FREEDOM OF CHOICE
“I raise my arm, my arm rises. And now a problem emerges: what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?” Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, poses this question in paragraph 621 of his book Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. Let us now apply Wittgenstein’s thought experiment on the separation of action and will to the world of jazz. If I am a musician, I improvise, and when a musical idea comes to mind, I play it immediately. And now a problem emerges: what remains if I subtract the fact that a musical idea came to mind from the fact that I will play it immediately?
Saxophonist-composer Kristóf Bacsó appears to be exploring this question in his new album, Let It Go. How far does free will extend? To what extent do we make autonomous decisions, and can our choices be corrected? “Composing music requires constant decision-making,” says Kristóf Bacsó. “But while composing, we can rethink and change every decision. If the composition is successful, we forget everything we experienced during the process, and the outside observer perceives only the complex whole, as if it had all emerged from the composer’s mind at once.”
Composition and improvisation do not function in exactly the same way, although there are many similarities between them. American saxophone legend Wayne Shorter even said, “Composition is slowed-down improvisation; improvisation is sped-up composition.” In either case, it is clear that decisions about which musical paths to take differ at a fundamental point. Unlike composing on paper, live improvisation allows no room for correction. There is no such thing as an audible eraser. “During improvisation, we make decisions immediately, without thinking; the process gains meaning from the outside. While playing, it is not I who decide, but the flow,” says Kristóf Bacsó.
It is, of course, difficult to define what this flow consists of. There is an inner core: the state of consciousness a person enters when playing music. If they have as close and natural a relationship with their instrument and musical language as Kristóf Bacsó does, they may truly feel that their musical decisions are not made by themselves but are driven by some kind of automatism – or, if you prefer, a higher power. However, this state is shaped by the profound musical experiences and lasting memories Kristóf Bacsó has accumulated over the past decades through collaborations with musicians such as Lionel Loueke, Daniele Camarda, Mihály Dresch, Kálmán Oláh, and many others. Additionally, as a kind of “external circumstance,” there are the two outstanding musicians with whom he has played for years and recorded several albums: the members of the Kristóf Bacsó Triad – Áron Tálas, who plays various keyboard instruments, and drummer Márton Juhász. For this album, they are joined by guitarist and bassist István Tóth.
“Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others”—so reads point 4 of the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” formulated at the beginning of the French Revolution. Since its publication, it has become a common view that individual freedom extends only as far as it does not restrict the freedom of others. One important lesson of Kristóf Bacsó’s album is that freedom in music cannot actually be restricted. The freedom of one musician is not diminished by encountering the limits of another musician’s freedom. On the contrary.
A perfect example of this is the album’s opening track, the title song Let It Go. At first, the saxophone plays alone, with complete freedom, in a difficult-to identify meter. Then the drums enter, followed by the inimitable sound of the Fender Rhodes, and then the guitar. As the music takes shape, it becomes clear that the piece is in 5/4 time, but the entry of the other instruments does not restrict the saxophone’s freedom; it seems to play with even greater freedom than when it was alone. At the end of the song, all the instruments play in unison, performing wide intervals together, and the naturalness of the musicians’ playing gives the listener not a feeling of constraint, but a sense of shared freedom.
The track Crossroads can evoke various images for the listener: the intertwining melodies and successive solos serve as metaphors for the intersection of human destinies and life paths. Double Vision is built on dazzling rhythmic interplay: while the chords and melody progress in 4/4 time, the drums play in quintuplets, which simultaneously makes the musical process feel floating and creates a kind of “double vision” sensation for the listener. Could Be Something Else is the title of the fourth track, in which a characteristic motif undergoes a peculiar transformation. At first, it appears alone in the bass, above which a melody unfolds independently. Then, only the drums and saxophone remain, engaging in a sensitive dialogue free of any meter. Unexpectedly, the music takes on a rhythmic form as it moves into an asymmetrical 11/8 time, but in the next moment, the instruments unite in an endless melody.
If we listen carefully, we can hear that the opening motif is hidden in the bass of this endless melody.
But it has truly changed. Not only could it be different; it has become different. It is a matter of creative decision what a thought becomes, and perhaps the heavenly creator changes the course of our lives in a similar way.
It is not easy to define what gives Kristóf Bacsó’s music its magic: it features idiosyncratic melodies, sensitive harmonies, unique song structures, and, of course, the impressive sound of the Kristóf Bacsó Triad. For me, however, perhaps even more important is that this music presents an intellectual challenge to the listener – with its complex meters, polyphonic textures, and dense chord progressions – without ever losing its accessibility. Simply put, Kristóf Bacsó’s music is always a pleasure to listen to. Even at its most accessible, his music still offers surprises for the educated listener. For example, the track Deep Blue, which, after a slow introduction, appears to use a pop chord progression, is in fact just as sophisticated as any other piece on this album.
However, the most important aspect of this music lies not in the notes themselves, but in the human content behind them. In the song My Father Sent a Message, Kristóf Bacsó illustrates the unpredictable nature of memory, or our relationship to the past, through the capriciously winding, rhapsodic music of the first part and the echoing sounds and constantly evaporating, elusive saxophone solo of the second, stricter part. Oblique Words demonstrates with its single-note repeating melody, that one note can take on many different meanings, like words. The sorrowful waltz of Soulbird, written in memory of his young friend, the late double bassist Mátyás Szandai, shows that emotions are not meant to be hidden, but to be embraced.
The last two songs on the album return to the theme of freedom and choice, with Smiling Moon taking a more traditional form and Mandala a more complex one. They address missed opportunities and decisions that have been made. “As I approach fifty, I look back more and more often and think about the decisions I have made in my life,” says Kristóf Bacsó. “I am satisfied with many things, but there are some where I would have been fortunate to decide differently or better. However, what I have learned over the years is how to let things go, whether it is a composition, a solo, or a situation in life.”
Gergely Fazekas