4.4.06
Assif Tsahar (36 anos), fundador da Hopscotch Records, saxofonista tenor de ascendência israelita e acentuada tendência free, há muito radicado em Nova Iorque, disserta longamente sobre a influência que Yusef Lateef (o Gentle Giant da história, com 85 anos), teve na sua forma de tocar saxofone. O artigo está publicado na edição inglesa do jornal israelita Haaretz (online). A terminar, Tsahar cita Lateef:
«I was very close to Coltrane. He was a man of action, not words. I remember visiting him on 103rd Street. I went up the steps and I heard him practicing. I rang the bell. He stopped, opened the door, asked me to take a seat and went back to playing. After 15 or 20 minutes, I signaled to him that I was going to leave. He walked me to the door and after I left, I heard him practicing again. When I got home, I understood that I needed to practice." He laughs that laugh of his again.
«I was very close to Coltrane. He was a man of action, not words. I remember visiting him on 103rd Street. I went up the steps and I heard him practicing. I rang the bell. He stopped, opened the door, asked me to take a seat and went back to playing. After 15 or 20 minutes, I signaled to him that I was going to leave. He walked me to the door and after I left, I heard him practicing again. When I got home, I understood that I needed to practice." He laughs that laugh of his again.
With the practice regimen he developed, it's no wonder he played like he did. He invested so much thought and effort in what he did. He was multifaceted. He put everything that he heard into his music. He took from all over and put it all together in a bowl, and then he took it all out as one connected thing. Two weeks before he died, he came to visit me. I made him some hot chocolate. No one knew that he was sick, but I think he knew that he was going to die. I flew to England to play at Ronnie Scott's club and there I heard that he'd died. I miss him. Every time we met, he would ask, 'What are you doing now?' and I'd ask 'What are you doing now?' He was always searching».
Tsahar remata: «On my way back to New York, it occurred to me that Yusef Lateef was the teacher I had never had, and was always looking for. But when I got home, I knew what I had to do: practice!»
(Foto: Peter Kowald, Assif Tsahar e Hamid Drake. Calypso Theater, Roterdão, Holanda, 6 de Abril de 2002 - Vanita & Joe Monk)
