mg And are you still doing it or did you finish?
jz   No, I wrote 50 in a second year, 25 or 30 in a third year, and the fourth year another 25, and then I just stopped. It was basically a four-year project, I wrote about 200 tunes. I don't think in those terms anymore.

mg Will Masada play live anymore?
jz   We just show up and hit, we don't have to rehearse. So, yeah, we will continue to play in New York, just for fun. And on the road for big money. It's not a band I can really say no to, because it's effortless. But, my concerns have gone elsewhere. You work on a project for a while and then . . .

mg From what I gather, you're very involved with recording and writing classical music. Have you ever thought about writing for a full symphony orchestra?
jz   Yeah, I've done that.

mg Really?
jz   Well, one of the things I gave you is a piano concerto for a 90-piece orchestra. See, that's what I started out with as a kid, studying classically. I didn't get into jazz until much later. And all of these various obsessions–whether it's movie sound tracks, or classical, or jazz, or rock–all of that has been concurrent my whole life. At times different things come to the surface and get focused, and then they go out of focus and something else happens. I'm into working on concert music now because I get to stay home. I'm really tired of traveling. It's like, man, you got a band, you've got to tour with it because that's what makes the band good. That's why those bands got so good in the fifties and sixties, because they were working all the time. They get an engagement at the Five Spot, and they play for three months, six nights a week! You play that much in your own town, sleep in your own bed, the music is going to go somewhere.

mg I got into the Five Spot very early. I had some friends who lived right across the street who said, "Hey, they're playing music over there, you ought to go down and hear it."
jz   This is like '58 or something?

mg No, earlier. It was about '55–there were two brothers, Joe and Iggy Termini.
jz   Yeah, of course, famous cheapskates.

mg My buddy Norman Blum and I would go there six nights a week and drink. We ran up a tab drinking cheap champagne. A guy named Ivan Black, I remember, who was a booking agent, he convinced Termini to get a good piano and get Monk in there. It was absolutely terrific to go there to hear the way this guy approached the same music, night after night, differently, all the time. Beautiful player.
jz   What was the audience like then, how big?

mg It was mostly artists, and it got to be really crowded. I forget how it worked, but then Ornette came in. And he was there for about five, six months. So anyway, I listened to a lot of music then, drank a lot of champagne too.
jz   (looks around) You got some serious shit under these neon lights, here.

mg That little figure is about 1200 B.C.
jz   It's beautiful. But these lights are kind of . . .

mg They synthesize daylight. They're called North Light bulbs.
jz   Oh, it's a special bulb. Did you used to work in real light–window or skylight?

mg I prefer it, but . . .
jz   You own the top floor, can't you do something? Why don't you break it open and make a window?

mg It costs twenty thousand bucks.
jz   What's twenty thousand, it's a bag of shells, man! Look at these horrible lights!

mg I'm used to it. (laughter)
jz   This is giving me a headache; do you hear them buzzing?

mg I don't hear them anymore.
jz   Well, I hear it. Break through that roof! Twenty grand? It's a bag of shells!

mg You've spent quite a bit of time in Japan, haven't you? I've been told that your music is very well received there.
jz   I don't think it's well received anywhere. I think there are small groups of people that believe in it, or are intrigued by it, or are drawn to it for a variety of reasons. And some of the reasons could be shit, and some could be valid. I can't be involved in that at all. But Japan was my home for ten years off and on, back and forth. I had an apartment there and I felt a commitment. Eventually, I came back to New York as a real home. Japan's a very lonely place. People don't hang out. You know, like we're doing? You and I made a connection that's a real connection. I'm probably going to come over for dinner within the next couple of weeks, couple of months? That can't happen in the same way in Japan. People are very guarded. They won't call you, not because they're unfriendly, but because they don't want to impose on you. And as a result, people get very isolated. When my father died, I started thinking about friendship and about family, and the meanings of those words. They have very different meanings in Japan than they do here. I grew up with those definitions, I wasn't able to negotiate a complete transformation.

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