Charlie Kohlhase is a prolific Boston-based jazz saxophonist and composer. He leads four bands, including the Charlie Kohlhase Quintet, which he founded. Kohlhase also teaches at the Longy School of Music, directing their Modern American Music Repertory Ensemble. He hosts "Research and Development," a jazz radio show on WMBR 88.1 FM. Kohlhase will perform at the Rose on Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m. He took questions from the Justice by email last week.JustArts: How does your appreciation of music history affect the creative process?

Charlie Kohlhase: When I started out in the music I was attracted to the dissonance and great swing of Thelonious Monk and the irresistible beat of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. At the same time I fell under the sway of the great conceptual advances coming about at the time in the music of Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy and Roscoe Mitchell. I've pretty much spent my career trying to balance my music between those poles. Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams and the other folks involved with the Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians movement in Chicago were always very much about researching early jazz, which prompted me to investigate the early music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. What's fascinating about much of that stuff is that those players didn't have a lot of recordings or other players to influence them. Jazz was really kind of a blank slate at the time, and it's fascinating to hear the way the music evolved, just from 1923 to 1927 for example. I'm not sure if a lot of Lovie Austin is going to show up in my next composition, but I do enjoy hearing that perspective. What's missing from much of today's jazz is the awareness of the early music: so many cats just start with either Duke, Bird or, for that matter, Coltrane, and I think you can hear that lack of roots in much of today's jazz.

JA: What are your favorite aspects of the jazz scene here, and what sets Boston's scene apart from that of New York?

CK: There is a solid community of committed creative and uncompromising musicians in Boston who have been honing their craft for many years. I'm very happy to be part of that community. I think most of us seem to fall under the radar as far as the national media is concerned.

JA: What connects jazz as it is taught in the classroom with the way it is performed?

CK: I do feel ... that jazz education can at times be one of music's greatest enemies. I try to get across to my students that just learning some scales, licks and a few harmonic devices doesn't necessarily make you a great jazz musician: it's a matter of keeping your ears open and evolving! As my teacher/mentor/friend Roswell Rudd put it a long time ago, "Music is infinitely perfectible." Move into the future while exploring the past. While there may appear to be a certain amount of stasis in the music presently, I think there are interesting rhythmic developments that have emerged in the last decade and a half: there's a lot more odd meter and compound meter stuff going on. And many of the younger players are gaining the rhythmic flexibility to be able to improvise fluently in that kind of setting. I think some of this might come from hip hop, although I really haven't been keeping up with contemporary pop music for quite some time.

JA: Are there are particular types of venues you like to play?

CK: I've really enjoyed playing at the Rose and at other art galleries. I think the setting makes people more receptive to actually slowing down and listing to the music. I like concert halls and clubs as long as folks are willing to quiet down and give the music a chance to be heard: it's not easy to play your heart out to a roomful of disinterested individuals.