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November 2002

Contents

Editorial
Feature: Lee Gibson and Songs Of Time And Place
Musician's Play List: My Old Flame - vocalist Trudy Kerr pick ten of her favourite albums.
Christine Tobin: Irish singer/ songwriter talks about her eclectic approach to her art, and the recording of her new album.
Sheena Davis: Vocalist Sheena Davis talks about her unusual ?jazz repertoire? and the need to Smile!
Mainstem Productions: In the first of a series of articles on some of the UK?s leading independent labels. David Hays talks about the formation of the Mainstem label, and its musical policy.
Jazz Books: A New History Of Jazz, and a biography of Fats Waller.
CD Reviews:Reviews of releases by Don Rendell, Iain Ballamy &Food, Anita Wardell, John Goldsby, Oscar Peterson, Bill Le Sage Trio and CD of the Month ?Hi Fly? by Peter King.
Jazz Views Special Offers: Limited number of copies of 'The Right Vibes' by Bill Le Sage Trio and Trudy Kerr's sensational album 'My Old Flame'; plus two of Caber Musics hottest new releases, ?Live At Henry?s? by the Brian Kellock Trio and Colin Steele?s ?Twilight Dreams? for just ?11.00 each!
Competition: Win a copy of ?The Right Vibes? by the Bill Le sage Trio courtesy of Mainstem.
Site Map: For a quick reference key in your search words to locate page references and links.
Subscribe To Jazz Views Subscribe to Jazz Views to receive regular email updates.

Editorial

I can?t believe that it?s November already, and before we know it Christmas will be upon us, and the usual rush of festive releases will hit the shops. I?m sure as always there will be plenty to tempt us but we should not forget the wealth of music, both new release and reissues from throughout the year that still lie awaiting to be discovered. Should you feel the need to refresh your memory or simply be uncertain of what to put on your Xmas list then Messrs Richard Cook and Brian Morton have once again come to save the day with the publication of the 6th Edition of the Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD. A quick browse through this most comprehensive and informative of books will have you scrabbling for pen and paper, if of course it doesn?t leave you more confused than ever with its array of hidden treasures.

By the time that you read this, Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith, will have performed the last of his highly acclaimed ?Alone At Last? concerts. For those of you missed this remarkable show, Spartacus Records are releasing the ?Alone At Last? CD, which will be available from November 18th. Fans of the saxophonist may also be interested to know that Tommy also has a further three titles due for imminent release, with ?Bezique? a duet recording with pianist Brian Kellock, ?The Christmas Concert? featuring the Tommy Smith Quartet, and ?Miles Ahead? with trumpeter Ingrid Jenson and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. Watch this space for further details.

I sincerely hope you enjoy November?s Newsletter, a bit of Ladies Feature with four of the finest vocalists in the UK, and the first of a new series focussing on some of the independent labels that do such a sterling job in bringing to our attention some of the country?s finest talents.
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LEE GIBSON - Songs Of Time And Place

Interview by Nick Lea
Lee Gibson photo

Over the last ten years, Lee Gibson, has garnered an enviable reputation as not just as being one of the finest singers the UK has ever produced, but one of the finest jazz singers, period. Whether it be in the company of a roaring big band or an intimate quartet setting Lee has won over audiences throughout the UK and Europe and the USA, and her rapidly expanding diary has already got dates as far away as spring 2004 with further tours on the other side of the Atlantic.

I recently heard Lee perform in the beautiful surroundings of St. George?s Church in Preston, Lancashire as part of the first ever Feast Of Jazz Festival to be held in the City, and what will hopefully be the first of many. With her effortless command of the standard jazz repertoire she captivated a somewhat small but appreciative audience who had turned out on a Sunday afternoon for Lee?s second performance of the festival; with many of the crowd being recognised by the singer as having been at the gig the night before, and returning for a second helping! It was therefore my good fortune to have the opportunity to talk to Lee after the concert, and to discover the exuberance of the performance is integral to the lady herself, proving to be a very willing and enlightening interviewee.

With the release of her new album ?Songs Of Time And Place? on Spotlite Jazz (see CD Reviews), she delivers a swinging set of some well known standards with an amazing freshness, in what is probably her best album to date. But then she has already amassed an impressive discography of quality recordings that display her unique talent to its best advantage, with the Fat Chops Big band on 1999?s ?Frim Fram Sauce? and ?Night Songs? with the 77 piece Netherlands Metropole Orchestra which Lee describes as ?...very lush, yeah I like that one.?
With her debut album, ?You Can See Forever? also being re-released as a limited edition re-run, I asked Lee how she viewed recording ?Oh I love it, it?s a challenge, and completely different to playing live, but still very much part of the creative process. My first album, for example, when you listen back to it after a period of time you think ?Oh, I would have done that differently?, but it just keeps progressing I guess. At least, I hope it does!
I think that?s the aim to be honest. The aim of any artist or musician is to just keep moving forward, because there is no such thing as perfection in art. If you sit a maths exam you can get a 100%, it?s a possibility, but if you sit an English exam you can only ever get an A or A+, which is about 92%. You can never get 100% because there is no perfectly correct answer, and its like that in art. It?s just never going to happen, but that?s what we all strive for. You?ve always got something to aim for because you?ll never get there. It?s great! (laughs)?

Is that something you tell all aspiring singers, I ask ?Well ... yeah, I suppose it is! I teach one day a week at the Guildhall of Music on a post graduate course, and most of the students are good singers and almost the ?finished product? before they come in. They have to be good to get in. I also teach a couple of weeks during the summer which I love, its fantastic, you get all walks of life who want to be singers. Some are just accountants who like to sing, and you get some people who are really serious about developing their singing to a very high standard of performance. And they?ll attend this course and that course, and say ?where do I go from now? and I?ll say to them, just go out and do it. You learn so much more standing up on stage doing every night. There?s no substitute, you can?t learn it in a classroom it?s not possible. In response to people saying can you teach jazz, and what is the value of jazz education, saxophonist, Alan Barnes summed it up beautifully. He said that when our generation started out there was nowhere to go and learn it. You actually had to learn it on the job, and that takes a long time. Asking other musicians ?What are you doing there, what chord was that?? Don?t be afraid to ask. And all that jazz education does is shorten that sort of initial learning period, probably by half, because instead of six years learning it on the job you actually shorten it to three, because you?re spoon fed the information. Learning the language is what it?s all about, but you?ve still got to go out there and do it.? But does formal training lessen the creativity of what is essentially an improvise art form, reacting to the moment? ?I think that if you have a classical training, then it?s very difficult to drop it. If you have a classical background you are trained to sing exactly the same way, beautifully, each time you sing it; but it?s not such a problem if you have a jazz training because most of the people on a have already got it, whatever IT is, before they come on the course. They?ve already got that spontaneity and all you?re doing is giving them ideas and different ways of approaching things, and then they?ll go away and work on it. And I think the most important thing for any artist is finding their own voice, and that is something that all good educators try to encourage.?

Time and place-Lee gibson

What about your musical tastes, have you always been interested in jazz?
?Well ? yeah it?s weird really. My dad was an amateur guitarist before he went into the family business, and he actually played in a band. He once told me the story that when he joined his father?s firm, about six months down the line he was still going out and playing weekends. When he was about nineteen or so his mother went to clean his room, and opened the drawer if his bureau, and there was about eighteen weeks worth of pay packets that he hadn?t opened because he was making money as a musician (laughs). Its hysterical!
But anyway, I grew up in a house that was full of jazz music without even knowing that that is what it was. There were all the Count Basie Band records, the Nat King Cole?s, George Shearing and all went in subliminally, I didn?t even think about it. By the time I was twelve I think I knew the words to all the standards that had been written. I was so lucky! I get young kids who come on some courses, and they don?t know any of the standards at all. It must be awfully daunting to have start learning that repertoire from scratch, and not to say difficult. But I knew them all, it was ridiculous! And then years later when I was doing the theatres, and I opened my mouth to sing people would come up to me and say ?Oh, your really jazzy? and I?m going ?What?s that then?? But it?s purely through listening, and I suppose in the last five years I?ve started to take that seriously.?
What about listening preferences, how are your major influences? ?Influences? There have been so many! Without even knowing it I was influenced tremendously by my father?s record collection, and the fact that there was always music playing in the house. So I listen avidly to all the Frank Sinatra stuff, all the Basie stuff, all the George Shearing and Art Tatum stuff, all the Artie Shaw and Nat King Cole recordings. I mean you know it?s basically back to the roots! Anything from post 1967-47, not very much of the early stuff. I had to go and discover that for myself. So nothing of Bix Beiderbecke, or the early LouisArmstrong really. But the Hot Club Du France and Django Reinhardt, that was his bag; and it became so familiar it was just like a background. I was so lucky really in that respect. But as I say nothing much before 1945, there was no Lester Young, and there was no Charlie Parker which was unusual. I had to discover that for myself, and that was a revelation! And I guess I really, really dig Sarah Vaughan. She was such an artist, she wasn?t just singer!
But one thing I always do if I hear a song that want to sing, I do actually take the song and work it for myself without listening to anybody else sing it. It?s very difficult not to be influenced by somebody else?s approach to that particular song. It doesn?t matter who it is, and whilst there are definitive versions of certain songs, if I decide to that song it?s got to be my way of doing it.?

So how did you get started in singing, and especially jazz? ?I actually started out as a dancer, and sought of got into singing because it seemed less hard work (laughs). Also, whenever anybody said ?Can any of you lot sing?? they would all point at me and say ?She can!? I started I suppose in the West End doing theatre, then I got married and my daughter was born, and I didn?t really want to go travelling or even working at nights when she started school at the age of four; so I happened to be very lucky and got into the session scene and earned an extremely nice living, thank you very much, just working nine to five. If you pick up any albums fro the eighties and early nineties, you?ll probably hear my dulcet tones on the backing track, along with a lot of television work. And then I realised I really missed it, I really missed performing live; but I couldn?t go out and perform in the evening and get up at 7.00am and sing all day, it was just impossible. So virtually for about eight I didn?t do any performing at all, and I thought ?I want to get back in singing live?. When I actually did it after all that time, it scared the life out of me! I had been so used to reading stuff in the studio, give me a piece of music and I?ll read it, but in front of an audience that was a whole different ball game.
I remember about ten years ago going into the studio to record a jingle, a twenty second jingle promoting what I can?t recall, and these things are supposed to be memorable! I sang it through a couple of times, and yeah the sound was right let?s do a take! And the funny thing is, you have a couple of guys from the company whose product you?re promoting having a day out on expenses, and nobody is willing to make a decision and say ?yeah, that?s the one!?. If the MD of the company doesn?t like it, they don?t want to be the one who OK?d that take (more laughter). So I sang it about four or five times until they were happy with it, and walked out to my car and thought ?I don?t remember the tune, I don?t remember the product, I don?t remember what I?ve just done!? Because you just go in and you?re reading off the page, and when you perform live and sing a song without the words and music it?s like ?Oh my God, how do I remember all this?, but now it?s no problem. After a while you just remember all these wonderful songs, but you have to keep using it. If you don?t use it you lose it!
Well having made the decision that I wanted to perform live again, I just went out and performed whenever possible. I started off with a big band, because I?d had a connection with the BBC Big band through the studio and doing stuff for radio, and doing the occasional concert with them; and then I also started getting some small group gigs come my way. But it was weird, because I suppose having been off the scene for about 15 years I?d sort of ring up a jazz venue for a gig, I was pretty well known amongst musicians, but they?d say ?Who are you then?? So it took a while, but gradually it builds up, and now I?m absolutely frantic and don?t know what to do with myself. Trying to get two days off together is a miracle. It?s great, I?m not knocking it, its fantastic! It can be precarious though.
At first you wonder if there is enough money coming in, and checking your diary to see how many gigs you have. Its good to have a sense of direction, but pit and studio work can be very alluring; to have a regular wage coming in. But still you don?t know how long that?ll last either! I mean a friend of mine who was around in the early eighties, a fantastic jazz pianist by the name of Rodney Mendoza, he took a job in a pit orchestra. It was regular work and good money with paid holidays; and he thought he?d get maybe nine months to a year out of it. Well the musical was ?Cats?, and eighteen years later he was still in this bloody pit!
Anyway Rodney, and this is hysterical, did a jazz gig for me about nine months ago and he was like a man being let out of prison after a life sentence. He was like ?Jazz ?Whooaa, let me at it!? and he was off. He had such a ball, and I can?t believe how much fun that gig was. Yeah, we talk about the rewards of playing jazz but it is precarious.
For a while I was juggling the two but then I thought ?No, I?m really beginning to enjoy this? and made the decision to concentrate full time on the jazz, and thankfully started to get a lot of work. I went to Australia, and I also got a lot of work in Europe, it was great and I was thoroughly enjoying it and thought ?Yeah, alright I can do this?(laughs). And now I?m fortunate in being able to choose my own musical direction. About four or five years ago I was getting calls from London Weekend Television saying can you come and do four days for the Royal Variety Show, and I?m thinking ?I?ve got a jazz gig on Monday that?ll pay forty quid and I?ve got this concert on Saturday that?ll pay a hundred quid, and it doesn?t compare? but? and I turned them down. You have to make a decision and go in one particular direction, you have to commit to it!?

For more information visit Lee?s Website
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Musician?s Play List: TRUDY KERR