Four Musicians and Six Characters: Narrative Categories in Contemporary Free Jazz

In an interview for Downbeat magazine in 2019 (Kassel, 18), I was asked to explain my sudden interest in Literature. At that time, I was promoting the release of Live at SMUP (2019), a collection of six compositions, each designed to be an interpretation of a different character from Western lit‐ erature. For that reason, I decided that each of these compositions would consist of a short motif with a very simple structure. These were then pre‐ sented to the other musicians in the quartet who could weave around the motif or break completely from it or, alternatively, decide to start in free form as a build‐up leading into the motif. These options were themselves inspired by the different ways in which narrative develops.
My interest in Literature was not at all sudden. I graduated in Modern Literature in my early twenties and have since then published two poetry books, written five stage plays, and taught Portuguese Literature. Over time, my music gradually became more porous to other narrative art forms: I have composed and improvised extensively for animation, theatre, contemporary dance, and silent film. This chapter is also an attempt to systematise and organise my thoughts and reflections on my own practice, specifically in relation to the role of narrative in my different approaches to music: com‐ position, songwriting, and improvisation. As a practitioner, I often question how much collective improvisation informs my personal processes of com‐ posing and how that narrative is for the most part the result of a collective effort – much like the oral tradition – rather than of one man’s vision. There‐ fore, it is also fair to question whether our own perception of characters and other categories of literary narrative is a personal or a collective one.