Over the last four years, Eduardo Miranda, a Brazilian musician, writer and poet, has tried to build up what he calls "not just another band", and he definitely got it. em3 has been causing some controversial comments about their "virtual rehearsals", even before any official material being released.
Few jazz fans would doubt the chops of the British bassist Tony Porter, and Scottish keyboardist Eugene Haigh; all of them have played wonderfully in more traditional settings. But when they get things together in the hyper-power trio like that, something happens.
Eduardo Miranda was off on the road to Denmark when we spoke to him by phone. The following is an edited version of our conversation;
LGB: First of all: why em3? Doesn't sound a little egocentric?
EM: Maybe, but it was Tony's idea. They say it is because I was so excited with the whole idea of the band... but also because my name sounds "different". They like that! But it doesn't mean I'm a kind of "leader". We don't have that here. Everyone plays the same role in the trio.
LGB: When people get together, there's always unique chemistry as they react to each other. But when get together means talk to each other through emails and IP phones, you three have to have a special kind of connection... What do you attribute this to?
EM: Tony and Eugene have physically met before twice or thrice. We three have met only once, and under no one else's nose! And when we met we felt something could happen. Possibly what you're sensing is that this is actually a band of three leaders; that's definitely our attitude. We are three guys who are equally invested in what happens. And in this kind of sound we want to approach - so called nu-jazz, electronic jazz or jazztronica - is just perfect to develop in this virtual rehearsals we have.
LGB: Tell us more about how is the process of composition and virtual rehearsals?
EM: We are three composers who love the same kind of music. Each of us settled in a different location - London, Edinburgh and Dublin. If Tony composes something and send it to Eugene or to me, we usualy give a first impression or sugesttion back to the author, who may or may not accept them. After that we start to add our own stuff on that. With some inspiration and a bit of luck, we can end up with a new song in some weeks! No pressure, no demand - just imagination. And a good internet connection as well!
Of course we have more things in common than music. This makes things even easier.
LGB: Who are your strongest influences?
EM: We are pretty voracious listeners. In terms of jazz, everything from cool to bebop, hard-bop, as Chet Baker, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomerry, Charles Mingus, Sony Rolland, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Bird... wow, so many! Going to fusion, John McLaughlin, Ornette Coleman, Bill Cobham, Hermeto Pascoal... Nu-jazz, I'm still a bit new to this stuff, but listening to Nils Petter Molvaer, Bugge Wesseltoft, Cinematic Orchestra, Groove Armada, and the guys there are also driving me to the right way! I can't deny my rockish influences as well, as they are an important part of my compositions. From rock'n roll to progressive rock, all the way to the "Rock In Oposition" movement (I love Henry Cow, Art Bears, Univers Zero, Present, Art Zoyd) and, of course, classical music - Bach, Stravinsky and Varese are my favorites. Basically we're interested in extremes - extremely hard, extremely soft, extremely loud... we want it to be bold. We play with the kind of intensity associated with rock. It's not a rock band, but at the same time there's a sort of really digging in that jazz people can sometimes sort of skate around when they play in a rock style.
LGB: What are the plans for the first album, if any?
EM: Well said, “if any”. We don’t have any intention to release a conventional album, but a virtual one, at the internet. No media! It doesn’t mean we will not have a booklet, an art graph and all the stuff as a real album. The internet is the new protocol, man, and we have to use that!
LGB: How far are you from that?
EM: No idea! We are all very busy people on our day-by-day jobs. We do that for pleasure, not for anything else. If we finish, we publish. If we don’t, we don’t publish. Easy like that!
P.S.: the first album, Panorama, is on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/tvem3/sets/panorama.
People traveling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom will be subjected to stiffer identity checks before the end of the year, said British officials.
People traveling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom will be subjected to stiffer identity checks before the end of the year, said British officials.
