We come from a time when the benchmark for young musicians was to master 'jazz standards', in other words, to improvise over a musical form and sometimes complex chords, and then develop their own style based on that foundation. Glen and I immersed ourselves in this way of playing almost 30 years ago, practising together almost every day, regardless of whether we had a concert or not — there was simply nothing else we would rather have done. When we saw each other again after three decades, our connection was immediately re-established, as if we had just been on holiday.

Jazz as an art form is an infinite global project of adding something of your own to the achievements of the past generation before passing it on to the next one. My reason to be a musician for over 40 years now is to contribute to that.

paul urbanek