The Sonny Fortune Interview

Jake, you got me going into a deep recall. I first met Henry Franklin when he was with Willie Bobo and I was with Mongo Santamaria. Art moves in a strange kind of way. We’re in another kind of reality today as far as the art is concerned. There’s something else that’s kind of in front of everything and is kind of futuristic - electronics, lasers and bright lights and all that kind of stuff. There’s art in there as well, but I’m not necessarily seeing the imagination and the creativity that was in the arts or that’s in the arts. The music we’re speaking of I call “spontaneous improvisation.” The word “jazz” is associated with a time period, but it doesn’t necessarily speak to the mind set of the individuals, and the people, and the theme of what the music that is associated with jazz. The music I am interested in is spontaneous improvisational music, with a theme. Free with order as opposed to just flying all over the place. One of the phenomenon's out there in this existence, in all of this chaos is that there absolutely appears to be some order. Since man has been asking (we’re still asking), we’re still trying to figure out, what is that? What is this order? “Alphie what is it all about?” I think if the mind continues to embrace it, it (this music) will survive. The creativity is probably the essence and that will continue in spite of. It may get a smaller audience, but I don’t think that will have any impact on the creativity of it all because art kind of works in a strange kind of way