Interview with Mark Levinson (MF Sedmicka)

I am using a special recording system, which gives new opportunities to musicians. It brings great freedom to them and also an opportunity to express themselves. I have been using the system for some time, but it is the first time I have cooperated with PETROF in the Czech Republic. We are putting together a new recording system, a great pianist and wonderful piano. So we shall see what will happen.

 

It is actually quite a simple idea to let musicians make music naturally. We have an excellent grand piano, Beata Hlavenkova (jazz composer and pianist) will play on it and I will do the recording. I use only two microphones and I can find the best place for them, which is really important. And we do not mix music. It is like back in the twenties, when just one microphone was used for a recording, and that’s it. It is an old idea realized with better modern equipment.

 

I am a trouble-maker. People think I am a sound engineer or constructor, but my real desire and what pleases me most is to make music. I am absolutely delighted, when I can play. When I was young, I was lucky enough to catch the end of the jazz era so I had an opportunity to play with musicians like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and other great musicians.

 

When me and my brother were teenagers, we went to a jazz workshop in Boston, where Bill Evans played.

 

Are you kidding? No, I listened to him. Of course we played there – me on the trumpet and my brother on the piano. Bill came to us and asked: „What are you playing?“ And we said: „We are listening to you compositions.“ Well, and he gave us his music papers. You see, my brother copied Bill Evans in breaks. These were really amazing times. You know, if I had been more courageous, I would have been a musician. But I would also have been hungry. With recording, you can make money, but I must say that I have always been fascinated and attracted by making music.

 

No, I am on business here. I have never been to Horice, I must go there one day. My mother comes from a Jewish family Hirsch. They had a textile company in Horice. They escaped when the Nazis came. But not all of them were lucky like my mother. My uncle hesitated. He wanted to stay with his factory and employees there. Finally it was too late for him so he ended up in Auschwitz. After the war, the factory was taken from us. And I was born in America.

 

PETROF builds amazing pianos. You have to look for the excellent instrument in which Beata plays today. It is not like when you come to a store and buy it. Most pianos, I repeat most of them, are made for conventional playing. But this grand piano Mistral gives you many more possibilities. It drew my attention mainly by its dynamic range, by its rounded clear tone and by the color of its tones. This instrument has soul.

 

The music industry is collapsing. Recording companies do not have money, no one wants to buy CDs. It’s ok, because this system has never worked anyway. Most of the industry people think that this problem does not have a solution. The industry is paralyzed by fear, but it is important to do something. Otherwise you are finished. Some companies do nothing, but right now here in Hradec Kralove, PETROF and I are preparing really important things for music. We are looking for a part of a solution. And nobody else is doing that.