Interview Exchange with Milo Fine: Foreword

Milo Fine is a Minneapolis-based multi-instrumentalist improvisor with whom I have had the great pleasure of both making and discussing music on numerous occasions since first making his acquaintance late in 2005. Coming of age in the late 1960s, Milo made an unwavering commitment to instrumental autodidacticism, ensemble collectivity, and artistic self-determination that he maintains to this day, surrounding himself with a small but potent and diverse group of musical collaborators from around the Twin Cities, as well as maintaining lifelong interstate and international relationships with some of improvised music's heavy hitters. There is much more about Milo in his own words, as well as information about recordings and concerts, at his website.

The thought of featuring a Milo Fine interview here has been in the back of my mind nearly since the inception of this blog, and yet the standard interview format only appeals to me less as I encounter it with ever greater frequency on the music-oriented blogs I follow. With Milo expressing his own qualms as well, I suggested an email exchange, which given our mutual penchant for the written word I was confident could approach the depth of the face-to-face conversations we've had. The following installments represent the fruits of that effort.

Regarding formatting, Milo chose, as always, to interleave his responses throughout my initial messages. Seeing that anyone reading this probably uses email themselves on more than a cursory basis, we maintain this format below with no apprehension about its intelligibility. Here, however, is an official reminder to remain cognizant of this decision should a discontinuity seem to present itself.

Regarding the first installment, the initial quote comes from Milo's notes to his 2008 Emanem release Ananke, from which we decided I would extract a conversation starter.