You should have asked Mike Williams to do this interview. I would have loved to have heard what he would have had to say about this topic!

 

Yeah, good shout. Well let's start anyway, what do you like from a rhythm section when you are soloing?

 

One of the key things for me with a rhythm section when i’m soloing is the shape and contour of where I want to take the music, whether that's through a narrative or through different levels of intensity. 

When I'm teaching it, the way I'm trying to describe it like a race - not with the tempo, but in terms of levels of intensity. So you’re all on a race track together and the soloist, in an ideal situation, is in the lead. Then if they add some nitrus, then you want to be there ready to get up to speed with them. You don’t want to be pulling them back, but equally if they want to put the brakes on a little bit, then you have to be ready to react to be in the same sphere. That’s not to say that the soloist always has to have the most intensity but it’s more to do with the acceleration and deceleration. There’s lots of different tools that different instruments can use to add nitrus or whatever. The bass could use pedals, or go high up in the range, then suddenly going down, or direction, that's an important one for the bass. Then in drums you have volume, different rhythmic times you could go into. We all have the tools to do that, and it’s about staying on the same playing field. Because if you have got someone who just takes it into their own hands and storms off ahead and leaves everyone in the dust, then you have a real imbalance. That’s what I find difficult to play with, then I'm feeling forced to play in a certain way to match where the music’s at, when that’s not particularly where I want to be.

Obviously it’s a dialogue, so if the drummer is feeling something coming, then put the nitrus in and see how people react, but don’t just floor it and leave everybody in the dust. I guess that’s one of the main things to be honest with you, in terms of rhythm section. 

I sometimes struggle playing with pianists who might not be as sensitive, because I think a lot of piano players lack a certain rhythmic thing. There’s beautiful voicings, or whatever but you listen to Hank Jones and rhythmically it’s a beautiful way of comping. When it hooks up with the snare or whatever. Mike Williams talks about it like cadence points. If you’re in the middle of playing a line, and the piano comes in and punctuates it’s like what do you do with that? Ornette Coleman said the same thing ‘My phrase ain’t ended, why are you punctuating before I have?’ Especially when you are playing a more linear thing, like Sonny Rollins and you’re not at the end of your phrase, and there’s all this stuff happening, then it doesn’t seem conducive to that kind of style of improvising. 

I think the other thing as well is one time I was playing with Louie North, it was amazing - because he was getting so heavy into Philly Joe Jones. I was revisiting all my old Sonny Rollins solos, and the connection was just amazing. It’s because there’s this common reference point, so it’s important to have checked out the music. If you’re coming into it blind, then of course you can make music or whatever, but in the generation we are coming to the music, if you have got certain reference points, then you can really know how best to accompany, and bring the music together. 

That’s another interesting thing that Mike talks about, we are scared of the word accompanying now. Because of the Plugged Nickel sessions, everybody got confused about what it meant to be a rhythm section and a so-called ‘soloist’. It just became this buffae, and everyone was helping themselves, as opposed to everyone thinking about what the function of the instruments are. It’s quite interesting because if you are an accompanist in a classical format, to some extent you subdue your ego and take the role of framing the picture of the soloist, so they bring their flair and their sense of self to the music. Then in order to frame that you are completely dissolving yours, and then that is what makes the music speak best. 

Obviously there are times when you are bringing yourself into the equation, but it’s a case of how much you want to do that. It’s like free music - I’ve done a lot of that with some students, and i’d say about taking initiative, but not too much. If everyone is taking initiative all the time then it’s just going to be free for all. That’s when everyone’s in a balanced environment, and there’s not a soloist. But if you take 20% initiative or 10%, and then the rest is reacting or whatever, then you have got a much healthier balance, and then you’re more likely to make proper music and have proper dialogue.

 

That’s great, you’ve shed a lot of light on that. The biggest topic and common thread that everyone in these interviews has always come back to is listening to the music. It’s such a crucial part of learning it. 

 

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this the past couple days. We’ve spoken about this before, but it’s about appreciating the fact that we are adopting the music. It’s difficult because we want to emulate the process of the greats, but there is so much contextually, that doesn’t appear to us in the same way. Some things are impossible to do, but that’s why it is important to listen to the music. You listen to the greats and some of them didn’t even listen to that much music in terms of listening to records. It was more of a passing it down hand to hand thing. 

We have got to go through this diverted course in order to get to the same place. We have to do a lot more work. It’s quite interesting, Rachel Cohen did a live instagram video, and she was expressing this thing that i’ve never heard before, but she was saying a lot of the older generation players say ‘You young cats have got it so easy man, you’ve got all this accessible material here there and everywhere’. But actually, we didn’t get to see so many of the absolute greats. 

Obviously there are loads of greats around still, but there are lots of things that are so much harder and different for our journey into the music. Trying to navigate how is best to do that and in the most authentic and sincere way and way that respects your place within the music. I think it’s part of the entry requirements to have a good understanding of the general picture. That being said though, it’s difficult because so many of the real innovators did their own thing. But it’s interesting to see if someone came around now, who hasn’t checked out the whole tradition and got their tool bet up to scratch came into it fully equipped, that’s almost the easier way.

But it would be interesting to see if someone in our generation came into the music from a completely different angle and switched things up that way. Because that would almost be within the process of how those guys were working and even more. You have to study music full stop, there’s got to be some kind of ground work to put in, to get stuff out. But it would be interesting to see if someone came and did it, not through that well trodden path that a lot of our generation have done, trudging along that thing trying to get it together. 

You look at someone in our country, like Sowetto Kinch and his understanding of everything inside and outside the music is incredible. For me, that's the thing to aspire to. His Britishness is in there, his blackness is in there, all the american stuff is in there. I think it’s about understanding how the music connects to you. 

You have got to check out the history to find out how your History connects with its History. Sometimes people unravel some difficult truths, but it’s all part of the same thing. If you want to study anything, you have got to study History. I feel like for me it always felt like an optional thing ‘Oh I don’t really like Humanities and History’. More and more now,  if you’re not doing that, what are you doing? You don’t know who you are, why you are in the place that you are, why we are in the circumstances we are culturally, politically, environmentally, all these things. If you just take a snapshot of now, you basically don’t know anything, because you have nothing to compare it to. You’ve got no context to understand anything. The exact same thing goes for the musical linearage. 

What was the question again?

 

No that’s perfect, we’ve kind of gone onto a load of questions I had anyway. 

 

A lot of it comes down the experiences you’ve had playing. For me personally I want to get away from the thing of being too prescriptive, and bringing my voice into any context, where there are serious issues about what's happening musically maybe. 

That’s the thing about Sowetto Kinch, he can bring his voice into any situation. It’s the same with Riley Stone Lonergan, he’s got this very sturdy sense of self musically and can bring that into whatever he does. I don’t know what he feels about that, and what he would say. But I think everyone struggles with those same things. You can just see people who are really affected by it, and then the others who have a stronger sense of getting it together. 

But it’s being realistic about it at the same time, obviously you can try your best in every situation but it’s important to understand the sensitivities of what could be improved. As a horn player, playing the drums helps a lot with that because there are a lot of things that immediately become clear. 

 

That was one of my questions! How has learning the drums impacted your sax playing? 

 

Well I don’t know yet, because I haven’t really played with people since trying to get it together. But in terms of an understanding thing it’s very interesting, because you start to have a sense of being in an accompanying role for the first time. 

That’s what I talked about earlier about trying to be sensitive about where someone is trying to take the music. It’s funny because I've never really listened to comping patterns on the snare consciously, but they are all there, and they exist!! The cliches, for lack of a better word are for a reason. Because they are part of a DNA in the music. 

The other thing is playing the drums, then recording, then listening back is really interesting. This is true for any instrument, we were talking about the other day, being a passenger for the music. You can be playing and almost hearing something else. The best way to describe it, is if you are a classical musician playing a classical piece, and it is your 50th time playing it you might be playing and not actually hearing your version of the piece, but hearing your favourite 

Recording of the piece. 

So when you’re playing the ride cymbal, you might be thinking ‘This feels like X Y and Z’ but you’re actually hearing something that’s not actually happening. So when I am playing thinking this sounds great, listen back to it and think it’s a different story! I think that's especially true for the drums, and the bass. When we had that lesson with James Maddren, and he was talking about consistency. 

Of course i’m very early in the stages of getting the basics of the drums together, but you can feel it straight away. Also, as you get further down the line your sensitivity becomes greater. It’s like maybe a good way to describe it is if you keep taking a half step towards a wall, you’ll never quite reach the wall, but you see the wall in much greater detail as you get closer. It’s about taking those steps man, and one of steps for me is taking up the drums. So I can get closer and understand what’s actually going on. I love playing the drums as well! It’s a completely different school of craft. 

 

I was wondering if you’ve had any moments with a rhythm section, where one of the members has completely thrown you off playing something, but it’s worked out in a really positive way?

 

I’m not sure, I can’t think of any specific moments, but it is very interesting when personally there is something going on with the other musicians in the band and there’s some narrative outside the music. That’s really interesting, and that’s the power of this music, this is the thing that people are going to start realising after this Covid thing man. When everyone comes out of this isolation period and starts playing together, people are going to lose their minds man! It’s that thing of you don’t know what you’ve got until you miss it, on an international scale! I really hope people can resonate with that. 

Someone said you can kind of describe it as not a battle, but your egos are doing their thing with each other in the music and it gets kind of crazy. All the silly head stuff gets out the way and you’re just making music. I think i’ve seen rhythm section players who do that on purpose, who get this vibe up, and then the music actually speaks so much clearer because you’re not thinking about trying to put this thing into a specific tune, you’re just more distracted by this other thing, and then the conversational dialogue of the music becomes more apparent. If you’re particularly connected with someone, for better or for worse you are going to be listening more to what they are playing, you’re gonna have a real dialogue with them. Depending on the people and the circumstance, they can be the best situations. 

 

Exactly, another question I had written down was, how important is it to develop a personal relationship with a rhythm section, and you kind of answered that. 

 

In terms of whether you have to develop a personal relationship with the players, I can’t recall the experience of playing with people I don’t know so well. I think this will be one of the things where we come back after this isolation period and things will be a bit clearer, we are always in the motion of playing with people, and the variables are too high to really bring that into account. There are some people you know really well, and you love them. Then, not as far down the line someone you don’t know that well, is a master on their instrument and you play with them, then it feels great. 

There’s almost too many variables that play, but as I say this thing of when we come back, we are going to be almost hearing people for the first time. So it’s going to be ‘When I sort out a play with Joel, oh wow! This is what Joel sounds like, I've forgotten about this. Because we play every now and again, and what he plays, but the actual feeling of playing with Joel, this is what it’s like!’ I hope, when we come back to this thing A) The sensitivity is going to be up and B) The dialogue will be more open, and we can hear things that work and don’t work with us musically, we have got to address them. If we come back to it now, and people are in a position where they can hear what is going on, and understand what is going on, therefore say what is going on - so we can move forward. 

But in terms of the personal relationship thing, there are so many things that play. For me as a front line player, not in a vein way, i’m always thinking about my own playing and thinking ‘hang on a minute’. It’s that balance, you think about Sowetto and it’s like ‘How can I bring my best voice to the equation?’ and you’d be in an even stronger position to have the subtleties to understand those things, and try to see the best of that situation. So I think in terms of the boring stuff, in terms of the business side of things it is an important thing. If you’re spending lots and lots of time with people, you’ve got to have a relationship with them, but equally there’s countless stories of greats working with other greats and they are not in the right space to be making music with at the time, or they don’t think they’re in the right space musically, but then the music just sounds amazing. That’s the other thing as well is the beauty in difference, if you always play with people that frame your sound musically, then you’re not opening yourself up to other musical possibilities.

That can happen a lot in the ‘bop’ community. It’s not even a case of completely changing the aesthetic of your music, but if you bring in a whole different rhythm section that would be so interesting! To have someone who’s really in the bop tradition and really loves that music. That’s a completely different perspective and valid point, it would be really interesting if someone who was open to that was open to that sound. It could sound so hip! 

There’s obviously certain types of playing that compliments certain types. But the opposites attract thing could be a new way.

 

Yeah, a beautiful mess. Okay, so if you could go downstairs and there would be your dream rhythm section waiting to play with you, who would you want to see?

 

Mike Williams on drums! I want a drum lesson with Mike, and I want to hear Mike play. It’s the same with his teaching style, if you have got some things together, he will say the exact same sentence but the layer of meaning is completely new. So when we come back, and he’s playing drums it could be a completely different story.

I would love Jeff Williams, bang! The way I would describe playing with Jeff is like with that tap dancer, and Liberty surname came over from the states - she has really checked out the tradition, and is an amazing musician with great time. When you’re a tap dancer, you’re subject to the laws of gravity and balance. So your time is balanced depending on momentum and positioning, it’s all physics. Your body reacts to what is going on. If you’re in a particular position, you can only go a certain amount of places your body can go, so if you’re playing duo, when you’re playing something that indicates a different narrative in terms of the time and goes outside of the slipstream, then they are going to fall over. 

So when you play with most drummers and they go ‘i’m taking 100% responsibility for the time’, that’s great but then that leaves no negotiation for room or dialogue. When you’ve got a whole band, that plays with great time and you hear that there is consistency with the drums, then you mistake that in thinking that is just because of the drummer. When you’re playing with a tap dancer and something different happens, they fall over. It’s the exact same thing I've found when playing with Jeff. He has got so much tradition and beauty in his playing. But the overriding thing is the conversational aspect of it, and the sensitivity and the way that he comps. He opens the space for you to make music, and doesn’t shut you out of the time. That’s what a lot of drummers can do, they can close the door, where the time is for you. You can play all sorts of craziness that isn’t in time or whatever and they’re going to keep going anyway. 

Mike Williams said something interesting about that ‘if the time is good enough, then you can play anything and it will sound extremely hip’. It’s the same as if you’re playing with a singer, if you’re going to play some harmony that implies a different change, you are going to throw them off. You’ve got to have a stability in your sound, that opens up the possibility for you to have a dialogue. You have got to know your vocabulary, but equally you don’t want to start talking about some off subject if you don’t have a conversation to go that way. Anyways, so Jeff on drums. Next to Jeff, would be Hamid Drake on drums. He can play any genre and it sounds so deep! It sounds like he’s playing the same thing, he’s playing a swing groove, then a hip hop or reggae groove, and it sounds as though he’s studied every music to the same depth. I think he’s just connected with all that music. I would be really interested to spend some time with him and play with him. I’ve got 3 drummers in the band!

 

On bass, it would have to be Mark Hodgson. I’ve seen a number of gigs with Mark on bass, he’s the bass equivalent of Sowetto, and he’s played music in so many contexts. Baring in the mind the function of a bass is even more of a different situation. As a bass player you are part of the thing that’s forming the context. Hearing Mark, he brings such a subtlety to the music, but depth to his groove and time. Mark is a great balance between groove and form. He did a gig at the spotted dog with John O’Gallagher, Purcy Pursglove and Andrew Bain and I think Rebecca Nash, they played recordame. Mark didn’t take many solos, he was just holding it down. Anyways, on recorda me, there was this window where he put in this line and everyone just lost their minds in the audience. I think John O’G was playing as well, all his crazy stuff. I think it was in the head in or head out. I’ve always seen him as the star of the show whenever i’ve seen him play, even with the heaviest people, Dick Oatts and all these guys. But Mark always brings this thing to the music. I would love to play with Mark

 

In terms of piano players, this is where Mike Williams would come into the equation again. To play with Mike on the piano would be something else man. Because you could play anything, but the way that he would frame it would be nuts. You could play out of tune in a different key on an instrument you’ve never played before and it would sound completely crazy. That’s people that I could actually have in the band. 

 

It’s going to happen, man! 

 

Ah, I'm a dreaming man. I won’t go into those who have passed, but that’s another 30 minute conversation. 

 

I’ll write all this out

 

Oh my gosh sorry man! Cut out the junk. Did you have any other questions?

 

Man, you answered all of mine and gave me more than I expected. Thank you.