I love music because it is an expression of ourselves. Playing is certainly not a compulsive act. That is exactly why jazz has such a wide potential for expression. Jazz is conscious freedom, as I like to define it.

Classical music is the expression of something written excellently by composers, something that already works and that you have to interpret as well as you can. Jazz, instead, is the expression of the artist himself, because he is at the same time the composer and the performer, and he can decide that the music takes one direction rather than another. In that sense jazz is also risk, because you have to take responsibility for what you play.

And yet it seems that the way artists are trained in jazz goes in the opposite direction. As a musician who has also studied classical music, I am constantly chasing cleanliness of technique and of sound, and I try to focus on those technical aspects of my instrument. The problem is that many players chase the perfection of a solo, that is, something that already works and is therefore safe, instead of trying to push to the limit of what they know with the help of creativity.

This habit is more and more dictated by the academization of music, and of improvised music in particular, which pushes the student toward perfect intonation, perfect articulation, and knowing in advance what works and what does not. We should rediscover the pleasure of discovering. Forgive the play on words. We should blow ideas we do not yet know. Music should head toward the unknown. We should push ourselves into adventure. Perfection is not exciting.

All the greats, who certainly did not have all the knowledge and all the tools an artist can draw on today, played at the limit. Charlie Parker was, and still is for me, extraordinary. But he made mistakes. Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans, Picasso, Leonardo: every great artist made mistakes.

Naturally this must not become an excuse not to study or not to practice. That you have to do, always. It is through technique that we express what we think. Not practicing would be like trying to recite a poem by Ungaretti without knowing Italian.

So my advice is this: play at the limit, make mistakes, come back to safe ground, then play at the limit again. A wrong note played with conviction can stir a different emotion than a safe note in the right place. And as artists, what we have to care about are the emotions of the people who listen, watch, feel, and take part.

This is why I love music.