Name: Andrew Moreno
Nationality: Venezuelan
Occupation: Guitarist, composer, improviser
Current release: Andrew Moreno's debut album Axiom is out via Honolulu. It features his trio with Tristan Renfrow (drums) and Jonathan Ho Chin Kiat (double bass, no input mixer) as well as Tineke Postma (soprano and alto saxophone), and Bo Van Der Werf (baritone saxophone).

If you enjoyed this Andrew Moreno interview and would like to keep up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram. 



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in improvisation?

Since I was a kid and from an early age (around 9) I've been always been drawn to improvised music.

Near my neighbourhood there was a CD and record store where I used to buy records of John Coltrane, Andrew Hill, and Sonny Rollins among others - without even knowing what they were doing or who they were. I was always fascinated by how they were able to make such interesting sounds and music in the moment.

I think also living with my uncle was a big influence in my musical taste at the beginning. He used to play a lot of guitar in the house, improvising blues and songwriter-types of songs and he involved me in quite some artistic environments in Caracas.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Music to me was an escape for most of the time at that age.

I hardly had any  friends or family around and most of the people I was in contact with during my childhood were very shady people or just shallow. Music, for me, was an escape from that environment which ended up opening a lot of doors with better friends and a brighter life. I'm very thankful for that.

Nowadays things changed a lot with my life and my relationship with music. It's more healthy in a way but also very professional-oriented which sometimes isn't that fun if I'm being honest.

Seeing how the music business operates sometimes makes me want to just live on a farm and only play my music every now and then. (let's hope that doesn't end up being the case). I guess as time passes, you want to have a mix of many things - more than just music ultimately.

Tell me about your instrument and/or tools, please. What made you seek it out, what makes it “your” instrument, and what are some of the most important aspects of playing it?

My family was trying to make me learn piano at the beginning but that failed as we know (still to this day). They wanted to involve me in the classical world and to see me with a suit and all of that. That never was something natural for me.

Since I used to see a lot of guitar playing by my uncle in our house I ended up relating more to that instrument than any other. Nevertheless, I've never felt a huge attachment to the guitar as my instrument and I just try to perceive it as an interface to navigate into all sort of options that it brings acoustically and electronically.

So I think it's more about my imagination imposing a role on the object itself rather than the object stating an ownership on myself.

How did your band for Axiom come together?

The making of Axiom developed naturally through deep musical connections.

Me and Ho Chin Kiat have been performing together for years, collaborating with various drummers before meeting Renfrow, whose chemistry with the group felt immediate.

Our collective synergy led to collaborations with Tineke Postma, which I first worked with during his studies at Codarts in Rotterdam, and later with Bo Van Der Werf who has been an inspiration for years. I decided to send him an email to ask him to record my album with me, a proposition which he accepted gladly.

Before you started making music together, did you in any form exchange concrete ideas, goals, or strategies? Generally speaking, what are your preferences when it comes to planning vs spontaneity in a collaboration?

For this album I already had everything written out with quite some specific ideas to be implied in the music. But there still was a lot of intentional leeway for being free and seeing how our characters would blend with each other.

So with regards to the question I think I like to always have a mix of both worlds simultaneously. I have a lot of joy playing very constricted material but also seeing how I can find freedom within it for the others.

So as a group we barely talked about it since the written material was clear in terms of its intention. And then, they're also very good listeners.

Is there a group consciousness, do you feel? How do you experience it?

I think there's a high level of sensitivity when we play together and even in the loud-intense moments we try to be very aware and mindful of everything happening in the music, or the space itself.

I think we share very similar values in music and that has really made this band very smooth when it comes down to playing together and making our best of the moment.

But we barely talk about doing what, where, or who and when. I have a lot of trust in their musical choices and I think as a bandleader it is good for them to feel free to do whatever they want with the material I wrote – after all, that's the reason why I asked them to collaborate with me.

For Axiom, what kind of energy were you looking for?

I was looking for mixed emotions to be crossed in quite some of the pieces and seeing how these things coexist with each other.

Most of the music is a mix of something very melancholic but with a good energetic intensity to it.
 
Would you say that you prefer to stay in control to be able to shape the energy or do you surrender to it and allow the music to take over? Who, ultimately has control during a live performance?

I think it depends on the music and the musicians I play with. But if everyone is well prepared and we only have to think about making music, most of the time I surrender to the moment and I can fully trust anything that is happening musically.

If the material is too written out without much freedom I aim at being creative with the limitations the music environment gives me.

When it comes to experiencing the sensation of “energy” as as a creator, how would you describe the physical sensation of experiencing this energy? [Where do you feel it, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or a build-up of tension etc …]

I try to put my body into different situations when it comes down to performing as a game for myself sometimes.

There are times where I focus a lot on breathing when performing. Or I'll try to put my body in constant activity playing complex material for a whole concert and see if I can dictate certain energies and their endurances in my body and how I can embrace all the possible physical sensations for certain periods.

From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, tell me about the creative process for Axiom, please.

I had several approaches to my process composing the pieces.

Some of the techniques involved polyrhythms and how to amplify the perception of rhythm and form towards improvisation having multiple layers and stating different meters over the same pulse.

To add more perspectives to the music when it came to harmony I also made use of composition techniques by composers such as Olivier Messiaen and Arnold Schoenberg which were also a relevant influence on some of the music I wrote.

As part of this process I also dealt with a more romantic and less direct relationship with the usual academic way of composing where I made songs out of drawing things on music notation programs and seeing their outcome, dealing with a mix of intuition and a thought out process in the making of this album.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation?

Anything about listening and sound is the key for me and seeing how I find my space being myself with myself and with others.

What are currently direction in jazz or jazz-adjacent communities which you personally find interesting?

I've been very into the jazz scene in Germany and Belgium for the last couple of years and listening to people like Christian Lillinger and Kaja Draksler has been a huge influence on me and people also like Jozef Dumoulin and Bo Van Der Werf for the last 4 years.

[Read our Kaja Draksler interview]

I think it's very unique and interesting what they're doing in terms of composition and improvisational languages.

Do you feel that your music or your work as an artist needs to have a societal purpose or a responsibility to anyone but yourself?

I think music has a space for different purposes and I think it's important to not neglect any of those for me as long as I feel they bring something good in my life and to others.

Nevertheless I think it's important to also bring a little confrontation to audiences more often so there's more than a superfluous happiness after leaving a show.

For me personally, music has in many instances influenced my decisions and views and literally changed my life. What has this been like for you and how do you think does music make its power felt?

Oh wow I honestly don't know where I would be now without music. Music made me feel more grateful for being alive. I've met great and interesting human beings through it and it made me feel that I have a place on this Earth somehow to put my grain of sand in the thing.

I'm not the most extrovert person in the world when it comes to words and playing guitar always made me feel much freer to speak my mind. It really gives me a lot of ease and peace doing music and sharing it with people.