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Pop Culture
Mar 29, 2024, 06:29AM

Don’t Be Silly

A 1985 Rolling Stone interview with actor Michael J. Fox vs. a 2022 Free Jazz Collective interview with pianist Myra Melford.

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Myra Melford: It's not so much that I want to imitate what I'm hearing or seeing, but that it really is like call and response, or I see this thing, or I read this thing or, you know, I've been inspired by architecture.

Michael J. Fox: Little things, like watching sports, going to the fridge, opening it, looking around, not seeing anything to eat and closing it.

Melford: It comes from a physical impulse.

Fox: I love that. Seriously.

Melford: Yeah. Yes.

•••

Fox: The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It’s got five or six people, new show every night, new script, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot.

Melford: The interplay, you know, everybody is listening so intently and constantly responding to each other, either very directly or obliquely, however those dialogues happen.

Fox: I’m sorry for divulging that. Now I’ve spilled it.

Melford: I’m here for seven months. What can I add to it?

Fox: No. No, don’t be silly.

•••

Melford: Anyway.

Fox: I had a great guitar teacher named Paul Hanson, who used to talk normally, but after teaching a lot of L.A. kids, he started to talk like, “Hey, dude, it was way bitchin’. Man, you were all the way happenin’ on that riff.”

Melford: I've been fascinated with his work, as you've probably seen, for a long time.

Fox: We’d get together and groan.

Melford: We did the best we could. We all tried.

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