Barney Kessel on being a thoughtful person

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Barney Kessel discusses the element of surprise in jazz

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Barney Kessel talks about skilled musicians

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Q: “That’s kind of what jazz is about, isn’t it? You go in there prepared but you’ve got to be ready for something else all the time…”

A: “All the time. Some of the best songs that I’ve ever played, some of the best performances have been when I stopped for a moment and somebody out in the audience in their own way in a kind of a drunken way said, "Play 'Melancholy Baby'." Only it wasn't 'Melancholy Baby' and they brought to mind a particular song that I hadn't thought about in years and that brought to mind a particular treatment of that song that had I even thought about the song, I wouldn't have thought to do it that way. But at that particular moment, maybe we had just played a song that was very fast and maybe the song that the person requested is also a song that's usually played fast. But because we had just played the song fast, I now played this one slow as a contrast. I would have never played it slowly.”