Oliver Lake

Lake’s trio functioned on a democratic basis. “I‘m not the boss. One of our concepts is that we try to have an interplay. It’s not me being accompanied by the others. Pheeroan may start something that I’ll pick up on. From that Michael may add something, and then it will just keep on evolving and changing. We will sound like one flowing thing. It’s me (and sometimes Michael) writing the tunes, but we are all on an equal level in terms of where the music is coming from. We’ve been working together for three and a half years and are very sympathetic to each other. I feel very, very comfortable. We tune into each other and are very open inside. We play a melody and then try to go into other areas. I don’t like to structure the middle part because that’s where improvisation comes in. A preconceived structure would restrict us.”
- Jurg Solothummann