Lester Bowie Quotes

I like to improvise.

I love to improvise when it's appropriate and encouraged by a producer.

I personally don't lock in a performance, because I do leave room for things to happen, so I just make sure I'm very intimate with what I'm saying and why I'm saying it so that no matter what happens, we can do whatever we want to do and leave space for play.

Many times you never know what's going to happen. You'll play songs that you never thought you were going to play.

I think music naturally wants to be played with more than one person. There's a surprise element, and you don't know what it will be, and it's up to that other person's energy to help create this third thing.

If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

We go in and I do my thing, and then we supplement it with whatever we want.

My act is sort of improvisational. I have a skeleton in my head, but no fat or skin on it.

I research every part thoroughly. I talk it out with my actor friends, but then I throw it all away when I get to the set. You have to be spontaneous.

I always improvise with the crowd. Sometimes it will be a 50 percent show, sometimes 70 percent, sometimes it's almost a whole show where I wing it. It depends on my mood, the energy in the room. For sure, a portion of it is just kind of winging it.

I love an actor who comes in, ready to work. It's like a good tennis player. They hit the ball where you don't expect it, and it's great.

In the performance sense, I find that interpretation is improvisatory in nature. You can go anywhere with an interpretation on any given day.

For me, you have to do as much work as you can beforehand and, once you get on stage or set, throw it out the window because you need to be collaborative. You shouldn't have too many ideas about where it goes before you get into the room with the director and other actors.

I love when things can repeat and you can make things slightly different each time and just react to the music and react to the recording.

I studied structured improv, where you start from one position and see where it takes you. I like spontaneity. If you set yourself up to do the same thing every night, you may not connect as well to a different audience.

I don't know what another actor is going to give me, on the day, and I don't want to be so hard and fast in my technique that I'm not open to what's coming.

Every now and then I'll think of something to put back in the show. I just kind of play it off the top of my head. If I do it that way it keeps it kinda fresh.

When you work with an actor and then you discover new things that are better, I think you gotta be free to be able to go with the new things that you're finding. I think that's very important. I have a strong idea when I go to shoot a movie but I also love to discover things when I'm on set as well.

Sometimes I do love to rehearse, but I always switch it up depending on whom I'm working with.

I bring ideas to set, and I'm more than willing for those to be affected and be malleable based on what the other person gives me. I don't know what another actor is going to give me, on the day, and I don't want to be so hard and fast in my technique that I'm not open to what's coming.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.

When you're playing the same dirty dozen night after night, the moments that keep it fresh are those when you just let go and trust everyone.

Me jumping on a song with Ariana Grande is just showing versatility, you know what I'm saying?