The argument we always used to use was that keeping records in the catalog was good for people that were coming new to the music, but I think that was talking over a ten year or fifteen year time span.
Certain kinds of speed, flow, intensity, density of attacks, density of interaction... Music that concentrates on those qualities is, I think, easier achieved by free improvisation between people sharing a common attitude, a common language.
I think the solo playing, the decision to start playing solo, came out of having discovered what lay behind the doors that that technique opened for me.
I think the voice does that perfectly adequately without being imitated by other instruments.
If I think about the way I was drawn into the music, it was much more by recordings than by live performances.
I've never been one that thinks that the function of an instrument is to approach the purity of voice or the structure of a beautifully sung line.
I think the whole question of meaning in music is difficult enough even if you hear me playing live right now in the same room! What I mean and what you take from it may be two quite different things anyway.