RFI Musique: On the inside cover of your new album there's a picture of a young boy with a violin. Is this supposed to be you setting out on your travels?
Didier Lockwood : It's a bit like me forty or so years ago - and then you turn the album over and it's me now! It's a sort of abridged version of my life, if you like, a summing up of 3,000 concerts, 3 world tours and 30 CDs. I've travelled a fair way since my beginnings and my career has had its fair share of high points, too. There was my time with the group Magma when I first started out, my collaboration with Stéphane Grappelli when I was 21 and, last but not least, my work with the group Uzeb.
I've led a very varied life really. Besides my music career I got involved with the teaching side of things around ten years ago, setting up a school in Dammarie-les-Lys. It's a professional centre for musical improvisation. In recent years I've also broadened my musical horizons, exploring the possibilities of classical symphony music. I actually compose myself and my next two albums are going to be entirely given over to symphonic music.

Is your new album Globe-Trotter intended as a sort of round-the-world music trip ?
I'd say Globe-Trotter is a coming together of all the different musical flavours I've acquired in the course of my travels and tours. It's a memory of the high points in my life in terms of musical encounters, the fact of having worked with great musicians like Astor Piazzolla and Paco de Lucia.

Have different sounds from around the world been important in terms of your own creative process ?
Yes, they have. Jazz is a music which feeds off other cultures in order to regenerate itself, you know. That's what enables it to branch out in new directions and create new kinds of fusion. But there's never been any question of me simply reproducing music from different countries, continents or cultures. What I'm doing is giving my own version of things. My vision is the vision of a Frenchman who's travelled around the world a bit and brought back postcards from various trips. There's always been an undercurrent of my own culture running beneath what I do, though. I'm not trying to copy music from other countries or reproduce it in any way. These are simply flavours I've picked up in the course of my travels. When I do flamenco, it's a taste of flamenco, not real flamenco. I'm not playing within the framework of flamenco tradition, but simply sharing what I've got out of it myself.

The second CD in the double album features a series of improvisations on different themes…
I recorded the first album with my quartet so that makes it a shared vision. But the second album, which is intended as a sort of bonus for buyers, is a solo piece I've been working on on stage for years based on the Solo des mouettes. It's something I've never thought about recording before now. The best way of describing it is as a sort of introspective voyage which builds up around the track. It's my own personal vision of things, me making my own connections. It also gives me a chance to experiment with electric violin.

Is touring abroad important to you?
Yes, of course it is. In my view musicians have to be itinerant. Personally I've found it really enriching travelling elsewhere and seeing what's going on for myself. That's helped me get things into perspective and given me a much more global vision of the world. Sometimes I really pity singers who work entirely in French because they never get the opportunity to go out and perform abroad. It's such an enriching experience to go off and do a tour of India or Africa. You really come back a changed man.

Do you think there's a positive image of French jazz musicians abroad?
You know, what makes French jazzmen really different from their foreign counterparts is the way they use strings. Look at the huge impact musicians like Stéphane Grappelli and Jean-Luc Ponty made on the world. That's one of the reasons I set up my school. The Didier Lockwood Music Centre is intended to be a guarantor of specifically French traditions like these.

There have been a great deal of important collaborations in the course of your career. You've worked with the likes of Vander (in Magma), then Grappelli, Menuhin, Petrucciani, Nougaro and Bohringer. Would you say these collaborations have helped you evolve musically ?
I'd say any collaborative work with another musician, whether they're well-known or not, is interesting. When I play with good musicians I always learn something from them. And when you're lucky enough to work with people who are nice and friendly and not too pretentious and you can establish a healthy working relationship with them then the experience is even better! Personally, I've always avoided musicians – even the most brilliant ones – who had any kind of ego problem.

You're a bit of an atypical musician in that you work in so many different fields, touching on jazz, classical and symphonic music as well as film music...
I'm a violin of all trades! My violin's like a passport really; it helps me cross all kinds of cultural frontiers. The violin's the perfect instrument for that because it's extremely versatile. It's an instrument which was originally created to mimic the human voice with as much emotion as possible and it's an instrument which features in all cultures. So if you're a violinist who's interested in different forms of culture, there's masses to do!

So you believe in improvising life as you do with your violin?
Yes, exactly. That's where the title of my book La vie improvisée (Improvised Life) comes from. The idea for the title came to me after reading a scientific book which explained that life needs seven vital parameters in order to exist and one of these vital parameters is improvisation. Life requires constant improvisation. That can mean adjusting to a dangerous situation, branching out in a new direction at any given moment and being able to anticipate change. Improvisation is a reflex that really develops human beings' creative intelligence. And, believe me, once you've branched out into improvisation with your violin it's difficult to go back to being a straightforward performer.

Improvisation sounds like walking a tricky sort of tightrope…
It's like being a catreally. You have to know how to take risks but always land on your feet! Improvising means constantly setting yourself challenges. And I think there's a visionary side to improvisers, too. They have to set themselves some kind of aim. They set out in a certain direction, but there are a multitude of different paths they can follow to get to the final destination. And sometimes you even end up setting yourself little traps to amuse yourself along the way. Let's not forget there's a playful side to improvisation, too. It's a game of strategy.

Do you see yourself as a role model for the next generation?
Well, I'd say I've certainly been made to feel one at times. I've often come into contact with youngsters who say they were motivated to take up the violin because they saw me in concert. And that's the best compliment you can give anyone!

Interview: Pierre René-Worms
Translation: Julie Street

Album: Globe-Trotter (Universal Jazz).
Autobiography: Profession jazzman, la vie improvisée (Hachette Littératures)
Didier Lockwood plays at the New Morning in Paris on November 8th.