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| On This Page: EDITORIAL - Parliamentary Jazz Awards & Jazz Views GEOFF EALES - Drinking From Many Fountains TOM HILL - Making A Living MUSICIAN?S PLAY LIST - Deirdre Cartwright
Difficult to believe, but this month sees the beginning of the fourth year of the Jazz Views website, and as we celebrate our third birthday it is quite unbelievable to see how the site has grown over a few short years. From my personal point of view, it is most gratifying to have been able to work together with some great people who have given unstintingly of their time (and talents) to write the reviews, articles and interviews that have graced the numerous issues of the magazine, I speak of course of the contributors, without whom there would be no monthly Newsletters. It with this in mind that I?m especially pleased to be able to announce that Jazz Views has been nominated as Best Jazz Wesbsite in the forthcoming Parliamentary Jazz Awards. The awards, sponsored by music industry organisation Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) feature 9 categories, and the winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony to be held on 15th March, where they will be presented with a parliamentary shield. We will of course keep you updated with not just the progress of Jazz Views, but all the nominees for the categories as listed below: Musician of the Year Guy Husband; Tony Kofi; Sebastian (Seb) Rochford & Kenny Wheeler Best Album Polar Bear - Dim Lit; Colin Towns ? Orpheus Suite & Stan Tracey/Peter King ? The Last Time I Saw You Best Venue Boxford Fleece Jazz Club; Brighton Jazz Club & Wakefield Jazz Best Journalist John Fordham; Kevin Le Gendre & Stuart Nicholson Best Broadcaster Mike Chadwick, Jazz FM; Julian Joseph, Radio 3; Helen Mayhew, Radio 2 & Jez Nelson, Radio 3 Best Website BBC; Jazz Services; Jazzwise & Jazz Views Education Dr Charles Beal; Ian Darrington & Eddie Harvey Services to Jazz Ian Carr; Gary Crosby & Kathy Stobart Best Ensemble Acoustic Ladyland; Denys Baptiste & Tony Kofi Quartet. Watch out for a full update on the Awards in our next Newsletter. Top of Page
Interview by Jack Kenny  Geoff Eales is unique. When you talk to him one word comes up over and over, eclectic. Eclectic is a word he uses to describe some of his influences, for example Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. It also accurately describes, not only Geoff?s playing, but also his life. Few people in jazz have such rich and varied musical experiences to call on. It is strange that in jazz the musicians who are valued are the ones who develop a style and then become a prisoner of it. Geoff Eales does not do that; any performance by Geoff will refer to the varied influences and experiences of his life so far: a splendid synthesis of all that he knows from Messiaen through Mancini to Bill Evans.Our conversation took place in Ray?s Jazz Caf? at Foyles. Geoff had played there a few days before to publicise his recent CD: Synergy recently released on Basho Records. In a soft Welsh accent Geoff recalled that his piano playing started when he was about eight in the Rhymney Valley at a place called Aberbargoed ?not exactly a hotbed of Jazz activity?. His father played in a local dance band run by Aneurin Thomas and the first real music that attracted Geoff was the twelve bar blues. That interest rapidly moved into jazz. The jazz came first, well before his music studies at university. ?As soon as my father taught me the twelve bar blues in F it developed from there. At first my ears were better than my sight reading. Over the years the reading has got better. If you do studio work the reading has to be excellent.? At Cardiff University there was no jazz taught and to earn some extra money Geoff played working men?s clubs. ?The ear developed playing in those clubs when people would get up and you would ask them which key they wanted and they would say the front door key.? Later he played at a night club called Tito?s. ?I played for people like Bob Monkhouse, Faith Brown and other cabaret acts. I did Butlins during the summer. Great fun.? Early jazz influences were Andre Previn, George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and Bud Powell. ?In 1966 my parents bought me my first Bill Evans record, ?A Simple Matter of Conviction? which I think was recorded that year. That record transformed me. Up to then I had been fed a diet of Oscar Peterson. Peterson is infused with the blues and, of course, he had a formidable technique. Bill Evans, however, has a marvellous touch on the keyboard and his improvisation tells a story. The way that he interacts with his bass players and drummers is amazing, more of an organic approach, a contrast with Peterson where the piano is up front and the drummer and bass player, although important, are secondary figures. Each person in the Evans trios is important and integral. They are empathists rather than protagonists!? After University in Cardiff, Geoff wanted to see if he could find himself musically. Most people with music degrees often end up teaching. ?What was driving me was a passion to play rather than to teach. I got a job on a Greek cruise ship with a Greek band, a very volatile, fiery lot. One of the good things was that the ship went into New Orleans. It was a jazz cruise. I met Dill Jones, Jimmy McPartland and Major Holley. I also jammed in the jazz joints on Bourbon St with people like Buddy Tate and Earl Warren. It was a great experience. There was a film cruise where I played for Rita Hayworth and June Allyson. Getting to London was pure chance. Geoff was working in a club in Caerphilly and the other band was run by Bruce Forsyth?s MD who liked what Geoff was doing. ?He told me that there was a job going with Joe Loss. Joe had one of the foremost society bands of the time. ?Phone Sam Whatmough?, I was told, ?and see what happens.? I went to London for the audition. Sam was a bit put off by my PhD in Music, the honours degree. He thought that I was some kind of music boffin.? Geoff got the job and within a week he was on the QE2 sailing round the world. ?I was with Joe for nearly two years. I got to play all the time, the more you play, the better you become. The experience of working with other musicians was great.? 1978 Geoff started to work with the BBC Big Band when it was still part of the BBC. That experience honed the reading and strengthened the jazz chops. He stayed till March 1983. ?Jazzier than Joe Loss, it was a heady time. I worked with Billy May, great character and large than life, and Rosemary Clooney, she was a craftsman singer. When we did Big Band Special it was a good opportunity to stretch out. Seven sessions a week reading all the time. It was a great time for me and I had the opportunity to write a few charts. After hours, we actually had a small funk group called Electric Eales, not the cleverest pun in the world! After four years with the band Geoff felt that he had gone as far as he could. ?I had reached saturation point. I don?t always go for the safe options; risk is part of the excitement.? Within a few days he had a job on the Hot Shoe Show with Laurie Holloway and Wayne Sleep. Then came a film in 1984 with Richard Burton and Fay Dunaway called 'Ellis Island'. It was a TV mini series. In addition to working on the music Geoff had to teach the piano player actors in the film how to fake playing convincingly. 1986 saw a move to Los Angeles for six months. ?I used to jam with people like Monty Budwig on bass, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenorist Teddy Edwards and drummer Nick Ceroli. Nick was an excellent drummer on the LA jazz scene - now sadly departed. I tried to get into the studio scene but that didn?t happen. Nevertheless it was a great experience and part of finding myself. Back in England as a jobbing musician Geoff worked on films and with Andrew Lloyd Webber. The work did not totally satisfy and Geoff turned back to Jazz. ?I just felt that there was something missing, I was unfulfilled. I made a decision to seek inwardly, see what I could achieve, how far I could take it. In 1998 I decided to do my first album, Mountains of Fire followed by Red Letter Days a couple of years later, and more recently Facing the Muse was done in 2002. Synergy, solo piano, was released in 2004. At present I would like to bring out an album a year.? Last year Geoff worked in California at Capitola and the Kuwumba club in Santa Cruz. There was a gig in Monterey and another in Palo Alto. ?I ended up in the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles. Finally, I worked in Louisville with a vibes player called Dick Sisto.? There is prejudice against a musician who has come to jazz from other backgrounds. Musicians like Shorty Rogers and Bud Shank played for years in the studios. ?Keith Jarrett shows that it is possible to combine the classical side and the jazz. I like the fact that he is eclectic. Some people do come from a prejudiced position and hold my past against me because I have played in a variety of styles and that somehow makes me less of a player. I don?t believe that. I want to be accepted as a jazz player; I don?t want people to say, he is not a bad jazz piano player considering that he has been a studio musician. I have passion for the music in its various guises.? ?In my music I hope people hear passion; I want to touch people, to excite them, give them something meaningful that goes beyond pure technique. It is important to touch a nerve. That is more important to me than subscribing to one particular school of thought. Unsurprisingly Geoff prefers his current album, Synergy, as the one that is representative of his music. Where next? ?I plan to release a new trio album with Roy Babbington and Mark Fletcher. Also there is the Bill Evans project. In the near future I would like to broaden the palette and bring other instruments in. I would like to play fewer songs from the American song book and more of my own creations.?  RECORDINGS: Mountains of Fire (Black Box) Red Letter Days (Black Box) Facing the Muse (Mainstem) Synergy (Basho) For more information visit www.geoffeales.com and wwww.bashomusic.co.uk. Top of Page
Interview by Steve Baxter  Unless you?re familiar with the Midlands jazz scene, it?s quite possible that you?ve never heard of American expat bass player Tom Hill. It?s extremely likely, though, that you?ve heard him, as there can?t be many who are unaware of the Kellogg?s Frosties ads over the years. ?They?re Grrrreat!? Yes, that?s right: Mr Tom Hill IS Tony the Tiger. Apart from being a fine musician and bandleader with a CV as long as your arm, Tom has an interesting sideline as a voiceover artist and occasional actor. He?s recently done all the radio, TV and cinema trailers for The Incredible PS2, Gameboy and PC games, appeared on TV in ?a pretty funny episode of Heartbeatplaying the ugly American? as well as in the films Hackers, Entrapment and ?my best shot in a movie ever? in Churchill the Hollywood Years. And no-one who?s heard his between-songs patter will be surprised to learn that he?s had a go at stand-up comedy too.I?d noticed that Tom?s website made no mention of him being a musician, and one of the themes I wanted to focus on during this interview was the kind of things a jobbing jazz musician has to do these days to make ends meet. All this activity might tempt people to think that his music is an enjoyable sideline, but when I put this to him, his denial was unequivocal: ?I am a musician through and through,? he said, ?and all the voice and acting and comedy stuff branched off of my getting work playing the bass. First it was the bass, then adding a few vocals, then telling a couple of jokes and do a couple of impressions, then getting brave enough to put down the bass and do some stand up comedy, then getting an acting job, then taking a voice over course and exploring that. It?s all connected and some of the best voice people are musicians. You already know how to use the mike; you can copy sound and rhythm. My website is just for the acting and voice side. I learned a while ago not to dilute your image too much. You know?bass, vocals, comedy, plumbing, window cleaning, etc. The world of acting is so prickly and competitive that it doesn?t take much for them to categorize you and stifle your work. ?Well he can do this but he can?t do this, blah, blah, blah.? So luckily right now I am on the biggest roll of my life with the voiceover work. I end up doing some sort of TV or radio ad or corporate read or narration or Play Station Game practically every weekday. I have started a website just for music though: www.clarke-hill music.com and if anybody wants to hook up there is a link to get on a mailing address for local gigs for me and the band and once I get it sorted some other guys I work with. I will NEVER say that music is an enjoyable sideline. If I don?t play I don?t feel right. I feel grouchy and unfulfilled so I have to pull those ropes and get the right vibrations going through my soul.? So I asked him how he got started, guessing that he would have a fund of entertaining anecdotes from his years as a pro musician. I wasn?t disappointed. Ask Tom a question like that and it?s a case of ?wind him up and watch him go?. What follows is pretty much unadulterated; all I needed to do was insert the odd question to re-start the flow. ?I was able to get into gigging so quick because of being forced to play piano as a kid. My mom plays and my grandmother Ruthie was a concert pianist before she hooked up with my Grandpa Joe who was a bass player. The main upright I use now is the bass Joe bought for ten dollars in 1913. I fought them tooth and nail from the ages of 7 to 13 but learned the keyboard despite myself. So when it came to just reading one bass line or chord symbols it was a breeze after being able to read piano scores. Although I never heard him play a note my father was a musician for a while before I was born and played a pretty mean trombone. He gigged around the San Francisco area for a while. My mom?s cousin (my second cousin) Tiny was a bass player in the Boston Symphony but also came from a jazz background having actually worked on Gene Krupa?s band for a while. He was the greatest guy ever and for some reason took me under his wing and basically gave me my life?or at least the life I have today. I was in California working in a lumber mill and up to no good the rest of the time when he called me up and said drop all that and come back to Boston and play the bass. I went to Berklee School of Music after moving to Boston in the mid seventies and within four months was gigging with one of my teachers - a tenor player named Gary Ruggiero - who had the house band job at a place called ?Caruso?s Diplomat?. We nicknamed it the ?Mafia Wedding Factory? because there were four big function rooms and every weekend they would be booked out to Italian weddings. There were usually 5 brand new Lincoln Continental towncars in the parking lot belonging to the Caruso family - Joey Senior, Joey Junior, Frankie Senior, Frankie Junior and little brother Johnny. After seeing a loud drunken guy at one of the parties get taken outside and beaten with a chair by a ?friend of the Caruso family? I realized you didn?t mess with these guys and I remember how tactful we would have to be to get fed. It took showing up with McDonalds bags a couple of times and we were finally allowed some ravioli! That?s when I started to acquire the real knowledge necessary to make it in music that they don?t teach you at school. You?ve got your DJ on right? Nice clean white shirt and the staff begrudgingly thrusts a plate of food in your hand and you are on your own to find something to eat it with. If you can?t find the stash of knives and forks on your own or you haven?t sweet talked a waitress (or waiter depending on your preference) into getting you one, you hide your plate and quickly sneak by the buffet table snatching a serving spoon or fork from the salad bowl. Now armed with the equipment to eat you are faced with the final dilemma. What about a napkin (serviette!)??? If you don?t get to sit at a table with a table cloth that you can casually sneak your spaghetti sauce-laden fingers under and wipe - it?s time to embrace the multi-function wonder of SOCKS! With a nonchalant action pretend you are pulling up your sock and at the same time wipe your fingers off on the upper parts that are hidden under your trouser legs. It?s especially important to use the upper part if wearing white socks! While in Boston I got to play with two really good big bands. One was run by the pianist Jaki Byard who was Charles Mingus? piano player for years and the other was the George Russell (the Lydian Chromatic Approach) Outer Space big band. I was also in a big band of students from the New England conservatory called the Medium Rare Big Band that totally dominated every big band contest we entered. The rhythm section was Fred Hersch on piano, Akira Tana on drums (who ended up working with Art Farmer and the Heath Brothers), Efrain Toro on percussion and a burning guitarist named Nick Kirgo who later became big in the studios and was in Diana Reeves? group. I was by far the least experienced player and it was a real rush when the band started cooking?like surfing a big wave of bebop! Boston was a great place to learn music. There was a real high standard of guys teaching there but the local clubs paid dirt because they could get students who just wanted to blow to play for free. I knew my next step was either New York or Los Angeles so I chose LA so I wouldn?t have to ride a subway train with a double bass! I was also starting to have aspirations in the comedy and acting stuff. After moving back to California I got adopted by some of the older West Coast Swing guys?the first one I think was a big baritone sax player named Woody Woodward who was Art Pepper?s student (and bodyguard!!) when Art got sent to the federal penitentiary in San Quentin, California. I ended up doing some jam sessions and then getting gigs with guys like sax player Frank Morgan, Frank Butler (drummer with Miles), Don Sleet, Buddy Arnold, Lawrence Marable (drummer with Monk), Johnny Garon, Nick Martinis (one of the most underrated drummers, who came out west with Scotty LaFaro and still plays with the Pete Jolly Trio), Stu Goldberg (piano with John McLaughlin), Phil Upchurch and a whole lot of others. LA is full of great musicians but I think due to people?s need to generalize about people and places the West Coast didn?t get as good a reputation for no nonsense jazz as New York. This is probably due to the guys wanting to get into the studios for TV and movie dates which some purists think dilutes a player?s style. Kind of like the scuttle butt Wynton Marsalis said about Branford when he took the gig with Sting. My opinion is that the better you read and the more styles you can play, the more you have to bring to the party when it?s time to cut loose! I gigged around California for a couple of years, part of the time playing with a really talented woman named Beverly Spaulding who could play the piano, alto sax, flute, guitar and sing like a wounded bird a la Aretha meets Bonnie Rait. We did a tour of California with Van Morrison which was a gas. He had a killing band?Pee Wee Ellis on sax and trumpeter Mark Isham, who is one of my favourite composers of movie scores. We also opened up for the Crusaders. Then I got a gig on a cruise ship in the show band out of Los Angeles where I met my wife Jacqui, who was a fine little Brummy working in the casino. We got married a year later and continued to work on the ship until 1985.  Soon after quitting the ship I went to a rehearsal band in a funky neighbourhood in the San Fernando Valley called Pacoima. The guy running the band was named Ace Lane and the horn section was most of the guys from Super Sax?Med Flory, Ray Reed, etc. and lead trumpet was Conte Condoli. The piano player was a guy named John Racska who played with Les Brown and the Band of Renown. He told me the bass chair in Les?s band was going to be open soon and got me a try out gig with them. I passed the test on my musical ability but also on my willingness to be a manic librarian. The band books were huge - they numbered up into the 900s and with Les the cut off of one tune was about 5 seconds from the down beat of the next and if I didn?t have the next chart up and open and myself ready to hit the first note on the bass I got ?the ray? which is what the boys called the nasty look Les would throw at you as the rest of the old timers smirked and said ?look at the new boy squirm!!!? Les was a hard task master but I grew to really love and respect the guy. One of his quirks was only giving the band a one bar count off which a lot of times was a little faster than he wanted the tune. When Jack Sperling, the regular drummer, was on the gig it was no problem?he would just pull the tempo back a notch and we?d be off. However if there was a substitute drummer there could be problems. The funniest time was when we were in San Francisco and Jake Hanna did the gig. Jake tends to put an ?East Coast Edge? on the time anyway being from Boston and Les kept telling him he was rushing, till Jake finally yelled at him to ?Count it off where you want it then - man!!!?The Les Brown gig was great for me and a real education too. Most jazzers go to sessions and play in Bb or F or G or C all night and if you are in a harder key it?s usually just chord symbols. But here were all these charts with specific lines in Cb or Gb and if I hit a couple of clams I got the ?ray?, so I really boned up on my reading. Also one of the biggest thrills but quite daunting was the first time I played bass on a Bob Hope TV special. Besides Les?s usual 17 piece band there was a 30 piece string section, harp, the guitar player from the Tonight Show (then hosted by Johnny Carson) named Pete Wolford and a percussion player. It was through Bob Hope and Les that I ended up getting to play with a lot of the celebs. You asked about Doris Day. I didn?t actually back her up as she was retired long before I got on the band but my last gig with Les before moving here in ?93 was for Doris?s charity do in Monterey to raise money for animal rescue. But the TV shows and some of the big celebrity concerts we would do in Palm Springs, San Diego and San Francisco had people like Dolly Parton, Kenny Rodgers, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Luther Vandross, Clint Black, Reba Macintire, Glen Campbell, Liza Minelli, Patty LaBelle - I could go on and on. It was fun, but another great experience was when we did a mid West tour and George Shearing played a concert with us with a couple of trio spots with Jack and me accompanying him. One time we had a gig in San Diego with Mel Torme and the roadie with all the band?s equipment was passed out in his kitchen back in LA after partying for 3 days. We had to rent equipment for the afternoon rehearsal and concert and by the evening gig someone had resurrected the roadie and got him to drive to San Diego with all the right stuff. In a great example of the fragile ego of many performers, I heard from a trombone player and contractor in LA who had put together a band once to back Mel how after 3 days of playing his shows Mel had come to him and said ?You guys might be LA?s finest but you?re the most miserable band I?ve ever played with!? The contractor was totally taken aback said ?Why do you say that Mel?? Mel says ?Not once did any of you guys come back and say Sounds Good Mel!? After the rehearsal I did with him in San Diego I went back to his dressing room and said ?Sounds Good Mel!? He beamed like the sun and I didn?t feel too phoney because he didn?t just sound good, he sounded incredible. Totally in tune all the time and his time was unbelievable; plus he played a burner on drums that was top notch.? So, with all this going on, why the move to England? I had been in LA this time since 1979 and when the move came in 1993 I was probably at the top of my game as a side man?playing Les?s gig and working with a whole bunch of other bands. I had aspirations of making it in other branches of entertainment that I am doing over here as well like voice-overs, acting and also I?d done stand-up comedy but nothing huge had come along. And although I was working almost 6 nights a week, the more I made it seemed like the more we needed to pay for our overheads - house, cars, bills, etc. Our oldest son Taylor was 4 at the time and we had just had Eric who was 4 months old. I took a look at what I was doing and also thought about what it would be like for my kids to be raised in LA. After the Rodney King trial and the riots, people who had never owned a gun were going out and buying handguns, shotguns, semi-automatic weapons, etc. Although we lived in safe-ish neighbourhood, there were kids down the street sneaking Daddy?s 9mm into class at school to scare the bully. So I thought yeah, let?s give Jolly Old England a try. My running joke when asked why I moved over is, ?I couldn?t afford automatic weapons for my kids to take to play group.? My kids would say ?Bobby?s Dad bought him an OOOOZZZIIE?. I?d say ?Son, when I was your age I just took a shotgun to school and I was damn proud to do it! But don?t worry, I?m gonna take you to Mommy?s country where you can defend yourself with a cricket bat and a pint glass!? Don?t let me scare you guys off because it wasn?t that bad, and if you were a thinking adult you knew where to and where not to go. I just judged the risk by what a knuckle head I was as a kid. As it turns out it was the best thing I could have done. Perhaps the inevitable question to ask a man who?s had such wide experience both sides of the pond is about the relative merits of the US and British/European scenes. It?s a subject that?s been around for decades and people still get all fired up about it. The recent BBC 4 Jazz Britannia series is likely to (re)fuel the controversy. Tom takes the long view. ?I?m not the person to ask about that right now as I haven?t toured in yonks. But it seems to me that the scene fluctuates all the time. New York in the early 70?s had top bands playing all over the place, then the city passed a noise ordinance law outlawing drums in a whole lot of the clubs. Gigs that had big bands or at least a 4 or 5 piece band went down to duos. Kind of like the music license thing over here. LA has gone through lots of changes with a lot of great clubs like the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Dante?s in the Valley, Carmelos in Sherman Oaks closing down or switching to more viable music. All the old jokes apply man! How do you make a million bucks playing jazz? Start out with two million. The jazz musician that wins the lottery and when asked what he?s going to do now says ?just keep gigging till the dough runs out dude!? When I first got to Birmingham in ?93 it was a much better scene than what I was coming from. Opening up with Randy Johnston for John McLaughlin, Dennis Chambers and Joey DeFrancesco and later John Faddis, Clark Terry, all those New York heavies: it was great. Jim Simpson booked some really great acts in those festivals. Also Birmingham owes a lot to Birmingham Jazz and Tony Dudley-Evans for taking the chance on making enough to pay a lot of great players coming into town like the Brecker Brothers, Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Don Alias, etc. And bringing greats like Elvin Jones and Bob Berg to Ronnie?s. But a lot of the good local gigs have dried up or moved. The Fiddle and Bone was a great place for local bands and I really miss it.? Pursuing the point, I mentioned those people you come across who insist that it?s not the real deal unless it?s played by Americans (preferably black). Personally, I?m more and more convinced that while visiting US bands I?ve seen recently like the Yellowjackets and the Bad Plus may have the edge in technical terms, there are quite a few over here who could hold their own with anybody. I asked Tom if he agreed, and if so who he would identify. ?I don?t think nationality or race plays a part in whether or not you can play jazz. The origins of the music may have come predominantly from Africa then America melding with European, Latin and other types of music - of course being strained through the blues. But so what? Look at guys like Jaco?mixing funk and Bach and jazz and everything else and it just came out like HIM! Michael Brecker - what a serious programming job he?s done on his head: Coltrane, Henderson, Rollins, classical music and all the blues stuff. If a person has good time, good ears and plays from the heart, it just comes down to how much work they put in on their instruments and then it?s up to luck or ambition to get in the right settings for that stuff to flourish. Can you imagine what it must have been like for an already great bass player like Ray Brown to finally make the move to New York as a young player?and the first night he?s there Hank Jones introduces him to Dizzy Gillespie who tells him to fall by his place for a rehearsal the next night and the rest of the band is Bud Powell, Charlie Parker and Max Roach. I cried when I heard him tell that story because you know that every night playing with those guys was like a years worth of experience with another band. So yeah?I?ve seen and played with guys born and bred over here who are world class players because they?ve done the footwork. Pete King, Alan Skidmore, (the first time I played with him and Tony Richards I felt like Jimmy Garrison!!!), Jim Mullen?there are some real burners on this island.?  For a number of years, Tom?s main musical preoccupation has been as leader of the Straitjackets, a quintet comprising some of the best players in the Midlands, at least three of the others being band leaders themselves. Guitarist Pete Harris combines jazz technique with a rock sense of dynamics as well as being a more than passable vocalist in the George Benson/Stevie Wonder idiom. The front line is completed by Andy Shillingford on tenor and soprano, an unassuming man and underrated player. Returning to one of the themes of this interview, i.e. ?getting by?, I mentioned Andy?s day job with (I think) the Electricity Board and wondered how he manages to stay as good as he is.?Just because Andy or anyone else has made the choice of a more secure life for them and their family and does a day job doesn?t mean that all the time they?ve put in on music is going to disappear. It?s just a matter of getting enough practice in and a couple of gigs a week to keep the fire burning. I?ve known full time musicians who get a steady gig playing the same act every night to get stale too. Everyone has their own little balancing act to do with the art and surviving.? Straitjackets keyboard player Paul Sawtell is an interesting case too. Although his working life is all music-related, he?s apparently not a committed jazzer. When I saw the band recently, he was absent due to a prior engagement in pantomime, and once claimed that he only ever listens to classical music at home, never jazz. Given his obvious feel and pyrotechnic improvisational skills, how could this be? Surely it can?t be all just technique? ?Paul would be the one to ask about that but I think he is one of those really gifted guys that can hear anything in any type of music and know what?s going on. As far as never listening to jazz - maybe not now but I?ll betcha he has some Bill Evans stashed away somewhere.?  Finally, as we?re going through the line-up, we have to talk about Neil Bullock. Among his local fans, he?s the yardstick by which visiting drummers are judged (and usually found wanting). He?s an intensely committed player who rarely takes time out, constantly listening and responding to what others in the band are doing. Unsurprisingly, Tom Hill agrees: ?Neil is up there with the best. He?s a good reader, plays all styles, but most important to me is that he always comes to play. If you are on a function with him and faking some tunes you have to tell him if you don?t know the original arrangement or he yells at you and smashes cymbals in your ears if you miss the kicks that were on the record. The boy is serious about music!!! There are guys that play drums and then there are drummers. Neil?s a drummer.This, then, is the Straitjackets. They don?t play together constantly due to the members? various other commitments, but they?re one of the most entertaining live acts on the circuit. I asked how they?d come about: was it basically a kind of Yellowjackets tribute band, or was that just a peg to hang it on? And why the Yellowjackets in particular? ?It was kind of by accident. I?ve always liked the Yellowjackets so I bought one of their songbooks with all the parts written out and called up Neil, Pete, Andy and Paul just to read through some stuff. It was so good and we enjoyed it so much that we did a couple of gigs and then made the CD ?Who Needs a Planet?? which led to more gigs. We are mixing in some Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker and original tunes as well these days but the Yellowjackets music is such a great blend of modern jazz, gospel, blues, Latin and even classical influences that to me it feels really fresh.? You obviously enjoy playing the funky fusion stuff, but seem equally at home with post-bop styles: where does your heart lie? ?I started on upright bass and then bought an electric after a while so I could get more work. I?ve put more time in on the big one but I did take some time off and go to the Musicians Institute (BIT) in LA in the early 80?s where I concentrated more on electric and learned to slap it just enough to piss people off. My heart lies in whatever has the biggest stinkiest groove and sometimes that?s when I?m playing electric and sometimes the doghouse.? Getting back to an earlier point, I asked for Tom?s assessment of current state of jazz in the Midlands, which seems to me a bit paradoxical. On the one hand, in terms of the number and quality of young(ish) players, I don?t remember a healthier time, yet simultaneously you hear these great players saying that they?re short of work. Ty?s Jazz and Spice has given up the ghost, and obviously the Fiddle & Bone finally succumbed. Is it getting harder to find gigs? Is it all doom and gloom, or just business as usual? ?Business as usual. And I think the reason there are so many great players coming up in the Midlands is that the Conservatoire has some great teachers like Fred Baker and Arnie Somogy. But more than that a lot of credit should be given to John and Nicola Ruddick for the way they have run and maintained the MYJO (Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra). Those kids are playing Bill Holman charts that the studio guys in LA practice on to keep their eyes moving and playing them well!. It?s not the stock Glen Miller arrangements most kids are reading with the local big band. They?ve set a high standard that will give most of the students a real chance in the world of musical mystery!!! Face it - no one gets into jazz for the money. It?s just something you feel and love and have to do. Sure there are people like Jamie Cullum or Norah Jones or Kenny G. who put their own spin or antics on the music and finally get a big sponsor like Sony to take them to the masses but that?s after the fact. Music is a field of endless expansion and if you embrace that, anything goes. And finally it?s only by people giving away freely of what they?ve been given that this works. I try to do anything I can to teach someone who really wants to play music because that was what luckily happened to me.? ?Ty?s was a great club and I really respect him for giving it as hard a go as he did. He set it all up right, treated the musicians well, but hey - another Jazz tragedy, as was the Fiddle. But sometimes it?s what you make it. Guys like my friend Steve Ajao seem to take it in stride and just find another place that hasn?t put on jazz and get it going. Or extending the jazz like at the place across from Symphony Hall that was just doing Sundays but is now having bands during the week. And of course Andy Hamilton is still putting on gigs on Thursday nights at the Bearwood Corks Club. We played there the other night and for me it was magic. Good crowd?a really cool old room with a disco ball! I love Andy. He?s got a big heart and still plays great. Tony Dudley-Evans sorted out some great new venues when the Fiddle and Strath-Allen stopped and now the Symphony Hall bar on Fridays and Jam House thing are happening.?  A question that often bothers me (though in my heart I think I know the answer) is why people like Neil Bullock, Chris Bowden and Bryan Corbett (to name only the most obvious examples) aren?t better known? Is it just a case of exposure and image? Or could it be that some local musicians are perhaps relatively happy doing what they?re doing, just playing for the love of it in the belief that the commercial pressure of getting more famous would take away the fun? ?I don?t know if that?s it. Everybody that plays jazz from the heart wants to do that more that anything else. But if you stay in the provinces, you still better get down to London and do gigs and schmooze agents and record companies if you want to move up the ladder.?What about yourself - are you satisfied with your current level of exposure? ?No - but I only have myself to blame. I don?t put enough time into the business side of booking me or the band. Also when I was doing four nights a week at Ronnie?s and working most days doing voice and acting stuff, if I took weekend gigs as well I never saw my kids. They were starting to call me Uncle Dad cuz I?d just show up every once in a while with presents. They were happy to see me but Jacqui would be wearing a hockey mask and holding a chainsaw. So I cut back on taking gigs with other bands and when Ronnie?s became another cultural lap dance club things got quiet. Any one out there want to get us some gigs?? I?ll pay you ten percent and wash your Skoda.? Gilad Atzmon once told me Tom Hill was his first choice when he was looking round for a regular bass player, but Tom was too busy. The two of them do seem to have a bit of an affinity with each other, but they?re both such strong characters that I wonder whether it would have worked. How would it have affected Tom?s lifestyle? Does he maybe prefer leading his own band and making his own choices? ?I would love to clone myself and be in Gilad?s band. He is another guy who always comes to play. Incredible chops and just a fierce attitude. I love him. And a hilarious guy too - we could have dressed up like Ariel Sharon and George Dubya and sung duets. I just can?t do the roadwork and wouldn?t want to mess up the big head of steam he has going right now. Anyone who needs a lesson in marketing yourself should check him out. As far as needing to lead my own band - sometimes that stresses me out so much that I can?t enjoy the playing as much as when I just show up with my bass. The upside is I get to call tunes I enjoy playing but I prefer the team approach. It just SEEMS like I?m leading cuz I?m doing my noisy American routine!? If after reading this you think you?d like to see Tom Hill doing his noisy American routine, I?d urge you to try and catch the Straitjackets live next time they?re playing anywhere nearby. As a second best option, you could try getting hold of the ?Who Needs a Planet?? album, or wait for the new CD, which I?ve heard features a samba version of ?You Don't Know What Love Is?, the Yellow jackets? ?Motet? and maybe Herbie Hancock's ?Butterfly?. It should be out ?hopefully by summer. We need at least another full day in the studio and other tracks from the ones mentioned above are ?Les is Mo?, ?Indigo?, ?Postcards?, ?Out Foxed Again? and more!!!!? Top of Page
 With her latest release, Dr Quantum Leaps, now in the shops guitarist Deirdre Cartwright is as always hard at work promoting her new album and her Group live around the country.Perhaps best known for her work with the all-female band the Guest Stars, and her stint as tutor on BBC2?s Rock School series, it would be a shame if Cartwright should be overlooked in the grand scheme of British Jazz. Working in a what can broadly be described as fusion area of the music, Deirdre brings to her playing more of a jazz sensibility than many others; a flexibility and approach, melodically, rhythmically and harmonically that is compelling and full of unexpected twist and turns. In a small gap in her busy schedule, Deirdre agreed to contribute this month?s Play List and writes? ?Being asked to compile a ?Top 10? Play List was far more difficult then I imagined. Some records sprung immediately to mind but when I was trying to whittle it down to 10, I kept thinking of more great records and musicians ? so I?ve sneakily mentioned about 5 more albums! I tried to keep the list orientated towards the ?jazz side? of my taste, this is Jazz Views after all, however a couple of other genres slipped through as I just loved them too much to leave out.? Harasiewicz plays Chopin This album has been around since I was a child. If I don?t count pretending to play the ukele banjo, my first instrument was the piano. My sister could play Chopin. I still love the passion and intensity of the music but by the age of 13 or 14 I had found something even more exciting that I could actually manage to play... Electric Warrior - T. Rex At the pictures the other night I heard the first couple of bars of the guitar intro to Get it On and I felt my heart quicken, That particular track was the reason I had to have an electric guitar. (After the Marc Bolan solos, moved on to Thin Lizzy, practiced playing them over the best of Status Quo ? I was ready, - easy when you?re 15!) I still feel the excitement I felt when I was 14 ? the chugging rhythm starts, in comes the syncopated stab chords. Had to have a place in my list. Blow by Blow - Jeff Beck First record I bought where the guitarist played the tunes. Well, I had bought a couple of Django Reinhardt albums but felt they were a bit old hat and ?florid?. This was a revelation.Beck had such a variety of expressive playing techniques, great phrasing and tone. Loved his version of Stevie Wonder?s ?Cause we?ve ended as lovers.? Beck played a great version of Mingus? Goodbye Pork Pie Hat on his follow up album Wired - which is how I got into Charles Mingus. Couldn?t fit Ah Um or a double album compilation The Atlantic Years onto this list which is a shame as I love the way Mingus gets a particular ?vibe? from his group. Voodoo Chile (Compilation) - Jimi Hendrix I discovered Hendrix relatively late when I was 19 or so. I loved Santana?a Abraxas album, and other guitarists with strong blues/rock style but hadn?t heard much Hendrix, just his name. I remember going along to have a play with this group who did ?Hey Joe?. When I asked how it went, they said well, play a solo like you play, but for a really long time. ?Voodoo Chile?, the track just blew me away ? there was such soul in his playing and he was so centered rhythmically, it was groundbreaking guitar playing. Hendrix always had that free edge to everything he did, the ability to float and improvise. It was the combination of Hendrix and Coltrane which really drew me into jazz. In both their musics I could hear their spirit and their compulsion to play what they felt. Another revelation was seeing the Gill Evans orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in the late ?70?s I think ? when he played a couple of Hendrix tunes. Ray Russell was on guitar. I think Gil Evans and Jeff Beck were both very important to me in bringing my ?rock world? and my ? jazz world? together. Lush Life - John Coltrane Album which I only seem to have on cassette. Just loved the way Coltrane played ballads, that tone. There appears to be a couple of separate recording dates, I really like the trio recording - just sax, bass and drums from 1957. It creates a lot of harmonic freedom and space for Coltrane. Later on I got into his more free playing, quartet playing live in Paris, but this is still one of my favourite jazz albums. Wes Montgomery Trio The first Wes Montgomery album I bought was one of his later ones with strings and Beatles tunes. Not keen (then). I was like a constable in the jazz police for a couple of years when I was trying to discover exactly what this thing called ?jazz? was. Liked this album though, with the organ/guitar sound. Lovely version of ?Round Midnight. This man swings! Bought loads more of his stuff. Offramp - Pat Metheny I first saw him play live in 1977(?) at the Shaw theatre in London. Really changed the whole face of jazz. A great band, compositions and arrangements, fusing elements of jazz, Latin and rock and yet Metheny was strongly following on from Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino in his sound and approach. I think using the Gibson 175 helped him shape that unique blend of sound and tradition. That group is really featured on first PMG album, I suppose it?s tied first with Offramp (which I chose because I love the tunes ?Are you going with me? and ?James?). ?Off ramp? (the title track) features his synth guitar more which is when Metheny is able to ?let rip? more. All to do with sound and sustain I think. Upside Downside - Mike Stern Another saw him live first. The old Bracknell Jazz fest. Mike Brecker group. Technical problems ? they ended up with only 15 minutes to play! On stage, strike up ?Nothing Personal,? Mike Brecker brings the house down with his solo. I thought ?wouldn?t like to folllow that?. Mike Stern begins, and builds and builds and builds. It was one of the most incredible guitar solos I?ve ever seen. Brought tears to my eyes ? (good tears). Flat Out - John Scofield I have many Scofield albums. I particularly like this one. Side one, ?Cissy Strut?, ?Secret Love? and this original take on ?All the things you are?. Maybe it?s easier to sound like yourself when you play originals, Scofield has the ability to play anything and be instantly recognisable. There?s a great quote which I?ve just found which describes what a lot of us musicians go through - "The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." -Anna Quindlen Below the Bassline - Ernest Ranglin I used to love going to see Monty Alexander at Ronnie?s. This album has Monty Alexander, Ira Coleman, Idris Muhammed and Ernest Ranglin on guitar. Sounds very natural. Like they were meant to play together, nothing too laboured, great grooves.  ?Well that?s the end of the list. I?m sorry I missed out albums from guitarists Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow Pat Martino.... I love listening to singers Chet Baker, Nina Simone, (how could I miss her?). Oh and if I don?t stop I?ll have to substitute something to get in Rahsaan Roland Kirk ?The Case of the 3 sided Dream in Audio Color.? or George Adams/Don Pullen ?Life Line.? So I?m stopping now. Thanks for asking me.?Dr Quantum Leaps, the latest album by the Deirdre Cartwright Group is now available on Blow The Fuse Records. Don?t miss your chance to win a copy of Dr Quantum Leaps in this month?s competition For more info, visit www.blowthefuse.com. Top of Page |
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