What are you listening to at the moment?

 

I’ve been writing lots of lists of pianists that I need to check out. There’s a guy called Anthony Wonsey. He played with everyone, he’s just one of the guys that didn’t become ‘famous’. He’s still alive, in his early 50s. He plays with Nicholas Payton and all those guys. He’s on that Adonis Rose record 'Song for Donise' I showed you. 

There’s a guy called Danny Grisset, who I used to listen to loads of a few years ago, then I stopped listening to him. Then he commented on my instagram video! So I have to start listening to him again. I told him I'm a big fan. Danny Grisset is Tom Harrel’s pianist. He’s amazing though, he can do all the modern stuff as well, his trio is Vicente Archer and Bill Stewart. Then he has records with Walter Smith, they play this amazing version of The Kicker, it’s amazing - i’m sure you know it. 

I’ve been checking out more Jacky Terrason as well. Okay let's do this interview.

 

I know there will be so many, but who are you three biggest piano influences? 

 

As you know, that’s a very difficult question. It’s going to be Jazz players. When you say that, what do you mean? Is it even possible? Okay so I’m going to say more of who influenced me heavily when I was younger, because now I listen to a bit more. 

First I would say Oscar Peterson, then Horace Silver, and Herbie Hancock. 

 

What was it that drew you to those players?

 

It was Oscar, I didn’t know piano could sound like that. I was smitten. I was overcome by his coy, bounciness, quaver feel and swing. I didn’t know what it was, and how to name it or describe it but it took a hold of me at a young age. I was in Year 6, so would have been 10 years old. I still can’t play like those guys, there are guys who got into Jazz when they were 10, and they were killing by the time they were 15. I ain’t one of those guys, I have to do this journey the long way round. That’s okay though. (Deschanel recommends: Night Train - Oscar Peterson)

 

What was it about Herbie?

 

To me, it just sounded like he was having such a good time. I used to watch so many videos of him on YouTube. He was having so much fun, and it made me want to have the same feeling when I was playing piano. The stuff he was playing was just the most creative stuff, everything seemed so fresh. (Deschanel recommends: Takin' Off - Herbie Hancock)

 

And Horace?

 

I think Horace is such a big influence on me, because that is when I got hold of rhythm, comping, and making something sound so groovy and funky even though it swings. The way how he comps has got so much propulsion. He just drives the band, not a lot of people comp the way he did. I really like that. (Deschanel recommends: Doin' The Thing - Horace Silver)

 

Were you the same age discovering these people at the same time?

 

No, Horace was a few years later than Oscar. But, for a long time I really checked out Horace, all those videos with Joe Henderson, Billy Cobham, all that stuff. 

 

Okay, so if you could pick your three guys now, who would you say?

 

Mr. Mulgrew Miller. It’s constantly changing, Mulgrew is definitely one that I would say is consistently present. Chick Corea, and then the third guy could be anyone. Definitely Mulgrew and Chick though. (Deschanel recommends: Wingspan - Mulgrew Miller & Chick Corea - Now He Sings Now He Sobs)

 

This is an interesting thing, and I know we have spoken about this a lot, but to you - what relationship do you think the piano player and drummer should have?

 

The relationship between piano and drums is obvious. Most people wouldn’t believe it but it’s actually harmonic as well as rhythmic. But let's start with rhythmic is the more obvious one. For me - let's start with Horace Silver, his comping was very drum like in terms of the syncopation, and also Chick Corea who is one of my favourites - Horace Silver was one of his favourites. That's why Chick is such a percussive player as well. In that way of playing piano the linking of the drums, especially with the snare drum comping patterns. That goes back to Kenny Clarke and all those guys, big band comping! The snare and the piano player is one part of the hook up, obviously there are other levels but getting that established is crucial. That doesn’t mean ‘the piano player is playing this rhythm, let me play it along with them’. It’s also knowing, if the piano player is playing a rhythm, how can I play against it? That could just be you adding space. The space is not taking away. You want to feel like you are adding something to the music, or if the piano player is playing something really involved, maybe it’s best if you just stay on the ride cymbal. Vise Versa as well, if the drummer is playing something a bit more complicated, and there isn’t a way you can ‘slot in’, maybe it’s best to stay out. It’s having that understanding and awareness between those two roles between the drums and piano. Getting that to a high level means that there is so much freedom that you can have. This is all while underneath a soloist, that’s before trying to even interact with what the soloist is doing. 

Then when you try to interact with a soloist, that’s a whole nother playing of connecting and hooking up. 

 

That’s rhythmically, so harmonically - go on. 

 

For younger musicians, it’s not as obvious, and to me it’s still quite new. A pianist can play all manner of voicings, down below the piano, high or in the middle. Dark sounding chords, light chords, thick or thin sounding chords. The drummer needs to be able to get enough sounds out of the drums that can compliment what is going on. One that is really obvious to me, that has been happening since I played piano, or playing with people - that I am really realising, is that you can really tell a drummer who has their ear tuned to a certain way of listening. I can play a ballad, play something really high, and how the drummer can hear that and then play something on the bell of the ride. The sonority of the sounds, they correlate with each other really well. It’s about hearing that, I remember playing with Kyle Poole for the first time at the Cable Cafe in Brixton. In the ballad, I played a really high note, and he hit the bell at the exact same time. We both just burst out laughing ‘what’s the chances?’ that sort of thing. 

Also understanding if i’m playing something like Oscar does, where he holds down a pedal, trilling for ages. What's the drummer going to do there? There is so much stuff going on. The drummer could decide to do that as well, playing cymbal washes with the piano, that’s one way. But, there is always more than one way to do stuff, the drummer could decide to just swing through and play the crosstick on beat 4 or something. It works, it’s more about if you are hearing the whole thing, because if you are hearing the whole thing with enough force, you are almost hearing ahead. Then whatever decision you make, it doesn’t matter, because you are hearing what the end goal is. The dangerous thing is if you are not hearing it, then you are just reacting in the moment, but not trying to look forward, that’s when the piano playing and what the drummer might do won’t link up. 

Then there is the whole thing of thickness and thinness in terms of the chords. If I’m playing a really thick chord, as a drummer how would you react to that? There are so many different ways, and the moment mostly dictates it, but imagine if i’m playing a fast, up-tempo song, then I go to the low end of the piano and play a really thick chord that’s indiscernible, low end, how does the drummer react to that? I don’t know! It depends, they might not even need to react, but it’s about having all the tools to do so. I don’t know enough about drums like that, but make sure you have all the tools from all the individual practise you have done to know what sound you can get. If you do a certain roll, what sound is that? If you hit a part of the cymbal or drum, having a big bank of the different sounds you can make. So that when you are in the moment, you can just react without having to think about it. You know what sound works with what. Then that means you have ultimate freedom to do what you want. You can experiment after a while, what i’d say is to reach a point of experiment, you have to have the stuff intact and worked on, so you have that point of freedom. All this stuff is quite advanced, so if you don’t know - just stick to accompaniment. At least you can cover that basis. When you want to play at an advanced level with lots of communication and constant interaction, you want to be able to tap into that bag of things. 

 

How would you go about getting the sound bank, or learning the sound bank. 

 

L I S T E N I N G. F L - Focus Listening. O L! What’s O L? 

 

Obsessive listening. That’s the Deschanel School of Jazz man, I've been well trained. 

 

This is getting the sound! It can be dangerous, because you can get the drum books, and someone can teach you, write all of this stuff down and say ‘This is a roll, this sounds like this and like that’ you can do it like that - but it still won’t get you there because you have to have the source as the music. The end goal is that you are learning all this stuff to play this music. So you need to be able to hear it. That’s just through countless hours of listening, focussed and obsessive listening. It doesn’t stop, it never stops. 

 

This is an interesting one, I know you’ve always had a bit of drum chops in you, because you know the sound and listened loads, but how has learning the drums impacted your playing?

 

For me, how I think about music and Jazz, especially is awareness, being aware of everything. To be a really good Jazz musician,  not only do you need to know your instrument, but you need to know every other instrument, almost as good as if you were playing it. I wanna know how to think like a vibraphone player, but I can’t play vibraphone. I want to be able to be like that, because even if I can’t play the instrument, if I really know what their role is, as well as learning mine, I can know how it works together. We can communicate really effectively. 

So me trying to get into learning drums, it’s always something I've really enjoyed, and I feel like one day I would really like to learn seriously. But it’s the same thing, me knowing a bit more about drums, and knowing the books these guys have gone through that have been passed down through all the drummers. Wilcoxon book, and that stuff in general is stuff that a piano player wouldn’t need to know or care about at all, but for me attempting to get into that stuff has shown me the level of some of the work you need to do to reach a high level of Jazz drums. It’s just expanded my mind really. Now if I play with a certain drummer, I can hear to a certain level where they are coming from. Not only in a musical standpoint, but in a technical standpoint which just allows me to hook up with them in another lane when we are playing. 

 

I was going to ask, how do you find listening to drummers when you are soloing?

 

It’s a balance of having enough content and stuff together, and in myself that I can bring, which is regardless of what anyone else plays. All the stuff I guess I've practised will somehow come out spontaneously. Knowing that whatever I have prepared, am I truly improvising if another musician on the stage plays something and I had a chance to react to it, but because I wanted to stay in my own head and do what i’m doing, then i’ve completely missed out on a chance to take a new direction to explore. So if I'm playing with a good drummer and good musicians, and they play something - I mean the really good musicians play stuff on purpose, they are really deliberate about everything. Even when you play something by accident, somehow that accident takes you somewhere else, so if someone plays something it’s my decision. Do I want to jump on board with it or not? It depends on context though as well. I remember playing in a drummers lesson at Trinity with James Maddren teaching. He said ‘You are playing these lines, but you are interrupting your lines to join in with a certain rhythm that the drummer played. If you can carry on with what you are doing, and you can carry on with what the drummer is doing simultaneously, then there are almost two things going on, so whatever he’s doing can go on for longer, and whatever you are doing can go on for longer, then you can both converge maybe at a later point’. But I guess it’s all context dependent. Although, I had never heard anything like that before. I remember when I had a gig a few days later and told myself ‘I am literally not going to interact for the longest’. That's when I realised there's a certain vibe you can get out of that of people doing more than one thing. It also means that when you do interact it’s such a big thing, a big event, where everyone feels it. As I keep saying it all depends on what is happening in the moment, and who you are playing with. If you can follow them, and they can follow you, then you can just follow each other and see where it goes. It’s about being open to the fact that someone might play something that you didn’t intend to happen, and how you will react to it. 

 

Yep, that’s it right there. So to someone reading this, just about to start college. What would be your dos and don’ts to drummers in a rhythm section? 

 

Do experiments. Use the chance to play with people to try things out, but a don’t is just because you have practised something, and you want to work it out in a group setting with people, think about how you can do this stuff, and does it work in this moment? Just because you’ve tried to do something you have worked on, are you cutting them out and getting in their way? Making sure you are aware of that. Don’t choose the wrong moments, try and stick to the right moments.

Don’t drag. Please don’t drag, please. I am just going to say opposites, if you’re not dragging, then you need to have forward momentum, whether it’s you pushing or the bass pushing - that’s a whole different conversation, but that awareness. Everything in this music is about awareness, you have music first of all pinpointing, ‘Is it swinging or not? Is it dragging? Okay, what do I need to do, what do I need to change?’ The thing about drummers, is that you can be a really good drummer, but imagine if the bass player is not as good and the bass player is lacking in certain things, that relationship can really make or break the whole band. It can make the band sound really bad, especially for a drummer, who is good but is unaware on how to prop up the bass player. You need to know how to do that, and that's about firstly being aware of the bass player's role. It goes back to knowing everyone's role. As a drummer, if you know the bass player's role, and you know what he is lacking in that moment, you can adjust. ‘He’s really dragging, how can I fix this? He’s really rushing, how can I fix this?’ 

A do, is to know everyone's role in the band as well as yours.

 

That’s perfect. Thank you for your time. We got through those questions pretty quick!