Musician Kyle Eastwood: ‘Jazz is about taking risks’ 

1. What is your earliest memory?
   Being on set with my father [actor and director Clint Eastwood]. I think he was making the film Dirty Harry. My sister was born just after that, and I remember my mother coming home from the hospital with her.

2. Who was or still is your mentor?
   Probably Bunny Brunel, one of my earliest and most important teachers on bass, and for music in general.

3. How fit are you?
   Not in too bad shape for 55. I’m not a big gym-goer but I walk a lot, ride my bike, ski a little, play tennis occasionally. Playing music is fairly physical. Just hauling a double bass around is exercise.

4. Tell me about an animal you have loved.
   A basset hound named Sydney. Sydney was born only a month or two before I was, so we grew up together for 13 years. And a deer named Matilda that my mother and I raised from a bottle. A friend of ours lived in an area in California where there was hunting, so sometimes she would find orphaned baby deer. We had a few — they were completely tame and would wander in the house if the door was open. Matilda was special, a sweetheart. I helped deliver some of her fawns.

5. Risk or caution, which has defined your life more?
   Playing music live, especially jazz, is about taking risks. With improvised music, you don’t have a safety net when you’re in front of an audience. That’s satisfying when it works out.

6. What trait do you find most irritating in others?
   Pessimism. Negativity. I’m more or less an optimist.

7. What trait do you find most irritating in yourself?
   Procrastinating over things I don’t really want to do. I’ve always been that way. Even in school, I did pretty well in the subjects I liked and pretty badly in the ones I didn’t.

8. What drives you on?
   The opportunity to learn something new. I’m always striving to grow as a musician, as a composer.

9. Do you believe in an afterlife?
   I believe the human spirit, the soul, must move on. We don’t really understand it, but sure, there must be something else beyond.

10. Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence?
    I don’t know whether it’s something that’s destined, or all chance. I guess we’ll find out some day — when we find out whether there’s an afterlife.

11. Name your favourite river.
    I spent quite a few pre-teen and teenage summers swimming in the Big Sur river, down the coast from Monterey. The river runs from the mountains, dropping down into the Pacific. Big Sur is a beautiful coastline. There are some really nice spots where the river gorges form big pools. It’s a beautiful hike through redwood forests to swim there. It’s quite a spiritual place.

12. What would you have done differently?
    My two big passions have always been music and the cinema. When I was a teenager, I thought I might try and be a film director. I didn’t really decide to become a professional musician until I was 18 or 19, and I guess I wish I’d been a bit more serious about my musical studies when I was younger. I just played for fun. I can’t imagine life without music. I’m pretty happy with the path I’ve chosen.

‘Eastwood Symphonic’ by Kyle Eastwood, his quintet and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra is out now

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