This episode of Clear and Vivid with Pat Muthini is brought to you by a presenting sponsor,

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I'm Alan Alda, and this is Clear and Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

To me, listening is the key, and whether that manifests itself in the realm that I deal

in or in our everyday interactions, the way that improvising, as we put it in this exalted

sense of a guy who's standing up on stage and playing with a bass player and drummer, connects

to just listening is central.

Jazz guitarist Pat Muthini is known as one of the world's top improvisers.

He does it up on stage, often with just bassist and drummer night after night, sometimes

100 nights in a row.

As regular Clear and Vivid listeners know, I find improvisation to be a source of connection

and creativity like nothing else.

So I was eager to meet with Pat and compare notes.

As it happens, he lives close to my apartment in Manhattan, so I asked him to drop by.

We plunged into conversation about improvisation, even before we remembered to press the record

button.

Here's Pat.

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