{"id":16061,"date":"2011-01-10T12:45:21","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T16:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=16061"},"modified":"2011-01-10T12:45:21","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T16:45:21","slug":"justins-japan-interview-with-nea-jazz-master-hubert-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2011\/01\/10\/justins-japan-interview-with-nea-jazz-master-hubert-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin’s Japan: Interview with NEA Jazz Master Hubert Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

2011 NEA Jazz Master Hubert Laws. (Courtesy of Spirit Productions)<\/p><\/div>\n

By<\/em> JQ magazine<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u2019s\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Justin Tedaldi<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page <\/em><\/strong>here<\/em><\/strong><\/a> to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a career in music that began in the 1960s, Grammy-nominated flautist Hubert Laws\u2019 latest honor is the NEA Jazz Master Award, which since 1982 is the highest prize the U.S. bestows upon living jazz musicians.<\/p>\n

Laws will appear at a free panel discussion with the other 2011 NEA Jazz Masters at New York\u2019s Jazz at Lincoln Center<\/a> on Jan. 10. (Doors open at 12:45 p.m., and a live video stream can be seen here<\/a>.) The following night, he will perform at the annual NEA Jazz Masters Awards Ceremony and Concert<\/a>. For those who can\u2019t attend the sold out show, there will be a live video stream on the\u00a0NEA website along with\u00a0a simulcast\u00a0on the Newark-based WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM<\/a> and their site<\/a>, and Sirius\/XM Satellite Radio’s Real Jazz Channel 70<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This year also marks the artist\u2019s 40th anniversary of his first trip to Japan. I spoke with him about his time there along with some of his other personal highlights as a musician.<\/p>\n

Congratulations on your NEA Jazz Master award. How does it feel to receive this honor?<\/strong><\/p>\n

After learning of its significance, it is a humbling experience to be named among other respected artists of special accomplishment.<\/p>\n

How did you find out that you won his award? Did you or anyone else campaign for it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I happened to be on a tennis court playing doubles when my cell phone rang during a changeover. The gentleman asked if I had a moment\u2014I said, \u201cAbout 90 seconds.\u201d When he announced the award, I said, \u201cI think my partners will wait a little while longer.\u201d I was not aware of this award, so could not \u201ccampaign\u201d for it.<\/p>\n

Tell us about your history playing in Japan and working with Japanese artists as a musician.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My first tour in Japan began in Tokyo in 1971 with the \u201cCTI All-Stars\u201d [Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Grover Washington, Ron Carter, Bob James, Ester Philips, Hank Crawford and others].\u00a0<\/p>\n

We were greeted at Narita Airport by fans with banners and fanfare as though we were rock stars.\u00a0That tour included several cities for about two weeks. Since then, 15 other trips there included my own group at the Blue Note Club, another with Ron Carter and his group, Chick Corea and his group, and Sonny Rollins with the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, where I premiered the Concertino for Flute and Orchestra by Harold Blanchard. This performance can be seen on the 30 Year Retrospective<\/em> DVD; and excerpts can be seen on my website<\/a>. The Laws family [Ronnie, Debra, Eloise and Hubert] appeared at the Cotton Club there in 2007. A JVC Jazz Festival was held there. where Eloise and I appeared there along with Nancy Wilson and others.<\/p>\n

My most recent CD features Japanese child prodigy and pianist\/keyboardist Yayoi Yoshida in flute adaptations of classical compositions: Rachmaninov\u2019s Piano Concerto #2 and Samuel Barbers\u2019 Adagio for Strings. Excerpts also can be heard on my site.<\/p>\n

Why do you think the Japanese enjoy jazz so much?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a culture, it appears that the Japanese gravitate heavily toward education. This value seemingly leads to appreciation of substance. There is great \u201csubstance\u201d in the art of improvised music commonly known as \u201cJazz.\u201d As in any culture, the \u201cforeign mystique\u201d may also play a part.\u00a0\u201cA prophet is not unhonored except in his home territory and in his own house.\u201d \u2013Matthew 13:57, New World Translation of Holy Bible.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for the rest of the interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JQ magazine\u2019s\u00a0Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page here to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories.\u00a0 With a career in music that began in the 1960s, Grammy-nominated flautist Hubert Laws\u2019 latest honor is the NEA Jazz Master Award, which since 1982 is the highest prize the U.S. bestows upon living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,25,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-interviewprofile","category-justins-japan"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-4b3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16061"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16065,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions\/16065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}