Simon Goodwin – Modern Drummer: You mentioned harmony and rhythem, but you didn’t mention melody.
Tony Oxley: It’s one of the things that belongs more to conventional music. It’s a very important element. In improvising, it is there to be used or disregarded as you feel. It isn’t the dogma with us, as it is in bebop -although a lot of the best bebop players haver probably dispensed with it. They play, say, 32 bars, and then they’re working on the structure. They’ve got the changes to work with, but some approach it melodically, working around the melody line. Others balance it between the chord structure and the melody, while still others would rather work on the structure and only occasionally refer to the melody. It’s a choice that you are given in the language of bebop.
If you want to play a melody in improvised music, nobody’s going to stop you; but your main concern is trying to expand the language. Melody is there; it’s one of the elements. But we only use it if it has a relevance musically. We won’t be ruled by it.
Tony Oxley (1938-2023) In Memoriam
Cita tomada de la entrevista de Simon Woodwin (revista Modern Drummer de abril de 1990), a Tony Oxley.
Fotografía por Andy Newcombe https://www.flickr.com/photos/92523880@N00/. La fotografía fue tomada el 17 de diciembre de 2008. Tony Oxley aparece con Cecil Taylor y Anthony Braxton.
Texto: © Simon Goodwin – Modern Drummer, 1990
Imagen: Andy Newcombe – andynew, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
