be solved up to the point where I can go, no more and no less. If it follows one part of the principal that it is the music that requests and not you who makes it, then invention is practically limitless.
FS: Is there a particular concept in 'A Fiïèh', the latest Offering album?
CV: The pretext of the disc was to record 'Cosmos' and 'A Fiïèh', which we had performed on-stage for a long while. All the previous tours had more or less begun with these pieces. 'Cosmos' is an introduction to the true 'Cosmos' that will be developed much later. 'Purificatem' is the prelude to the next album by Offering which will be called 'Les Cygnes et les Corbeaux'. I am working very much on a new genre of harmonisation. The idea is that each time you do something you dig a little deeper. It means trying to slow down imperceptibly, chord by chord....
FS: Towards a shell?
CV: No, a vertical stretching of the tempo: instead of going forwards or backwards, one goes down, without losing the previous harmony. You bring down the harmony but it's as if it was close to a tone held by the next chord. You must achieve all that there is between the chords, at the vibratory level. This seems simple but requires attempting to count slower than you can imagine and between the 1 and the 2 you must see the world within! When I recorded 'Purificatemn' live, the tape turning, once again the tempo was not there and I searched for an idea on the piano to bring about the theme. It was necessary to find a possible circulation for the tempo for some of the parts. In the first cosmos of the penultimate bar, the internal vibration was not moving. It could not take the count of the exterior tempo because that was not the real tempo of the interior. The pitches were indicated beforehand but without definite order. This created the harmonies, which had to be fully understood and then performed. There were some traps for everybody, but this was formidable. I love this raw take of 'Purificatem'. It is rare that I can re-listen to a piece immediately afterwards. I had planned the cut to be twelve or fourteen minutes, in fact it lasts thirty-four! This is a key piece for subsequent events. "The story of Swans and Crows"
FS: Is this third album by Offering a success?
CV: It marks a clear musical evolution. This is also the first tune for a long while that it is musically current. Now we will attack 'Les Cygnes et les Corbeaux'. We have played it a few times on-stage but it has not really been done before. This will be a record with one single track, the story of a man who is found somewhere in a desert and who intones a sort of chant. The wind runs around the world and reverberates its call to all the birds listening. They decide to unite and all sing a song in unison, which they think is perfect for calling "The Master of the Birds". The last opening of a beak and the start of stunning harmonies. The theme of the story is that it is not sufficient to love. To love is only the beginning. To complete this, one has to create.
FS: Does your conception of rhythm differ according to the instrument which you use'?
CV: No, it is the same thing. For sure the piano does not sound like the drums, but the approach is identical, and require the same movement. I do not go along with the theory that music is linear. One could imagine that music follows a spiral, which one cannot see. It is in a sort of movement without a beginning. You capture a tempo which seems sometimes linear and sometimes in movement towards the interior of that music, which captured at the core of the spiral would form spires. Thus, at one time or another, one could subjectively hear the beat on your right but in reality, it is perhaps the opposite of what you would imagine, perhaps it could be elsewhere; the tempo continues to march on somewhere, unchanging. Every living thing does not repeat itself. For some years, I reckon no more than four; I have thought that if the music is attacked on a first beat, one should take a breath and not go crashing into it. Otherwise, later on you need fifteen beats to clear the tension and to make the music supple again. If you count calmly 1. 2. 3... that leaves enough space. This is much more harmonious. I discovered that one day in a studio, I counted 1, 2, 3, 4 and that was all it needed. You need to capture the rest point on the right beat, which seems to be there at the right tempo. It does not necessarily come after the first beat, but it comes somewhere. From that you can follow on with incredible experiences, always conserving the framework.
FS: How do you manage to place the drums in your trio?
CV: The drum kit is not all one tone; in reality it is the ensemble that forms the pulsation. The idea is of assisting, to be complementary. If you withdraw the drums, the tempo no longer exists; it is the same for the piano and the bass. A musician needs to comprehend the rhythm and play without the drummer. The drummer helps the people in difficulty and the inverse is true. The drums are above all a sound which shifts and not an indicator of the tempo. If everyone were imprisoned by a rhythm that had a tendency to always travel forwards, I would try to create a single blow to sort of re-position it rhythmically, which would permit us to relax and to clear the tempo. All this must be done with the utmost calm but also with energy. I don't think life is any different to playing the instrument on this point. It is the general confidence that forms the sound. It is the music which requests and not us who make the music!
FS: Listening to your old recordings, do you find that your playing has evolved much?
CV: Yes. Before I would play with a certain energy, an ardour, but in reality I was not satisfied by the sound which I made. Today, I still do a lot of work, that's evident, but on listening to certain tracks, I have the impression that I've progressed enormously. The trigger was effected in 1987. I had discovered something for which I'd been searching for a long while... I have always thought about the movement, the breathing. With Magma, I very often play movements. I do this instinctively, but in a state of trance. I did not understand why, I just knew it was a good path. Every time I wanted to analyse the thing, I found other things to play! In fact I don't live for music twenty-four hours a day. Music is not an amusement neither is it relaxation or even a pleasure. You have to be on the look out, and attentive for each cosmos of the beat, permanently working to get inside it.
FS: How do you work with your instrument at present?
CV: I work on movements rather than exercises. I am privileged in that this comes naturally, which is unusual. One needs to try hard to have the same consciousness, the same fix on each of the elements. There is always a fluctuation, which is not foreseen. Very often the musicians are prisoners of a rhythmic value, which is too weak compared to the interior one, this pace would fit better in the background. This value should allow you to improvise between the blows, putting yourself beyond what you first thought of. Including the correct value of one quaver needs less thinking than using a triplet. This internal defilement expresses itself apart from what you can hear. The vibration is inside itself. The doubt between the beginning and the end of the beat, this margin, means that the musician is able to lose the music... When I drop a drumstick I pay great attention to the moment where I gather together, because afterwards you must be very delicate to come back to the real internal tempo. You can quickly lose yourself if you are disconcerted. In music you can be living, you can be dead!
FS: Are you often "dead"?
CV: Less and less, but this demands an incredible interior energy. A ballad is as exhausting as a fast tempo. A ballad is terrifying! The music does not stop, it needs to travel, and this is something tough, from violence to tenderness.
FS: Twenty-five years after the departure of John Coltrane, how do you judge the current perception of his music?
CV: When he left there was a great void. It needs time to digest his music. Young musicians today are able to recognise that he was an extraordinary musician, but without feeling this musical revolution, this veritable evolution. He inspires a lot of people into pushing a cry from their saxophones, but there's still an enormous gap. Certain musicians play a little in this spiritual way, but "a little" is as good as nothing. It should be either that or not that, but never "a little"! John Coltrane's music is engraved and serious. I believe that John had total recall of all the keyboards, using this he was able to do whatever he wanted, he could negotiate. Even Miles was afraid to play with him!
FS: Curiously, the saxophone is totally absent from your diverse formations?
CV: I have searched for a long while, I've had some experiences but I have never found a saxophonist who had the sense of breathing. He also needs to put himself a little at odds with the rhythm. It's a shame that there aren't music schools for wind players before they even begin to touch their instruments! There is a total distortion between what a rhythm player does and a saxophonist who plays harmonies. They do not gel! This is no more than copying John Coltrane's phrases, and that will not make jazz! You need to throw yourself into it, to take risks, and above all to dare to get it wrong. Surely that's what musicians need.
FS: Do you always listen to the old standards?
CV: Yes, but those that have been done, and done well by the people who invented them. To see some 18 year-olds covering them makes me sad... Jazz, as with all music, has to be born in pain. One hears people doing standards, playing softly, but it was never played like that! I don't know, maybe they're playing out of their backsides! Assholes! A musician must play with all his energy, all his life force, everything that he can put into it; and then, perhaps the ensemble will sound coherent.
FS: Even if they are doing exhaustive re-arrangements?
CV: ... Yes. You can do it, but why not play music that fits our era? I am happy to play some standards from time to time, but not just that. An isolated musician who just takes a solo is not able to do much. The idea of music, is like meeting yourself. It's not an egotistical expression.
FS: You only undertake the drums within the confines of the trio?
CV: It's a question of priorities. Currently there are things that I want to do on piano and with voice. I work with other drummers, like Jean-Claude Buire or Marc Delouya who advance in the same sense. If I was to play the drums, who would lead the group? If I am stumped by a harmony, quite often it is after trying two hundred and fifty others. And the drum solo... I am often bored when listening to a drum solo, except when it is connected to a story, as in the chorus by Elvin Jones on the introduction to 'Love Supreme'; this is exceptional! It is very difficult to make a drum solo which is not boring, to be expressive. "Magma's music was not composed for a drummer."
FS: It's a different vision to Magma, where the drums are a pillar; the epicentre of the music?
CV: I have always composed Magma's music in an integral manner. I conceived all the parts totally, for all the instruments, while never knowing what I would play on the drum kit, since the music was not composed for a drummer at all. More often, everything was stated rhythmically. I was obliged to find some rhythms that would scan the music and to invent the drum parts at the last moment. Except for 'Mekanïk', which I had the chance to practise for a long time. I took the time to understand the rhythms that were constantly changing, seven beats, thirteen and a half beats... In place of trying to play I found a way to do something, which could have turned out tiresome, I discovered a sort of tempo on two beats. To begin with, people said to me that I did not know how to play any more! Personally, I found that this was the best manner to serve this piece. I have always had difficulty finding parts for the drums. One minute before recording 'Wurdah Ïtah' I did not know what I was going to play! I had to improvise it on the spot. At two o'clock we started the piano and the bass parts with Jannick, and finished it by four o'clock. Afterwards I did the drums, completely improvised. Word of honour! Similarly for 'Köhntarkösz', we rehearsed it two or three times with Jannick, and I improvised. All the interplay with the others, I did it instinctively, live! I thought it would never end! I did not even know myself how we would negotiate all the links! But I knew the whole piece perfectly, so I had no doubts! On the whole, re-listening, I do not think many fundamental improvements could have been made. Often it's the first take that is the best.
FS: Therefore it would have been possible not to have drums in Magma?
CV: Exactly! The fans always imagine that the drums were integral to Magma. I gave what I could and I think the fans appreciated... if I had played piano, that could perhaps have been the same. I don't know. Everyone contributed their share and it's certain that if I was able to play in this manner, the musicians who were there were also giving what was needed.
FS: Are the drums becoming secondary?
CV: I have practised, but I cannot repeat some of the things I have already done. The fans always want these repetitions? I found where it needed a rap on the snare drum in relation to the beat, and that does not particularly interest me any more. I want to discover other things. What? Mystery!
FS: 'Ptäh', your drum / vocal piece (from the Magma era) has never been recorded?
CV: I have several versions from concerts that could be released by AKT. I have never profited commercially from this option, it was tempting but I do not like this... vulgarity. I have tried not to tamper with the record production. I have a tape of a version of 'Ptäh' captured in a very reverberant hall in Douai, which gives the impression of an infernal machine. I made the synopsis of this piece, which lasts between thirty-five and forty minutes. For each chorus, I tried to create on the basis of discovering rhythm and the elements. I had weaved all the tapestry. If you can imagine, I had the intention to dress up in music, note-by-note, impulse-by-impulse. I am very faraway in this solo. One day I pulled a muscle in my arm during an abrupt movement on a cymbal. This was the maximum that I could give. I knew then that I had arrived at the end of what I could achieve with this on the vibratory level. This was the pinnacle of that chorus. I played all the concerts at the Taverne de l'Olympia ('Hhaï / Live' album) with this tendonitis and each strike on the drums was tearing my arm apart. I still sense this pain. 'Ptäh' is not really in the domain of a solo, in reality it became a composition. I like to listen to this type of chorus by some other people, like those of Art Blakey for example. It's cool, it's swing but I can't play that. As with my music, it's not the music of a drummer...
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