
Or Bareket & Godwin Louis Interview
OR BAREKET & GODWIN LOUIS INTERVIEW
Or Bareket Quartet – Yom
A true dream come true! The Or Bareket Quartet held its three-day residency at Café Central during the first weekend of April. We were honored with a beautiful conversation in the company of his close friend Godwin Louis. Both lead their own projects and walk side by side in search of musical truth. Their attentive, discreet, thoughtful, and reflective personalities challenged many of the assumptions we often hold as listeners. They left us with truly delicate and profound reflections on life and music. We hope you enjoy—and most of all, learn from—it as much as we did.
As always, you can check both the podcast and the transcription of the interview down below!

In&OutJazz: Alright, Or Bareket Quartet in town. We’re having Godwin Louis and Or himself here with us. What a real pleasure for us! We’re In&OutJazz, an independent journal with its base in Madrid. We like to focus on you guys and all the artists out there that are pushing the edge musically. And we’re really looking forward to this conversation. So, we’re really thankful for the fact that you guys accepted. And also, we know you’ve been here for a couple of days now at Café Central, having your residency here. So, we’re really thankful that Café Central has been supporting you guys too. I’m gonna go ahead and kick out the first question. I’d like to know how you guys are doing and if you’re enjoying your time here in Madrid so far.
Or: Yeah, Madrid is, for me, one of my favorite stops on the tour.
Nice.
It’s great to be here with the audience here, great atmosphere, we like the food. We like being able to play in one same place for three nights. A lot of the other stops on the tour are for just one night. So, it’s nice to kind of settle in tour for a few nights in one place.
Right. You’re liking the city. Because you guys have been in town for a couple of times now, right?
Godwin: Yeah, I’ve been here many times. Great to be here supporting this Maestro, Or. Yeah, here for Or.
Yeah, totally. You just mentioned the audience. I was, in fact, about to ask you guys about that. I want to ask you guys to be real honest here. What’s your perception of the audience here in Madrid? And yeah, you can be critical too. I mean, I like that too.
Or: I think the audience is great. I feel like they are, I feel like they are listening without a lot of preconceptions. What I feel that’s unique in Madrid and in Spain in general is I feel like people are really listening for the energy and the vibe and the emotion of the music. Whereas in other places, audiences might have some more of an agenda, of like what is this kind of music or that kind of music and why do you play this and not that.
Doing some analysis maybe.
A little more. And here, even though the audience is informed and aware, they’re able to listen to music that can be very abstract. But they’re still very open and I enjoy that. That’s right, isn’t it? What do you think?
Godwin: Well, I mean, this city has a lot of great musicians. So, I think.
Or: Right, the local scene’s great.
Godwin: It’s one of those local scenes so we don’t expect anything less than people being aware of music because they get great music here.
Or: Right.
That’s cool.
Godwin: You can come in and see Maestro Román Filiu, who is like a treasure, you know. So, we expect the audience to be informed.
Or: That’s true.
That’s cool, it’s cool that you guys can state there. All right, Yom, that’s your latest release, your latest work, Or. What are the main concepts, ideas and experiences that give gave life to this record?
I mean, that’s all written in the press release, so you don’t need to ask me that. But really, this album is about this band. It’s just music that was written for Godwin Louis, Jeremy Corren and Savannah Harris. And by working with them, playing with them, being on the road with them, hearing their voices and coming up with material for them. So, it’s really these songs that are just ways for us to play together and just for these incredible artists to express themselves. The themes are always influenced by whatever I’m listening to, or reading, whatever we’re talking about, but that comes after the music.
It’s beautiful, yeah, it’s cool. And I mean, we’re all aware about the fact that you both play in each other’s projects, right? Not always right, but
Sometimes, yeah.
Godwin: When the master is kind enough.
To give a call. I was curious to know how does the composition process work for both of you guy. And since you were saying you wrote the music for these four people, right?
Or: Right.
How much of their suggestions come to the composition? And, how much of the material is already written? And how much of it is informed by all four of you guys? If that makes sense…
Yeah, yeah it makes sense. In the case of my writing, I think most of the material is written. Like we don’t shape or we don’t add that much material in rehearsal, but we rearrange it.
Got it.
We organize it, we structure it, and you know, we just we just do some quality control. Like I write some stuff and the stuff that is good is absorbed into the repertoire and stuff that is not, is not. But, you know, I try to write all the time. It’s important for me to have a practice of regular compositional study and regular compositional output.
Nice!
And some of these things are embellished by these musicians. My friends are so good, they make it sound very good. That’s the process.
It’s awesome. I mean, whoever has watched you guys play live, can feel an environment somewhat magical on the stage. I’d like to know what is going through your minds when you guys play, during the performance. Like, because we can see focused looks in your eyes, focused faces. But yeah, I’d like to know what goes through your minds at that time?
Godwin: Um, for me I’m composing with the band. So that’s… I don’t look at it as improvisation, I look at materials giving and we’re like using the audience and the energy and the environment to compose, based on materials that this maestro gave us. So, that’s solely what I’m thinking about in this band. It’s composing a band. Composing, you know…
Yeah, in live instance…
Exactly yeah, spontaneous composition, yeah.
There you go.
Or: What am I thinking? It really changes. I mean, for a lot of this music, it is… Like playing this music is so demanding for me and playing the bass is really demanding, so most of the time I’m just thinking about how to play in tune, how to play in time.
Got it.
And kind of looking for where the center of gravity of the band is, like where are we in the beat, where are we in the song and trying to…. Basically just playing the role of the bass in the band takes most of my brain. So, there’s not a lot of room for other thoughts.



That’s cool, thanks for the honesty there, really. No need to invent anything in your answer. Yeah, that’s right. Are you guys pursuing anything when you compose, when you write? Apart from, you know, I guess the sense of community between you guys and doing something beautiful, I guess. Is there anything beyond that? Beyond the music itself? Is there…? Maybe not and that’s totally fine.
Godwin: Like, for me when I’m composing it’s always a teachable moment. I feel like, as, I guess, someone from a younger continent with a complex story, I always feel compelled to tell people the story of that continent. And, so I’m thinking of that, thinking of identity, DNA, world events, everything. So, that’s kind of what my writing is based on, kind of what I can teach people or share with people or create illusions and, yeah.
That’s beautiful. Would you add anything to that?
Or: I mean, no, I can’t add anything to that, that’s the master’s process. But, I would say that my process is just informed by what I study. Like, I’m always studying and listening to things, and I’m always trying to work out certain musical questions.
Beautiful.
And most of the composition comes from that.
And what’re your current topics that you’re diving into in terms of studying?
I mean, for me, it’s always the same question in a way, I think. For me, it’s always, there’s a certain entry point into a composition process. Like, maybe I start from a melody, or I start from some kind of harmonic progression, or from a rhythm, or from form. And I just try to see how I can make it feel like it’s in 3D and has real depth. And I relate to what master Godwin said about just the role of history and musical DNA and really understanding the musical DNA. Not from an academic-scholarly point, but actually dealing with the materials of the music, right? Like, where is this rhythm from? Why do these rhythms appear in different iterations in different parts of the world? What does counterpoint and melodic development look like in different musical cultures and different folklores? So, kind of, in a way, trying to make a language for our generation of composers and improvisers. Because we are essentially, we are all displaced people, to some degree, right? We don’t have… Like, up to two or three generations ago, my family, our family, my family had lived in the same place for hundreds of years. So, like, there was only, there was one kind of music.
Right.
There was one tradition. If you want to be a musician, that’s what you did. But we are after, really several centuries of systematic displacement of people. So, it really changes what does it mean to have a musical tradition and to come from one. You kind of have to be a historian, a researcher, a student, in order to in order to have the same connection that, I think, maybe people once had to the musical language that they were brought up in.
Right.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, totally. I mean, deep words, man.
Godwin: As trained musicians, we have heavier duties to stand, because we’re trained, we’re, quote educated, we’re informed. And so, we live in a musical and social world where a lot of people are misinformed. So, we always have to use those kind of palettes to explore both and find an equal medium of understanding. Especially with this genre there’s so many… If you even think about it, iteration of things, tradition versus progressive versus community versus scene versus… So, and people are all misinformed and all different…, all those iterations that I mentioned. So, because we’re trained then we have, I guess, more on our backs to kind of like present it to people in a way that they can reach it, in a way that pushes them forward, then also question them too.
Okay, let’s go for the last question. Earlier today, I was sharing some of you guys’ music with some friends. One of them made a cool comment, he was saying “I’m virgin, you know, against this music or towards this music because I never heard it before”. And I was like, “that’s what I want, how would you describe it?” And they were saying, “mmm, if this was some food I’d never tried, I’d definitely like to try it again”, or “it smells cool”. And they were saying it sounded real deep and soft at the same time, you know. You guys have a real acoustic and woody sound. So, I’d like to know how you guys describe your own sound as instrumentalists, but also in terms of the whole band. How would you describe your sound? I think it’s going to be helpful for people to know.
Or: I don’t know. I think…, this is going to be…, I’m going to give you an annoying answer, but that’s why we have different mediums for different things. This is the medium of sound. So, like, you can describe it. I think your friends’ description is good, you know. Dark and deep and woody and soft. Like, I definitely want the sound to be, to feel like a place for the listener. I want someone to feel like they can be in the sound, as opposed to, like, in front of the sound or under the sound or next to it, you know.
Nice!
But it’s ultimately…, it’s what the four of us end up creating together. It’s beyond…, it’s beyond descriptors or…, even beyond is a stupid word! It’s just, you can’t convey it with words without reducing it. Like, it is what it is.
That’s right, yeah. Yeah, that’s totally right. I totally agree with that. Well, guys, thanks a lot. We wish you the best set now.
Or: Thank you.
And, yeah, thanks again. That was Or Bareket an Godwin Louis Godwin in town. Thanks!


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