Question
Hi, great master.
Your music is great. Will there be more?
Which artists and music do you favor?
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henri
Master Kosen’s answer
My father was a very good jazz musician. He played with Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong, among others. Later he became a lyricist and wrote, among other songs, “Que je t’aime,” “Ma gueule,” and “Comme d’habitude.”
My grandfather was a pianist too, and music and artistic creation have always been present in my life and surroundings. But for a year or two I have not touched my guitar, keyboards, or djembes, and I do not miss them. I like writing. Rap moved me deeply between 1980 and 2000; now it gets on my nerves a bit.
I can get into any style as long as it is good: UK garage, English house, jazz, Chet Baker for example. Cuban boleros, rumba, tata, tatata, Brazil, flamenco, Estrella Morente for example. I go to Cuba regularly, and my disciples replenish my supply by burning me tons of music, the best of Cuba. African music, rai, even some pop, like Christophe’s latest record at the Olympia, a pure masterpiece.
Christophe was a great friend when I was a youngster. I got him to smoke his first joints, and we would go wild for hours with our guitars and voices. He is a true artist, truly humble and crazy. I like classical music, especially Baroque. I love opera, bel canto, Tito Schipa, Callas, Franco Corelli; Japanese music, koto, shamisen, kabuki, Shinto music; not forgetting Indian music, blues, Hendrix, James Brown, Armstrong and his Hot Five and his wild solos, even Argentine bands like Sumo. The Doors, Joplin, the Sex Pistols, Björk, Robert Wyatt, formerly of Soft Machine, who jumped from a cliff while tripping in Formentera. He survived; he is a genius. And of course reggae, ragga, and rastas of every kind, traditional Guadeloupean music that sometimes rivals Cuban music yet is very little known in France—strange????? Not forgetting rock: Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Beatles, all the way to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, by way of Sonic Youth. I could go on for hours… I love silence and nature’s sounds: wind, rain, snakes sliding through grass, frogs singing at night, cicadas, crickets, trains passing far away at night, the sound of silence when I turn off my computer, and celestial music.
Kosen