How important was learning Farsi and immersing yourself in the culture with regard to mastering the music?
No one can really understand and fully absorb a system as deeply metaphysical as Persian music, especially with its Sufi song texts, without fluency in Farsi. You’ve talked about the music of the East being related to the blues. Can you explain? The basic blues scale is a version of the Persian modal system Segah which was adopted by the Arab world after Islam came to Persia. And the blues came from the Touareg nomads of the sub-Sahara through northern Nigeria and on to New Orleans. You went on to play a wide range of instruments from Santur to Dan Tranh. Which was the hardest to master and why? It was impossible for me to conjure up the patience for the Sitar, with its rigid and very slow system of learning for years. A long time student told me “they (the teachers) don’t like prodigies or geniuses, just obedient, patient lifetime learners.” Many jazzmen have worked with Eastern music. Who do you most respect? I like Tony Scott’s Japan stuff, also bassist Adbul Malik did pretty well o
