September 17th
I have been commissioned to write a big band suite for the Watgermill Jazz Club in Dorking, which I'm very excited about. I've written all the tunes and am now copying out the 3rd of the arrangements - that's the tedious bit, doing it on computer.
At long last, it is nearly time for our holiday. We always go late in the year when the weather is warm but not overbearing as we like to do a lot of walking. This year we are off to Prancj near Kotor in Montenegro - a beautiful area, so I believe. Hope to hear some local music. Anyone know where I can find it, or anywhere else that might be interesting?
August 23rd - Influences
As a young boy, I thought that Beethoven was the greatest composer of all time and didn't listen to much else.&nbap; Gradually, I began to accept other classical composers of the Romantic period - Mendelssohn, Grieg, Tchaikovsky. To this day, I still have a soft spot for these composers, particularly Beethoven, whereas I just can't identify with Mozart, Hadyn or Bach. &nnbsp; Beethoven still appeals to me because he was one of the great ground-breakers, never satisfied in sitting on his laurels and just like Miles, he transformed the music. He also took risks musically and had no luck with women. Thank goodness, perhaps, as marital llfe might have deprived us of a lot of his music.
In my teenage years I discovered Ravel and Debussy, amongst others, which maybe paved the way for my acceptance of modern harmonies found in jazz. About this time, I heard some jazz (Glenn Miller and some traditional jazz bands (Kenny Ball and the like) and then Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson. This started my passion for jazz.
At about this time (the 1960s) the Beatles and other rock bands were becoming popular. But I hated it all, and stuck to jazz and classical music. In hindsight, I can now see that pop tunes in those days were really good. Not the way they were performed, but the actual melodies and harmonies...compared to the stuff that is mass-produced these days. But in 50 years time, I might change my mind!
The next landmark was hearing Bill Evans, Miles Davis and Gil Evans. These influences will stick with me for ever. On growing older, I have discovered Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Bartok, Berlio, Ligeti, Walton, Charles Ives (an underrated composer if there ever was one). I've also grown very fond of folk music - African, Asian, East European and of course, Latin American music. Other kinds of music also appeal to me to a lesser extent - some rock music, country and western, film music, and so on.
I say all this to make a few points:
1. People are turned on to jazz often by accident - hearing jazz coming out of a house while they are walking down the street, or hearing it on the radio (although the chances of this happening are remote nowadays). If they allow themselves, their taste changes over the years. To many people, hearing free jazz as the first jazz they encounter, can be a turn-off, whereas to others it can become an instant hit or an aquired taste. On the other hand, hearing something gentle, like the MJQ, could be a turn-off to a Heavy Metal fan.
2. Jazz tends to be incestuous - jazz lovers often turn their backs on all other kinds of music. However, influences from other music can be a great source of inspiration and can be accomodated within jazz.
3. Jazz players can be great listeners, which is good in itself. But listening to other players too much can stiffle your own creativity. I think you also have to develop your own thing. So listen to yourself, explore things, be confident in your own evolving creativity instead of continuously imitating other players.
April 27th - Listen with Mother
Listen with Mother was a children's programme broadcast by the BBC between 1950 and 1982 (a time when people were more clean-minded than they are today). This is a clip from it which sounds rather sadistic Click on that word.
April 24th - Singers
As a gigging musician you get used to doing gigs without much rehearsal, if any, where very often the nuances of the music are too often ignored. It is my pleasure then to work with a choir- The Sovereign Singers in Eastbourne in which the leader makes certain that all the dynamics and the exact length and timing of each note is paid attention to, as well as the breathing and other points. Vocalists are usually like a red rag to a bull to me and to many other pianists who have to take a lot of stick from prima donnas. But the ladies in this choir are a lovely bunch of people and I feel privileged to have the job of accompanying them. You can hear them here:
April 10th - Violinist in the Metro
This has been sent me by various people. It's not about jazz but could equally apply to it. You know the saying - even if Charlie Parker were to play in this venue, you still wouldn't get anyone to come.
A mat sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin. It was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip. A woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3-year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. he collected 32 dollars. When he finished playing and silence took over, no-one noticed it. No-one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No-one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theatre in Boston and the seats averaged 100 dollars.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour. Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
April 10th - a few words on talent
When I was younger I played in various dance-halls with medium-sized bands (usually 4 horns, 4-strong rhythm section and a couple of vocalists). As well as playing ballroom dances we had to play pops, which meant trying to sound exactly like the record. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. With the development of technology in recording studios, it simply became impossible to mimic the recording. Gradually, the pops took over and the bands were reduced in size and then got rid of completely.
I used to think then what a waste of talent this is for such good musicians to have to play what was often pure garbage.
Nowadays, music has been taken over almost completely by the capitalist ethos - music is a commodity to earn money; nothing else matters. What has replaced talent to a large extent is image - young, rich, slim, healthy and supposedly sexy people singing and playing pop music which is written to a formula which is guaranteed to sell the music and other merchandise linked to it.
I am not against pop music - the energy it produces is stimulating, some of the chord sequences are very interesting, some of the rhythms are fantastic, some tunes are really catchy and some of the sounds are intriguing. But there is pop music and there is pop music.
What I am against is the way that the media concentrates all its efforts upon the formula stuff - the dross. You hear it on TV and the radio, in shops and pubs and restaurants. There is no escaping it. Meanwhile, all other forms of music are ignored. A monster has been created and it is destroying everything in its path. This is the case particularly in Britain where everything has become standardised - the same shops in every town, the same films at all of the cinemas, the same tabloid newspapers owned by a handful of people. People have been brainwahed to believe that all exists is what they are presented with and there are no alternatives.
All of you reading this already know this. The problem is knowing what we can do about it. If we continue to ignore it, the number of jazz gigs will dry up entirely - maybe not the big festivals with top names, but the smaller venues where local musicians can get to play. And without these training grounds for players there will be fewer top players around.
March 21st - Excitement
Life as an arranger can be really exciting. Well, not quite as exciting as being a rare-book seller, but not far off. I remember the time when I added a thirteenth to a minor major seventh chord. I couldn't sleep for a week afterwards. Take the other day, for instance. I was just putting the finishing touches to a tune when suddenly... See what I mean!
March 16th - Eau Dear
Up to now, I have put odd comments in the update section of the News page. Now I will restrict that to just notify people of new material has been added to the site and use this page for other things.
So what's been going on? Well, as you will have noticed I've been writing a lot of piano music lately. Writing for piano is really hard and I've wanted to try and improve that aspect. It's also been useful in trying out different ideas, particularly relating to harmony, without being having to think of arranging them for other instruments. However, some of these pieces will be arranged for other ensembles in the future.
The last piano piece added to the site is "Eau de Toilette". The Gents toilets in the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne where I often work (I mean in the restaurant there, not the toilets) inspired this piece. The cistern above the urinals had such a musical sound I simply had to write this piece. Unfortunately it cannot be heard now because they have installed an extractor fan which drowns it out. The other nice thing about the toilets was that they used to have glass-fronted cases above the urinals so you could catch up with the news from different newspapers whilst being otherwise occupied. I think they removed them because certain men would turn towards the person next to them if anything interesting caught their eye and say "Here, look at this.". The remark was not always interpreted the way it was meant to be, and the cost of dry-cleaning someone else's trousers was too much. But I digress...
With piano pieces I always record the whole thing so that you can hear what I have in mind, which makes for rather long soundbites. It's also challenging for me to try and get them right, which I don't always do I must admit, but there are plenty of other people around who will be able to play them better, and they are useful exercises anyway for those who are less skilled.
Pianists often have timing problems and I would recommend using a metronome to help. We pianists are also so obsessed with chords that we sometimes find it difficult to think melodically. Being able to play a front-line instrument in addition to piano does the trick. I once played vibes (on gigs) and a bit of trombone (only once on a gig and that was so bad, the trumpet player immediately left the band. I gave up trombone because I kept waking up babies in the neighbourhood and became rather unpopular. If only silent mutes had been invented then I might have perservered.
As you get older I have found that your wrist tends to loose its flexibility. I was therefore very pleased to be given a power-ball for Christmas. It did take 3 days working at it until I managed to get it to work, but since then, I have found it excellent in exercising the wrist. Of course there are other ways of doing this, but you can play with your power ball in public without fear of being arrested. The web-site is http://www.powerballs.com or just google power balls. Have a look at the videos. There's a guy who's got one of these things in both hands. It's absolutely amazing what he can do with his balls! They are also useful for guitar players, drummers and vibes-players. All for now.
Contact me if you want to add any comments. I will reserve the right not to publish them if unsuitable.