Chris Potter - Underground Odyssey
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Anyone who hears the sheer velocity of ideas that issues forth every time Chris Potter puts a saxophone to his lips can’t fail to be mesmerised, but as a solo artist he’s mined his own quietly prolific path on the edge of the limelight.
Now with the release of his searing solo debut for ECM, The Sirens, Selwyn Harris says Potter’s time has come as the next great saxophone trailblazer
Chris Potter has finally come up for air. It’s the beginning of December and he’s only just stepped off a non-stop rollercoaster tour that began back in May in Japan with his own band, reached global proportions with Pat Metheny’s Unity Band, and ended in Chile with the Dave Holland Quintet.
“It’s been a particularly long one for me. Maybe a bit too long,” he says, on the line from New York, only a few days after returning home. “There’s something of course very difficult about being on the road. You have to perform every night and there’s all the travelling and moving around. On the other hand it can be very easy as your goals are very clear. You show up and you try and play as well as you can and then you move on. And then when you get home that’s when you have to take care of all this stuff like income tax etcetera. Especially if you’re gone for that long there’s such a backlog of stuff. It’s almost easier to stay out there! On the other hand it’s always really good to be home to see my family, and see if my four-year-old daughter remembers me.”
This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #171 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE CD...