Categories
Interview

NICK COSTLEY-WHITE

Appearances at SoundCellar –

THE NICK COSTLEY-WHITE QUARTET – Thursday 20th Sept 2018
THE TOMMY ANDREWS QUINTET  – Thursday 3rd July 2014

Aug 18

Question 1 – What made you want to become a musician?  

I grew up in a very musical family, my brothers and I all played instruments from a young age and were all choristers. Having started on cello i took up the guitar when I was about 13. After doing a few summer schools at teh Guildhall I was hooked on playing and improvising with other musicians. I haven’t thought about doing anything else since!

Question 2 – What was your practice routine when you decided to get serious about playing jazz?

By the time I got to music college when I was 18 I was really serious about dong a lot of hard work on the guitar. Being at college gave me the time and opportunity to my own daily practice for 4-5 hours a day, as well as getting to play in lots of ensembles. I would say that I’ve learned a great deal about how to make the practice I do much better quality. I used to do days of 6 hours of practice, but if I’m really honest there were probably only 2 hours of really productive practice in there. It was nice to have the chance to play your instrument for that amount of time so regularly, I rarely get that opportunity nowadays!

Question 3 – What advice can you give to other musicians to get the most from their practise routine?

As I alluded to in the last question, it’s all about making the practice you are able to do really count. I always start out by setting a timer for 20 mins. Before I hit start I decide what I’m going to practice for that time, and at the end I try and think about whether it’s been effective. I’ll continue that process for as much time as I can with little breaks in between were I might reply to an email or two. It’s a good method especially when you’re not feeling that inspired as you can choose something really academic or technical like learning a new scale. There are lots of musicians who seem to get by and still progress by simply gigging and playing with people. I’ve always felt I needed to keep up a steady practice routine in order to stay on top of the performing I’m doing, otherwise I feel it really suffers.

Question 4 – Can you recommend some books that helped you with your studies?

I’ve recently started looking at a book written for pianists called “An Approach to comping; the essentials” by Jeb Paton which has some really useful ideas. Other than that I’ve never found books to be that helpful. Learning solos and standards from the recordings (by ear!) is by far the best method I could recommend.

Question 5 – Which recording, either as a leader or a sideman, do you think is the best example of your playing?

It would have to be the quartet album I just released “Detour Ahead” which is my debut as a leader. It’s definitely the one that features me the most! I like some of the soloing I did on Henry Spencer’s album The Reasons Don’t Change, as well as on Tommy Andrews’ record The Crux (particularly on the title track) which is one of the first recording sessions I ever did.

Question 6 – Do you have a standard procedure for your compositional process?

It often starts by being inspired by a piece of music I’ve been listening to, or perhaps a little nugget from a solo I’ve been learning. I’ll then throw around various ideas based on that initial inspiration, often recording little chunks on my phone. Once I’ve managed to get an overall form together I’ll take it along to play with some other people and record some takes on my phone again. I’ll then normally tweak it a bit further but I try and find a point to step back and let it be a finished article otherwise you can go on and on indefinitely!

Question 7 – What qualities do you look for in your collaborators?

Strong rhythm, deep sense of jazz harmony and hopefully a fairly intuitive musical report based on similar musical reference points.

Question 8 – Name some of your favourite standards and tell me why you like them.

My favourites are generally the ones I’ve learned most recently! Those include The Best Thing For You Would Be Me, the best things in life are free & John’s Abbey by bud powell. Each standard has it’s own charm and character that draws you to it, which maybe a very technical thing such as the harmony or a broader appeal, perhaps the emotional response you feel, which is perhaps more undefinable.

Question 9 – What are some of your desert island discs?  

Similarly to my response about Jazz standards, it’s mostly whatever I’ve been listening to most deeply at the moment. There are some classic records that I’ve come back quite often to over the years but I’m always so excited to get really stuck into an album I don’t know so well, whether it be old or new.

Question 10 – What music are you listening to at the moment?

I’ve been listening to Blues and The Abstract Truth by Oliver Nelson which I absolutely love. Such an incredible combination of musicians. Albums like Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock and some of the live Miles Davis Quintet albums from that period I love. Charlie Parker is always one of my absolute favourite artists, perhaps Bird and Dizzy live at Birdland would be a favourite.

Question 11 – What motivates you to focus on creative music?

Well the same thing that motivates me to play any music. I’ve been lucky to be able to focus my performing in on just playing jazz so it’s great to be able to devote all of my practice to discovering how I want to play that music in an individual way. That process is not particularly conceptual for me, it’s just a matter of keeping on plugging away at it and I really think the more you do that the more like yourself you’ll sound. Rather than sitting around stroking my chin worrying about whether I have a “voice” or not. I just focus on trying to play as well as I can!

Question 12 – Tell me about some of the most memorable gigs you’ve played?

Well I did my album launch at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho 2 weeks ago which was totally sold out, so that was a fantastic experience and the guys in the band played their asses off. It’s hard to pinpoint particularly memorable gigs as I’ve done some really big gigs to huge audiences or live on the radio or at a big festival, but musically it’s probably the little gigs in bars in London that are the most exciting and gratifying. However sadly those ones all blur into one a bit!

Question 13 – Tell me about some of the most memorable gigs you’ve been to?

I went to see Barry Harris a few days ago which was gorgeous. I hope people still want to hear me play when I’m that age!

Question 14 – Tell me about your current equipment set up?

I’m keeping it pretty straightforward nowadays. I play my slightly battered Eastman archtop which I’ve had for many years now. It’s not a bad instrument, I feel quite at home with it. I replaced the pickup it came with for a Bare Knuckle Manhattan p90. That goes straight into a Rift Princeton amp which is an English made valve amp, basically a really fancy clone of a fender princeton. I might occasionally use a reverb pedal, but I don’t really use effects as I find it removes me a bit from the process and connection of playing the guitar.

Question 15 – Tell me about some musicians you think people should check out?

In terms of guitarists who are around now I love Jesse Van Ruller’s playing, as well as Peter Bernstein, Joe Cohn, a young dutch guy called Daan Kleijn as well as one of my old teachers, Phil Robson!

Question 16 – What’s your favourite cultural pursuit other than music?

I don’t know if this is cultural but I love cooking and going out to eat good food! I’m pretty interested in fashion and definitely enjoy wearing beautifully designed clothes (which is occasionally an embarrassingly expensive hobby….!).

Question 17 – What do you think of the state of jazz in the UK?

I think it’s incredible. There’s been such a strong push amongst the younger players in London to play music, whether it be original tunes or standards, that is really heavily routed in the jazz tradition. There are so many fantastic players it’s hard to keep track. The Jazz press are perhaps giving far too much attention to this afro beaty cross over scene which I generally find incredibly disappointing and underwhelming to listen to, especially when there are musicians in the UK making music of such great depth!

Question 18 – Have you got any tips for jazz promoters?

Give me more gigs! haha, I’m joking. I’m new to leading my band around the country so I can’t wait to meet all these people who I’ve been emailing for months and months! 

Question 19 – What was the last thing you heard that got you excited?

I really like the live album Dreams and Daggers by Cecile Mclorin Salvant. She’s drawing on so many parts of the jazz tradition at once it’s really fun to listen to. Plus the rhythm section are incredible and play in a very open way.

Question 20 – Have you got anything you’d like to promote?

Yes, my debut album Detour Ahead! It’s out now on Ubuntu Music and is available to buy online from all the usual places. It’s definitely best when people buy the physical CD from me at a gig as I get a chance to meet them and get an idea for what they enjoy about the music!

Categories
Interview

IVO NEAME

Appearances at SoundCellar –

THE IVO NEAME QUINTET – Sun 7th June 2015
DAVE MANINGTON’S RIFF RAFF – Thurs 15th May 2014   
THE IVO NEAME QUINTET – Thurs 10th April 2014

Question 1 – What made you want to become a musician?

I was going on music courses – (jazz courses and orchestral courses) when I was a kid and I started to meet people there who were serious about doing music full time. I think it was meeting all these musicians there that made me start thinking about doing it as a “career”. 🙂

Question 2 – What was your practice routine when you decided to get serious about playing jazz?

Mainly transcribing stuff and practising classical piano pieces. that interspersed with regular coffee consumption. I didn’t hunker down till after I left music college unfortunately because I was quite unfocused while i was at college.

Question 3 – What advice can you give to other musicians to get the most from their practice routine?

Be conscious of what you’re working on and why you’re working on it. Just have a bit of structure. A lot of people sit around and practise stuff they can play already. They don’t actively develop their knowledge or ability or try and learn new language/techniques.

Question 4 – Can you recommend some books that helped you with your studies?

Not really. I think listening to records and learning from them directly is the best way to improve. Then you acquire your own understanding of the music rather than someone else’s method. That’s not to say books aren’t useful as a reference. I’ve got books by Olivier Messaien – techniques of my musical language and the Slonimsky scale thesaurus and some scores – Gil Evans and some classical scores – they’re all really useful for developing harmonic and melodic knowledge. I think those are really interesting for composition and that’s so tied in with improvising.But I think rhythmic stuff is best learnt by rote – like the way music is taught in India and West Africa for example. Or the way jazz has been “taught” – handed down by masters. Other people’s transcriptions of great solos are good but best of all your own transcriptions. Memorising solos is important aswell. That way you get inside the phrasing and you can start to appreciate the nuances of the articulation that characterise the great jazz masters. Think about Bird or Coltrane or latterly Lovano – yes the notes are important but it’s the way that they play them and turn the musical information into something approaching speech. That’s when I think musicians have developed their “voice”. I think that’s why saxophone became such an important instrument in jazz. also playing regularly with different people – I’ve learnt so much from friends and playing their music and talking about it or finding out about their learning processes.

Question 5 – Which recording, either as a leader or a sideman, do you think is the best example of your playing?

Probably the Phronesis “Alive” record.

Question 6 – Do you have a standard procedure for your compositional process?

no, but all I know it takes lots of time for me! 

Ideas seem to come when you’re least expecting them.
Sometimes when you sit down to write in a disciplined, methodical way you don’t get anything interesting. So I think having the wherewithal to capture your best ideas as and when they come is a good idea. 

Question 7 – What qualities do you look for in your collaborators?

I suppose mainly it’s having a distinctive personality musically. People who sound like themselves….that’s when jazz becomes interesting….  

Question 8 – Name some of your favourite standards and tell me why you like them.

It depends what you mean by standards – such a hard one. I sometimes sit down at home and play “American songbook” standards and then I think, jesus that was boring!! Contradicting myself in terms of what i said about practice routines earlier but it’s a good example how i would be better off if I was more conscious of what I spent my time on. I like to consider tunes by jazz composers Monk, Wayne Shorter, ornette coleman, kenny wheeler, john taylor,bill frisell

iain ballamy, django bates e.g. as “standards”. Those show tunes are so old now. There are some great melodies in there. But I never went and saw Kiss me Kate or Showboat and I’m not going to start playing Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes on gigs!

Question 9 – What are some of your desert island discs?

crescent – john coltrane

life as we know it – buckley/batchelor

porgy and bess – miles davis

insight – john taylor

sweet rain – stan getz

Question 10 – What music are you listening to at the moment?

I’ve been listening to some ornette coleman albums – free jazz, change of the century, 

jaki byard – hi-fly

formic by the hungry ants

open letter by loose tubes on vinyl – amazing!

sweetnighter weather report

WIlliam Walton symphony

Question 11 – What motivates you to focus on creative music?

the desire to do something new and personal – I don’t want to make music that sounds like a load of music that’s been made already.

Question 12 – Tell me about some of the most memorable gigs you’ve played?

i love the outdoor festival gigs in towns in europe. i was playing in graz, austria recently with marius neset and it was such a beautiful setting. we had some great phronesis gigs this summer too – molde and vancouver in particular were fantastic…

Question 13 – Tell me about some of the most memorable gigs you’ve been to?

zawinul syndicate, ronnie scott’s. in the 90’s. in the good old days at ronnie’s. i never saw a jazz group playing with so much energy! I remember I was buzzing for hours after – it killed me!

Question 14 – Tell me about your current equipment set up?

in terms of pianos i don’t get much choice! i had the springs tightened on my piano recently which makes it a bit harder to play. Previously i would be practising on my upright at home and then i would get to play on a 9ft steinway at a gig and the actions on those pianos are significantly different to uprights. I wanted to be prepared for that so I had it changed. I would love to have a steinway d in my house but i don’t have the money,space or a compassionate enough neighbour!…. my yamaha p-121 silent will do for the present.

Question 15 – Tell me about some musicians you think people should check out?

stan sulzmann, steve buckley, chris batchelor, huw warren, barak schmool, django bates, john taylor, iain ballamy, julian siegel, liam noble, phil robson, julian arguelles, christine tobin – all the great uk musicians not to mention the swarms of younger uk musicians like jim hart, mick coady, dave smith, dave manington, andrea di biase, laura jurd, tom farmer(empirical), chris montague, hannes riepler (well he’s austrian but he lives here), tom challenger, dave hamblett, kit downes, james allsopp, robin mullarkey, matt calvert, finn peters, josh arcoleo the list goes on and on. Basically the tons and tons of great british jazz that no-one in the mainstream press is writing about for whatever reason, maybe there isn’t the space in the papers. I mean this has always been a big problem, the lack of jazz media coverage – some people can’t even get reviews in broadsheets because there are so many albums coming out. It would be great if there was some opportunity to get newspapers to give jazz some more coverage….i think sites like the london jazz site that seb scotney is running is great – it covers lots of different musicians and is pretty unbiased in that respect.

I think it would be great if we could get away from this “star” culture that exists in mainstream media. Building up this guy cos he’s a star. It’s so backward! It’s like some hangover from some Christian way of thinking – like people in the media want to find a new jesus – a saviour of some kind.

Question 16 – What’s your favourite cultural pursuit other than music?

reading, film, speaking foreign languages

Question 17 – What do you think of the state of jazz in the UK?

loads of talent but a relatively small audience given the population of the UK. we’re way behind the rest of europe.

Question 18 – Have you got any tips for jazz promoters? 

use the social media to increase audiences and apply for funding for the clubs. people are doing that anyway.

having said that it’s amazing how some jazz promoters tell me they’re proud that they do what they do without funding. 

also would be good if they actually let the young people into the gigs! I did a gig in the midlands recently and two young women came in. Everyone else was in their 70’s. The promoter kicked the women out because they were cat-calling after solos.. It would be great if younger people could go to jazz venues around the country and not feel like they were encroaching on a old people’s conference or something like that which is how it probably feels to younger people who want to go to local jazz gigs.

Question 19 – What was the last thing you heard that got you excited?

i was playing at the match and fuse festival recently at the vortex with kairos quartet and there were some bands from norway and different places – a band called actuum and laura jurd quartet. it was really great music – good crowds, a mixed demographic.generally a great environment. Dave morecroft of World Service Project was organising it – he seems to be very on the case with this sort of thing.

Question 20 – Have you got anything you’d like to promote? 

i’ll be recording a new album this year which will be coming out in 2015 so check that out and previous ones I’ve done!