"I'm naturally going to react to that and he'll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I'm relating what he's playing"
About this Quote
Improvisation, for Benny Green, isn’t self-expression as solo therapy; it’s a conversation that changes your voice mid-sentence. The line sounds modest, even deferential, but the subtext is muscle: a great pianist doesn’t just “play over changes,” he gets played on by the room. “Naturally” is doing a lot of work here. Green frames responsiveness as instinct, not strategy, which quietly rebukes the myth of the jazz genius as a sealed-off auteur. In his world, the highest form of individuality is porousness.
The phrase “elements in my musical character” is revealing, too. He treats style as character - moral, social, mutable - and “lying dormant” suggests that artistry isn’t invented onstage so much as excavated under pressure. That’s a classic hard-bop ethos: the self is real, but it only shows up when the bandstand forces it out. He’s describing chemistry, not choreography.
Contextually, Green came up in an era when rhythm sections were no longer background furniture. Drummers like Art Blakey and pianists like Horace Silver made accompaniment argumentative, percussive, full of cues and dare-you responses. When Green says, “because I’m relating what he’s playing,” he’s naming the core jazz value: listening as creation. It’s also a quiet standard for professionalism. If you’re not reacting, you’re not present - you’re just reciting.
The phrase “elements in my musical character” is revealing, too. He treats style as character - moral, social, mutable - and “lying dormant” suggests that artistry isn’t invented onstage so much as excavated under pressure. That’s a classic hard-bop ethos: the self is real, but it only shows up when the bandstand forces it out. He’s describing chemistry, not choreography.
Contextually, Green came up in an era when rhythm sections were no longer background furniture. Drummers like Art Blakey and pianists like Horace Silver made accompaniment argumentative, percussive, full of cues and dare-you responses. When Green says, “because I’m relating what he’s playing,” he’s naming the core jazz value: listening as creation. It’s also a quiet standard for professionalism. If you’re not reacting, you’re not present - you’re just reciting.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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