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Interview
5 July 2015 2.00 h

Telling stories with music

Saxophonist, Llibert Fortuny Every Monday at 6.30pm, El Punt Avui TV airs the interview series Going Native. This week, Neil talks to saxophonist and composer Llibert Fortuny about his music and career.
When did you start with the sax­o­phone?
When I was a kid. I first played the piano and acoustic gui­tar. Then, in a local music shop I saw an elec­tric sax­o­phone; it was like a toy but I knew that was what I wanted to play. So, I saved up and bought it. That was the be­gin­ning. I liked it and later bought a real sax­o­phone.
And when did jazz enter your life?
I started in the con­ser­va­tory here in Cat­alo­nia and did clas­si­cal stud­ies. When I fin­ished, I had to de­cide be­tween clas­si­cal and jazz. As the sax­o­phone is iconic in jazz music, I de­cided to play jazz; with all the im­pro­vi­sa­tion it was so fresh and free. So I ap­plied for a schol­ar­ship, got it and went to Boston.
So the jazz came later?
At that time there was a lot of jazz in pop music, in TV com­mer­cials, and so on. Once I had a sax­o­phone peo­ple started giv­ing me CDs from the likes of Char­lie Parker. I didn't know what it was and hadn't imag­ined you could do that with the in­stru­ment. So I started there. I guess I did it the other way around.
How did you find the US?
It was amaz­ing, the best time of my life. I had no wor­ries: no phone, no car, just an apart­ment and a sax­o­phone, and I prac­tised every day with peo­ple from all over the world. It was amaz­ing, and Boston is a great city.
Is the sax a dif­fi­cult in­stru­ment to mas­ter?
The sax­o­phone is a good wind in­stru­ment. A lot of peo­ple think it is a brass in­stru­ment but it has a reed in the mouth­piece, like the clar­inet or oboe. The other thing about the sax­o­phone is that there are dif­fer­ent types: you have so­pranino, so­prano, alto sax, which is what I play, I play tenor sax, too. There is a big fam­ily and they are tuned dif­fer­ently. For ex­am­ple, gui­tars and pi­anos are tuned in C Con­cert, but sax­o­phones are tuned in B Flat or E flat, which at first can be a prob­lem. And then, in jazz, the sax­o­phone is a melodic in­stru­ment, while the piano or gui­tar are har­monic in­stru­ments, which means they can play chords. But in jazz, the sax­o­phone is like a singer, pro­vid­ing the melodies and the solos, which is an­other thing that makes the sax­o­phone spe­cial.
Would you rec­om­mend par­ents to start their kids on the sax­o­phone?
All in­stru­ments can be amaz­ingly dif­fi­cult when you get to a cer­tain level. Sax­o­phone is quite easy, as you can get a sound of it in the first les­son. So I think the be­gin­ning can be hard but I wouldn't rec­om­mend one in­stru­ment over the other. The im­por­tant thing is that the kid chooses what he wants to do. All in­stru­ments have great things about them and I think it's great for kids to play an in­stru­ment.
You have done a lot of col­lab­o­ra­tion in your ca­reer. Is that some­thing you look for?
If you live in Cat­alo­nia, which is such a small coun­try, you have to re­view your stuff be­cause the au­di­ence is often the same peo­ple. I like all music, not only jazz and so I like play­ing with peo­ple from all over, but col­lab­o­ra­tion was some­thing that just hap­pened to me.
Has your ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing with other mu­si­cians helped your com­pos­ing?
I have writ­ten for peo­ple who have asked me to do it for pro­jects, for the Patum in Berga or now I'm prepar­ing a kids show in the Au­di­tori, which they hired me to do the arrange­ments. For me it is a great ex­pe­ri­ence.
Did you start com­pos­ing early, or did it come later?
It came along later. At the be­gin­ning you just want to play. And then once you get into the stu­dio and record, you re­alise you have to progress and try to make your own tunes. If you have peo­ple who fol­low you, they want to see what else you have to say. Writ­ing music is a great way of ex­press­ing what you want to say.
How do you go about com­pos­ing?
When I com­pose I start with a melody, and then I do the har­mony or the rhythm. It can be any­thing that is going through my mind at that time. Music, and es­pe­cially jazz, is af­fected by what is hap­pen­ing to you at that mo­ment in your life. I al­ways try to do that even if my music doesn't have lyrics. I al­ways try to say some­thing, to tell a story even if it doesn't have lyrics.
It's fes­ti­val time. What have you got com­ing up?
There are al­ways a lot of fes­ti­vals but here the good thing is the weather. Right now I'm going to Tener­ife with Gary Willis, who is a great bass player from the States, and then I'm going to play in Girona at the end of July, and then I'll be play­ing in Cer­dany­ola with Manel Camp, a great pi­anist. I'll also be play­ing with my new band, The Gas Band. Hope­fully this sum­mer we'll record a CD, which I want ready for next year, so hope­fully we can play around. We are talk­ing to a fes­ti­val here in Barcelona that I've played at in the past few years.
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