How’s the bread making going?

 

Yeah it’s good, really good. I went on a sourdough bread making course, and I am getting really into making bread basically. 

 

Amazing. I guess the first question I have for you is what records can you remember, or do you still play along to, that have stuck out with you?

 

I remember playing along to ‘Clifford Brown and Max Roach’ record, the first track is Delilah and it’s got Joyspring on it. I played along with that record a few times, and it made me realise how driving Max Roach is. Especially on Joy Spring I think it is, he’s really driving. The thing that I guess that is also really interesting is,actually this might be a question that I'm answering that you haven’t asked yet. Playing along with these records, you start to realise that we all have a natural rhythm, and we all have tempos that we naturally sync towards or rise towards. So when you play along with a record, you hear other peoples natural tendencies. I remember playing a long with a Louis Armstrong record, I think with Big Sid Catlett. Playing more second line-y style and thinking ‘Wow that’s really grooving’ but my tendency was always to rush, and his was the opposite. Then like you said, with the Max Roach thing, I was struggling to keep up with him in a way. Trying to play my own feel, but he was really driving. Tony is a funny one with me, because I played a long fairly recently with ‘One Finger Snap’ from Empyrean Isles. I always think with Tony, sure sometimes he can be really driving, but actually it’s Ron. Ron is the boss in that band, and people don’t talk about that so much. I think when I was a kid and first heard those records I thought Tony was the boss and he’s really killing it, but Ron is the boss in that hookup I think. Same with the 64 concert, and Miles Smiles. It’s such a time for Ron because he sounds so good. So that’s really interesting to play along with as well, noticing when things that you felt like when you listened to it initially and you think ‘wow that’s really driving’ and then when you play with it you might think ‘this is actually sitting’. 

What it feels like to play along with can sometimes be very different to what it sounds like when you listen to it. But that’s the exact same thing when we talk about recording ourselves. Sometimes you can record yourself playing and think ‘That didn’t sound very good, and my cymbal beat was really sloppy’ then you listen back to you think ‘Oh actually that feels kind of nice’ then the sound is also nice, and the sound works for me. The opposite can also be true, you can sit there and think ‘That was actually a really good take, and I was really nailing the placement of the skip beat, or with the crotchet or metronome’ then you go back and listen to it and it sounds really weird. The sound doesn’t sound good and the feel doesn’t feel good. So that’s a really interesting one for me. Sometimes what you’re feeling at the time of playing it, isn’t what it sounds like to the listener, or when you listen back to it. 

Yeah I remember, when I was practising and playing a long to a drumless record. I think it was Mulgrew and NHOP playing All the Things You Are. I remember recording myself playing to it, and then sync the drums up with the track to see how it sounds. I remember thinking ‘yeah this sounds great’ and then I listened back to it and thought ‘I’m so glad they didn’t hear me play like that otherwise I would have been fired instantly’. I think as well for drummers it's very easy to over play in the practise room, I was playing along to the record and jumping on all their ideas. If they heard that, they would have fired me because I was playing so much and nothing was really sitting. 

 

That’s an interesting thing. I totally agree that it's also really easy to over play. That’s why sometimes I do separate elements of my practise from elements of playing and performing. Sometimes I'm practising something and it’s for a specific reason, like coordination, or control of dynamic, or just even building strength in the wrists, or developing relaxation in the arms. So when you play in a band situation, you just listen and play in a way. But at the same time, one thing I also have been doing more recently is when practising something literally, I think Ivo Neame was talking about it I think - improvising straight away with what you’re practising, but also maybe improvising using only one thing. Improvising using dynamics, or improvising just using one idea that you’re practising to improvise. So you’re not playing just one shape and going off on a tangent whittling around, you’re improvising just using that one idea. Even if it’s just sca bop, or ska da bop. 

 

I was just remembering you’ve said a lot of guys ask you how you play your solo, or how you form your solo idea, and you take one idea of the melody and phrase it around that the whole time.

 

Yeah I think it’s more about for me starting off with the melody, or if I don’t know the melody I have to try and make my own melody, but that can be harder. Or if it’s round a vamp then it’s make your own melody or make your own phrases but certainly starting with the shape of melody. Also being a drummer you can really just get away with just playing the melody. Without thinking this MFer is just playing the melody, and then it’s about thinking when can you leave it. I think it’s more about when you realise this thing you’ve discovered through playing the melody is cool, and you want to take it and play it again, or develop it, or stick with it. Then you have this idea that has come directly from the melody, but it’s now in a way becoming its own idea and phrase that you’re now taking this bit and sure the melody and form itself is passing at the same time, but you’re sticking with this one idea that comes from the melody. Then you choose when you go back to the melody, if you go back to the melody. So I guess the one important skill to have with that is being able to feel the melody at all times. Whether you’re playing it or whether you’re not playing it. If you want I can demonstrate that on a drum kit at some point. 

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That would be great, I guess from recording yourself, you can really hear if the melody is coming through.

 

I think it’s sometimes not about the melody coming through. It’s about if you’re hearing the melody, form and harmony in your core. Whatever you play, that will manifest itself as relevant. Other things like execution, sound, feel I think are things that you work on and naturally want to be there anyway, not really thinking about that stuff so much. Because that’s what you want to be there in the muscle memory, like sound and energy and muscle memory. Maybe that's just a little bit like how much you believe what you are doing as well. 

 

That answers my question really well

 

I actually sort of forgot what the question was now. I certainly think it brings certain challenges playing along with records. The thing I also have done with playing along with records, One Finger Snap is a good example when I played along with it recently. I heard Tony play a phrase. I think it was either like ‘ska da bo go pschh’ snare drum snare drum bass drum hi tom, crash. There was a bass drum with a crash I think. I love the sound he makes, and the energy he has. So I just ended up after hearing him play that, spent most of the rest of the track trying to play that phrase round and round. Just that one phrase. 

But then it’s about focussing mainly on getting his sound and energy. That’s the thing I think that people forget about when they are transcribing, it’s a little bit about the content, but for me it’s mostly about the feel and the sound, and the energy and the intention, all those things you know. That’s in a way the most important thing.

 

That was kind of my next question to you, how much do you imitate trying to play like the other drummer on the record, or trying to play like yourself?

 

Yeah, I mean my answer is only my answer by the way. Everyone probably has different answers, there's no like ‘this is how you should do it’. I think there always has to be an element of practise that is a little bit like, what works for you, what do you need or want, and what's the best way to achieve that? 

I’ve never really done a lot of transcribing and writing down. But, I have done a lot of copying people. You know, so that’s for me my way of transcribing. I will listen to someone play and try and play like them. When I say play like them I mean try and be them. ‘I’m going to be like Jochen Rueckert, I’m going to try and move like him, sound like him’. 

 

Especially move as well

 

Yes, the other day I was practising something and said I wanted to play and phrase it more like how Tain would play it. Suddenly I found myself trying to move like Tain. That’s the other thing, it’s not about ‘I’m moving like Tain or I sound exactly like Tain’ it’s more like ‘I’m moving the way i’ve seen him move and i’m trying to sound like him’ I will still sound like James Maddren whether I like it or not. But, I still want to try and get something that I hear in this. 

There’s definitely certain times when I've been either playing a long to records, or heard a record and then played. Sometimes it’s not literally like playing along with someone, it can be listen to something, listen to something, listen to something. Okay! That. Stop! Now play, now i’m going to play and make it sound like that. Now i’m going to stop. Then listen to that bit of same minute of music again. Listen listen listen. Okay. Stop! Now i’m going to play. It’s like trying to figure out how someone sounds like that. Things like placement of skip beat

 

Go on, can we talk about that for a bit?

 

Sure, I think a lot of that is movement as well. It’s how people move. Tain has that arm swingy thing going a bit more, it means that the skip beat  sounds a little later. His arms look really heavy. It almost looks like he’s playing from the arms even a little. His skip beat sometimes seems quite, again - this is also really tempo and song dependent with each drummer. It’s interesting, I find myself the older i get the more I don’t care about the placement of the skip beat. I think i’ve generally made mine straighter over time. I think I started off trying to be quite Jimmy Cobb, and then I gradually made it a little straighter over time. More up tempos, but then again it’s so dependent on the tempos for me. 

 

Would you try and play the ride with a similar technique Jimmy Cobb used?

 

Actually, that I didn’t do. But I've tried to mimic Jochen’s movement a little bit, especially at straight eighths ride cymbal playing. I’ve always been quite a visual learner, or listening and learning. Listening and replicating, watching and replicating. It’s not just in music as well, I used to play a lot of tennis, I used to watch people play tennis and copy their movement, even like the non-essential movement. Really trying to get inside how that person is, when i say non-essential movement that might be not quite true actually. But I find that it is a really good way of learning for me. Just being someone else. On the other hand, having done that it’s also quite helpful to play a long and compare yourself to someone else. To compare your ride cymbal and how you would naturally play a ride cymbal pattern at this tempo on this tune, and compare it to how Ed Blackwell would naturally play it. Or Jack DeJohnette, or whoever it is. That’s also really interesting, then you can compare yourself to them, whilst also being able to understand what you’re doing. ‘Okay well I'm going to play a long to this record now, and I'm going to try and play it the way I would play it, then compare myself to this person’. Then another day you might be like ‘ I’m going to try and be this person today’ see what it feels and sounds like. Be like ‘woah, it’s really weird trying to be that person, or it feels really natural to be like that person’. 

 

For you, who would you say in your process of learning have you found that you can be natural with, and who can you think ‘ah man, this really doesn’t right’. 

 

Erm. That’s a good question. I don’t know actually, I don’t know the answer to that question. I think it’s more style specific actually, rather than type of person. I have always found Jochen quite easy to play along with. I sometimes have found Philly Joe hard to play along with. I think I have more of a natural tendency to push. I’ve found Max a little easier to play with, although initially that was quite surprising. I think it’s also easier to be dragged along, than dragged back. That feeling of someone dragging you back is more of a disconcerting feeling, even though it might sound fine, or it might sound less dramatic than it feels, that’s a more unusual feeling than someone dragging me forwards. So I find it easier to hear things that are pushing and playing along with you if you know what I mean. 

 

Speaking of that thing of ‘sitting with someone’ how would you ‘lock in’ with a bass player when locking in on a record? When I first started playing in college I thought locking in with a bass player was making sure my bass drum was in sync with the bassist! But then when people told me it’s about the bass and ride cymbal locking in together, then I realised ‘does it need to be metronomic, or hit at the same time?’.

 

That’s an interesting one, maybe that’s also part of the thing you get with playing a long to a record, is hearing a drummer’s relationship with a bass player in more detail. So I think it’s hard to focus in a way to focus on the bass, or maybe what it is, is listening to the music. Listening to the bassist, piano player, everything! And playing along with it when you are being yourself. Part of the thing you are then comparing is of course yourself to the drummer. But also what you are doing is you are listening to the bass and the music, then playing along with it. Then you are comparing how you relate to the rest of the band, and how the other drummer relates to the rest of the band. Then you realise ‘wow my tendency is to be much later compared to the rest of the music, than Max Roach for example. I’m sitting behind the band, and Max is on top of the band. Obviously it’s a little different because the band is listening to Max, they’re not listening to you. That’s where the relationship is a little different, because they are not listening to you, everyone might be behaving differently if they could hear you. Maybe that’s just getting used to where Max or whoever it is would sit in an ensemble. 

Ben Riley is someone I've found difficult to play along to actually. I think he’s more hip than I am. 

 

Is that the ‘Five Spot’, or ‘The it club; that you’ve tried playing along to?

 

The it club, and five spot - wow they are great records. I love those records. To be honest, playing along with stuff, I haven’t done it a huge amount. It’s something that I want to do more, and should have done more of, and I should do more of, but I’ve done it in bits and I haven’t done it as much as other people have. Maybe i’m not the best person to ask these questions to!

 

No, this is great. I guess you had a lot of opportunities to play with people in real life, rather than play with the records. 

 

I mean yes, there’s an element of truth to that. But I also will share something with you that might have nothing to do with the question you’re going to ask. But I was talking to my Dad the other day and he just had a cello lesson, with a really good cello teacher. The teacher was talking to him about technique. What he was saying was, was that with any student you keep the technique a step ahead of where they are musicially. Because, when someone then develops a certain musiciality, or certain ideas within the music, their technique isn’t then holding them back from executing those ideas. In a way, it’s sometimes frustrating, and not necessarily problematic, but when someone's musicality is someone's temperament as a musician, and the complexity of someones ideas continue to develop. If they develop at a faster rate than the technique, then they can’t execute these ideas. It’s sort of pointless in a way. So that became really interesting for me, because I've always wondered ‘how much should I talk about technique, and how important is it?’ Initially I didn’t really talk about it much, and I didn’t really know much about it. I guess I sort of took bits and bobs from other people, I was in a marching band with people when I was younger, so who am I to tell anyone how to hold a drum stick? But then I realised a lot of things, sound has got so much to do with technique, and sound is so important. Consistency of feel has got a lot to do with technique, or the muscle memory and then that’s really important. So I have started teaching and talking about technique more recently. I just like that idea, that trying to keep your technique ahead of where you are musically. Or temperament, so that when you do get certain ideas or certain things you want to execute musically, or more complex. Maybe it’s not necessarily complex, but more advanced things together in your head, your technique is instantly able to help you explore them in a way, rather than having those ideas, like what about this, what about this, what about this? Then you can’t even get close to executing it because you can’t move, and naturally don’t have single strokes that are equi-distant from each other. If you’re able to play singles really evenly, that actually helps you play more complex things, like going between quavers, quintuplets and triplets. It’s actually so much easier if you naturally find it easier to play notes the same distance apart from each other and the same sound. Whereas if you’re struggling to do that, it’s really hard to do any of that stuff. Even things like being able to trust your sticking is a big thing. Anyways, I thought that was just a really interesting idea. 

 

Okay so my final question is, if you could play with any rhythm section, who would you play with?

 

Haha. That’s such a difficult question to answer. The other thing that I have found in life is that sometimes, you might think ‘I really want to play with this person’ and then you’re in that situation and it’s not what you think. It’s either much harder or it’s really different. Because some people you might not be massively drawn to hearing them play, but when you do play with them it’s like ‘Ah man this is so much fun!’. Sometimes the opposite can be true, you can really admire someone’s playing and then play with them and then think ‘wow this is really difficult’. But the other thing I would say about that is I think these things change all the time, about who it’s with and what stage they are at in their life or development they’re at. I can think of a good example now actually - the first time I played with Tom Herbert. I was really excited, really excited. I’d heard him play with Seb Rochford loads so I was really excited. ‘This is going to be so much fun’. We started playing and I found it really difficult. I think I had been used to playing with bass players who were maybe more driving, he is quite a centre of the beat guy. Also he is really strong, I think I was more used to bass players coming with me wherever I would go. If I sped up, they would have a certain give, but Tom was so strong. I think his initial thought was ‘I’m not willing to let my stuff go for you’. He might not have been thinking that but it felt a little bit like that. It might have sounded really good, i didn’t record that gig actually. But, I found it a little bit of a roast, quite challenging. I have played with him once since, and found it a lot easier, but I think it’s because i’m better at playing time now than when I first played with him. 

The other one was with another bass player at Ronnies, that was really difficult. I was going with them wherever they went, and then afterwards I was like ‘Oh man, I can’t play in time’. I got really frustrated and upset and went off. Then I just practised trying to be stronger, more like Tom Herbert was. Stronger, trusting myself and making my own thing feel good. That was another important lesson. I felt the same thing with Tom Herbert when playing with Larry Grenadier in a master class at college. I got really excited, and there was a big element of nerves, but I found it really difficult. Maybe because I was so nervous. I do remember thinking ‘This is way harder than i thought’. Again, he was really strong and my natural tendency was to rush at whatever tempo we are at, and he wasn’t gonna rush at that tempo. So it felt like we had this thing going on, but maybe that made it sound better? But it felt uncomfortable. 

It’s interesting because I think it probably does depend a little bit on who you’re playing with. The older I get the more I think you need to play the way you hear and feel it. Try and make your playing feel really good, and encourage people to be a part of it. If the push pull is too much, then you can compromise a little. I think the first goal is making your playing feel good. Especially from a drums point of view, that’s really important. If you spend too much time trying to be with other people you end up compromising your sound, then you hesitate, then because of that your ideas suffer from how you deliver things. Your starting point is making your stuff sound and feel really good. That doesn’t mean other people have to go along with you, if your role is strong, everything will be strong. The drums are really important in that respect, more so than every other instrument. 

 

That’s a lot of stuff for me to wrestle with, so I have a lot to process and think about. 

 

Yeah, do you have to write this all down now? Call me if you need a hand with going over anything. 

 

Thank you!