Damascus - Axis of Evil Tour!

I travel a lot as a working musician, and if there’s one thing that travelling teaches you it’s that nothing is black and white. This was once again brought home to me on my recent visit to Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, and the capital city of Syria, part of George Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ (the other members of George’s trio are Iran and North Korea). Long known as an implacable enemy of Israel (who annexed the Golan Heights from them in 1967), and therefore by extension an enemy of America and by further extension, the ‘free world’, Syria has been demonised in the West. So when I told people I would be going there with my family for a holiday over the Christmas/New Year period they reacted with horrified amazement. I might as well have said I was going to Baghdad or Afghanistan - as far as they were concerned Syria represented the same level of danger and madness, and therefore visiting Syria for a ‘holiday’ provided proof, if proof were needed, that when it comes to choosing holiday destinations I was barking mad.



But as I said, things are never black and white, and in fact Syria is a very safe destination for a tourist to go to, with almost no street crime of any kind (if only we could say the same in Europe or America.....), and is a country with an incredible mixture of races and religions living in it. One of the misapprehensions we in the west have about Syria is that it's a fundamentalist Muslim country, but it's actually one of the most secular and possibly the most, (officially at least), religiously tolerant in the Middle East. This is mainly due to the fact that the ruling regime are all Alawites - a minority Islamic sect that's looked on as being heretic by many fundamentalist Muslims. As part of protecting their own situation they are very heavy on religious tolerance.



About 15% of the population are Christians, and there are Shias, Sunnis, Druze, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and many others there, as well, as believe it or not - Jews! There are two synagogues in Damascus, though there's not a big Syrian Jewish population any more (most left in 1994 as part of an agreement with the US – one of the conditions worked out at the Madrid Peace Conference) . So though the Syrian regime hates the Israelis, they don't (officially at least), hate Jewish people per se. Having said that, it’s probably not an easy place to be Jewish in, but the fact that Jewish people live in the capital city of Israel’s most implacable enemy, and that Syria is a police state that enforces religious tolerance, shows again how many shades of grey there can be, and how little is black and white.



Marian Shrine, Christian Quarter, Damascus


On arrival in Damascus it was immediately interesting to compare this place to other places I’ve been in the Middle East. One thing that’s particularly noticeable is the lack of tourists around – Syria’s reputation, (undeserved), as a hot bed of radical Muslim fundamentalism keeps westerners away. As a result, you get almost no hassle at all to buy things, or to go into shops, or to take taxis – people leave you alone to do your own thing. Which is COMPLETELY different to Morocco or Cairo, or even Turkey (at least in the tourist areas) – because they depend so much on tourism, they see tourists as being like ATMs, so everywhere you go they try and talk you into buying this or doing that, or going into this restaurant, or that carpet shop etc. - which can get very wearing after a while. But in Syria this is not the case, and on our first day we went into the huge covered market and were amazed not to get the usual calls of ‘please sir’, or ‘this way sir!’, or ‘you want carpet/jacket/shoes/etc. sir?’ - we were allowed to wander around without being importuned even once, which was great – it allowed you to stop and look at things for as long as you want without keeping watch from the corner of your eye for yet another salesman trying to drag you into his shop. Very cool.



The second thing that was striking was the variety of races, cultures and religions represented out on the street. Within the first ten minutes of being in the Souq, we saw women covered from head to toe in the black Chador of Shia Islam, women in designer jeans and jewellery, men in traditional Bedouin costume, Mullahs, a Christian priest, men in business suits, women wearing head scarves - but the colours of which were carefully matched with their earrings and makeup. Again the shades of grey concept was fully in evidence - we saw one man bargaining in a spice shop in the souq, he had a Muslim skullcap on, a full beard, and a jacket, the back of which bore the legend ‘Colorado Boy’s Ranch’.



It said in the guidebook that Syria was one of the friendliest places to visit in the Middle East – we found the guidebook to be unreliable on several fronts, (maps and restaurant recommendations in particular), but they were right about this. The Middle East is in general a very welcoming region, with an incredible tradition of hospitality, and after much travel in the region I’ve come to expect this kind of thing. But the Syrians take friendliness and hospitality into another realm – this welcome we got everywhere we went was truly remarkable. Within one minute of being in the Souq, we had asked and been given permission to take photographs of two sieve makers, who then asked us where we were from, welcomed us and offered us sweets from a bag they produced from under the counter. Later we went for a coffee and were approached by two young guys who again asked us where we were from, told us all about themselves (students – one about to go off to Germany to study for seven years), asked about our impressions of Syria and made suggestions as to things we could do and restaurants to check out. Before leaving they gave us their mobile numbers and asked us to call them if we needed any help or assistance while in Damascus. Again and again we were met with kindness, friendliness and hospitality – people would shout ‘welcome’ to us as we went past and wave. The very scarcity of western visitors to Damascus seems to make the Damascenes all the more appreciative of those who do venture in, and the combination of friendliness and yet at the same time not being hassled into buying things makes this city unique in my experience of travels in the Middle East.

Not that I want to give the impression that Syria is some paradise on earth either. The people of Syria may be wonderful, but the same can’t be said for the regime that rules it. Make no mistake about it, this is a police state, where any political dissent is ruthlessly crushed, and no opposition of any kind is permitted. President Assad – whose slightly geeky features are plastered everywhere – got 97% of the vote in the last election, which wasn’t as good a result as it sounds when you consider that he was the sole candidate! Syria has been under ‘Emergency Law’ which suspends the basic rights of its citizens, since 1962. Censorship is widespread – in fact I had to wait to get back from there to do this post since Blogger is blocked in Syria – a fate that’s shared there by other well known websites such as Youtube and Facebook. When the current president Bashar Al-Assad took over from his father Hafez, there was hope that things would change, but they haven’t – they’ve tried to open up the economy more and you see progressive kinds of things like the introduction of a partial smoking ban (in the Middle East!) coming next year. But still, say anything publicly against Bashar and you’d better get yourself ready for a visit from the secret police and a vacation that will definitely differ from the one we just had............



A Shi'ite restaurant with a painting of Iran's President Ahmedinijad, Syria's President Assad and the Iraqi Shia radical cleric Mokhtada Al-Sadr displayed over the door. 'The Rogues Gallery Restaurant' perhaps?

Old City, Ummayad Mosque and the incompatibility of Chadors and Escalators......




Damascus is divided into two parts, the Old City, and everywhere else. The new part of the city is fairly nondescript - apartment blocks, shops, seething traffic which seems to operate on the chaos principle, (no road markings on roads wide enough to take cars four abreast resulting in a weaving mass of horn-tooting vehicles), fairly poor air quality and little of architectural merit to attract the eye or delay the casual traveller.

The old city on the other hand is an extraordinary place, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is essentially a mediaeval Arab city, complete with a maze of narrow lanes, tiny shops, bustling street life, and a massive souq right in the middle of it. When you enter this part of the city you really feel like you’re in the Middle East.


And this feeling of being, for a Westerner at least, somewhere very different, is never stronger than when you approach the massive Ummayad Mosque which takes up a sizeable chunk of the old city. This is one of the most famous and venerated mosques in the Islamic world, attracting pilgrims and visitors for hundreds of years. In my own travels I’ve visited quite a few famous mosques in Cairo, and especially in Istanbul. I’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere in these places — there’s something different about the feeling that one gets in a big mosque as opposed to the atmosphere of one of Christianity’s massive cathedrals. With the latter I always get a feeling of heaviness in the architecture — you can almost feel the weight of the building as it towers over you. The mosques on the other hand — particularly the domed mosques of the Ottomans — have a lightness about them, almost a feeling as if being in a huge tent. The carpets which cover the floors of these buildings accentuate that feeling, especially since you are required to take off your shoes before entering a mosque - the feeling of walking around on a carpet in your stocking feet helps foster an intimacy with the interior of the building that one just doesn’t get when walking around a large Christian cathedral. The fact too that it is quite acceptable to sit on the floor of these buildings, rest your back against the wall, and contemplate the architecture adds to this feeling of intimacy.



The Ummayad Mosque has an extraordinarily beautiful courtyard — appropriately massive, and covered in the kind of gilded calligraphy that you often encounter in places like this. As you enter it through the main gate, a huge square opens up in front of you, you get a sense of the importance of this building to the faithful, who constantly pour in and remind you of the myriad nationalities and races that are encompassed by the Islamic world — Malaysians, Arabs, Africans, people from the Subcontinent, Turks etc.



On entering the mosque itself, I was actually a little disappointed. Yes it’s a huge building, with some beautiful calligraphy and tiling, and it has a beautiful section which houses the Mihrab , but architecturally I found to be quite disappointing — a kind of giant rectangular box, with little of the grace and airiness of the domed mosques of Istanbul. I first went to the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul in 1986, and in a way it kind of spoiled me for all others! I knew the reputation of the Ummayad, so I was expecting something architecturally spectacular, but found instead something that was almost ordinary — relatively speaking at least.




The mosque attracts many Shia pilgrims, especially from Iran. You can see them arriving in groups, the women clearly identifiable by their head-to-toe black Chadors, which, enhanced by the fact that often all you can see of them is their nose, gives them the appearance of a flock of crows shuffling along towards the mosque entrance. But before they can reach the haven of the mosque, if approaching from the souq, they have to negotiate an urban hazard — an escalator!



We couldn’t figure out what the problem with escalators was for these women, whether it was because they were not used to them, (a lot of these pilgrims are quite probably people from rural areas of Iran), or because they were worried that their Chadors would catch in the mechanism, or whether it was something else. But whatever it was, they definitely had issues with escalators! Time and again we would see them teetering on the brink of jumping onto the escalator, like people standing on the edge of a cliff — irresolute, unable to decide whether to jump or not, before finally making the great leap into the unknown and tottering unsteadily on the first step before grabbing the rail and hanging on for dear life. On one occasion a woman actually lost her footing and began toppling backwards down the escalator as it went up, only a despairing grasp by her husband of her sleeve-end prevented her from falling backwards and hitting the back of her head off the iron steps. It would seem that modern technology in the form of escalators, and Chador-clad Shia women don’t mix.

“Avatar”, Hollywood, and the War On Terror



It’s always interesting to go to the movies in a different country, and especially in a different culture to your own. We once had a great time at a Tamil movie in Madras, despite not understanding a word of what was going on. But the vibe in the cinema was great, with the audience getting involved in the on-screen action in a way that you never see in the West. Walking through the new part of Damascus one day, we came across a new cinema — a real western style, multiscreen place, that was showing “Avatar”, and we decided to go and and get a Syrian cinematic experience. The movie was in English with Arabic subtitles, and though the audience was made up of obviously middle-class, westernised people, mostly in their early 20s, their behaviour in the cinema was quite different to an equivalent audience in a western cinema. As soon as the lights went down chatter broke out amongst the entire audience, and the film was punctuated throughout by giggling and chatting in a way that would draw much irritated shushing in an Irish cinema at least.



So far so good, but then something happened on the screen that gives a very real perspective on how things can be seen in different parts of the world. Those familiar with the story of “Avatar” will know that its premise is that invaders from Earth come to a far away planet in order to exploit its mineral resources for their own use. The fact that the people from ‘Earth’ were to a man, and a woman, Americans made the obvious parallel of the Western exploitation of the oil wealth of the Middle East, and the wars and political shenanigans used by the West to control energy sources emanating from there, all the more obvious. And it began to dawn on me as I sat there in the dark, that some of this made uncomfortable viewing for a Westerner sitting in an audience of Arabs.



But this feeling of slight discomfort with the storyline was ratcheted up several notches when the bad guy in the film — a stereotype GI Joe kind of guy dressed in American military fatigues — announces to a military briefing, “We will defeat the Hostiles - we will meet terror with terror!”, his description of what he was about to unleash on the native people included the phrase “shock and awe” -- the phrase coined by Rumsfeld to describe what America was going to do to the Iraqis — a people who lived only a couple of hundred kilometres from where we were sitting in the cinema. The phrase ‘we will meet terror with terror’ was greeted by an audible intake of breath by the audience in the cinema, and I was suddenly conscious and that we were three Westerners sitting in an audience of about 1000 Syrians, whose country has been demonised by the leading military power in the West, and were watching a film in which a stereotypically macho American Marine is about to launch his helicopter gunships on the native population. It’s not that I felt that we were in any danger of any kind, but when you watch something like that in Damascus, it definitely gives you a different perspective than if you watched it in Dun Laoghaire! When GI Joe bad guy was eventually killed in the film, the audience erupted into wild cheering and clapping — which given the context in which most of the people were watching that film, was hardly surprising.

All in all we spent five days in Damascus, which is probably about enough — the city doesn’t have much more in it that would keep the tourist occupied for much longer than that. It was an interesting and fascinating experience to be in a country that is often seen as a pariah in the West, and yet to be met with only friendliness and kindness, to see a very deep culture, to see a myriad of people, races, and religions living together harmoniously, and, oh yes, did I mention the great food!?

Thanks and Happy New Year!

So, I reach the end of the first calendar year in which I've been doing this blog. I started it because I wanted to add to the rather slim ranks of musicians who write blogs, and write about the music in terms of the inner workings of the music as well as the social landscape in which it finds itself these days. This social aspect of the music is covered very well also by many non-musician bloggers - the NPR's "A Blog Supreme" is a particular favourite of mine in this respect - but I still think there's room for a bit more in-depth writing about the technical aspects of playing this music. I know I particularly enjoy reading musician's thoughts on all aspects of their profession, and I hope others will enjoy this blog for the same reason.

It's been an instructive seven months or so, some posts got amazing reaction in terms of comments, and others didn't - and I rarely know which subjects are going to provoke the most reaction - the massive response to the bass solos post was a case in point...........

I'd like to thank all who read the blog in 2009 and especially to those who took the time to write and respond - it's been a really interesting and stimulating experience for me and one I hope to continue into 2010. I'm off to Syria next week, where for reasons best known to themselves, the Government have banned Blogger, so my impressions of that trip, (I know it's not strictly music related, but the blog is call Mostly Music - my get-out clause for writing about other interests occasionally), will have to wait till I get back.

In the meantime I wish all of you a very Happy Christmas and peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Art and Craft

How important is craft to the art of jazz improvisation? In a music that developed out of many different approaches and solutions to technical, theoretical and aesthetic problems, can any one benchmark of craft be placed front and centre of the music as an identifier as to whether a performer is sufficiently proficient to be taken seriously in the music? How important is craft to the art? Is craft in itself something worthy of respect?

These thoughts were prompted by two things – something I read recently and something I watched. What I read was a post from the Groove Notes blog (thanks to the always interesting NPR 'A Blog Supreme' for this), ‘A jazz reminiscence by Dick Stein’, in which he told a story about how a less than proficient clarinettist was publicly humiliated by Jaki Byard
at a club in New York. The second thing that prompted the post was watching a Youtube clip of Hamiet Bluiett playing ‘Peggy’s Blue Skylight’ with the Charles Mingus group in 1972 (Posted below).

In the Byard story, he (Byard) not only heckles the clarinet player who is playing during the intermission in a duo with a drummer, but decides to prove that the clarinet player is a faker by going to the bandstand and challenging the guy to a trial by blues – accompanying him on the piano and punctuating the resultant performance with a profane ongoing critique, as a result of which a) the crowd are made to realise that the clarinet guy can’t play, b) they turn ugly, and c) clarinet guy turns tail and runs out into the night. At least that’s how the story is told – with no little relish – by Dick Stein.

This kind of story divides jazz readers into two camps — one camp would enjoy the story very much and see it as being a classic example of an interloper getting his comeuppance, someone who hasn’t done the necessary groundwork trying to put one over on the jazz public, and being found out, unmasked, and driven out by a crusader for the real jazz. This is definitely the view that would be taken by traditionalist defenders of the faith. On the other hand, there are doubtless readers of this story who would be outraged by it, and would see it as a typical piece of jazz fascism in which a very narrow view of what constitutes “correct” musicianship is foisted on all-comers, irrespective of their artistic leanings. I think this is definitely the view that would be taken by the post- free guys, who both argue for a broader definition of what constitutes jazz, and also question whether proficiency in playing over form, and over changes, constitutes any kind of litmus test of ability.

So which view is the correct one? Of course it’s impossible to tell from that story whether the clarinettist was as bad as was claimed or not. But should he have been given the opportunity to play his music unfettered by the views of Jaki Byard as to his abilities? In short, was Byard’s definition of craft — and insistence on the lack of it being shown here — too narrow, or did he have a point?

Again, it’s impossible to tell at this distance and at this remove from the incident itself whether the guy could play or not, but as far as my opinion is concerned, if the guy was as bad as suggested, then I have to have a certain sympathy with Byard’s views. I do think a certain element of craft is necessary in anybody who pertains to be a professional musician of any stripe, and in particular a professional jazz musician. I think anyone who demands money from the public to listen to their music, has a certain responsibility to that public to be a valid practitioner of a certain level — a musician that is of a high enough level to charge for his or her services. But what is the yardstick by which one can tell whether said musician is of a professional level?

Sound? This is a VERY subjective call, especially in jazz where you can hear such a huge divergence in sound – listen to Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane for an example of two acknowledged giants who could almost be playing different instruments, so great is the difference in their respective sounds. Classical music has a much narrower definition of what constitutes a ‘good’ sound – in jazz it’s a moveable feast, depending on era, style, approach and many other factors.

Intonation? Again, this is a grey area in jazz – less grey than it used to be, but grey nevertheless. While it’s true to say that there is more uniformity of opinion of what it means to be ‘in tune’ these days, there have been many examples of great jazz players whose approach to intonation would have raised many an eyebrow in other music, and often did even in jazz itself. And again the response to these different intonation approaches can be very subjective. In my own case I love the acerbic sound that Jackie McLean achieved largely by dint of his wayward intonation, yet I can barely listen to Eric Dolphy’s flute playing for the same reason. Go figure, as they say.

Speed? Technique is often defined by velocity, unfortunately. The speed somebody can play at is often taken as a measure of how good they are – i.e the faster you are, the better you are. Which is of course a very shallow way to listen to music and to judge music – but it appeals to certain types, especially young male jazz musicians! But leaving aside what the speed is used for, for the moment, there is no doubt that the ability to play fast and in time, (and this is a crucial distinction between those who are simply moving their fingers quickly and those who are relating what they’re playing to the underlying pulse), is definitely evidence of craft. The ability to play fast and in time is something that can only be achieved through years of dedicated practice and hard work. If somebody can do that well, they are definitely exhibiting a high level of craft. Whether they apply that craft in the service of art is a whole other question........

Ability to play on changes? Definitely a high craft factor here too – playing well over changes is HARD! Again it’s something that can only be done if you’ve spent long hours in the practice room, and it’s something that involves the ear, instrumental technique and rhythmic strength. There’s no doubt in my mind that anyone who can play well over changes, and negotiate them with good voice leading, and good time and feel is demonstrating a high level of craftsmanship.

But of course it's too easy to get into a narrow definition of what defines craft, and this is often done in jazz. There's a story about Thelonious Monk that describes how much he loved Bud Powell's playing and how in private he (Monk) would demonstrate his love for Bud by playing exactly like him. I've heard this story several times and have always hated it, since its agenda is really clear. This story sets out out to apologise for Monk's playing and 'validate' him by showing that he could play the way the piano should really be played if he chose to. I'm pretty sure that a) Monk couldn't play in the Powell style, (any more than Powell could have played in Monk's), and b) wouldn't have wanted to either. Because, like Powell, Monk's technique was of the highest level in that it was perfectly fashioned to express what it was he wanted to express.

And this seems to me to be the definition of craft serving art - a situation where the player has worked hard to reach a level of instrumental (or vocal) skill where he or she is perfectly equipped to express the musical ideas they have. Which is why the Monk/Powell story outlined above is so screwed up, since it implies that Monk’s craft or technique was less than Powell’s. This feeds into the idea that craft can be defined by very narrow parameters such as speed and dexterity. Speed and dexterity, assuming they’re aligned with a strong rhythmic sense, ARE signs of high levels of craft, but they’re not the only ones by any means.

When I was younger I must admit to being as bad as anybody in confusing speed with technique, or defining an ability to play by how well someone displayed a conventional technique on an instrument. For example in my early days as a player I just didn’t get Charlie Haden – I saw him as a primitive in comparison to say Paul Chambers or Scott LaFaro. It took several years for the penny to drop and for me to see the extraordinary levels of craft involved in what Haden did and to recognise that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, technique-wise.

But I have to say that I also believe there are measurable levels of craft on display when listening to a musician perform – i.e not everybody is of the same level of technique and craft in music. For me it comes down to being able to adequately deal with the technical challenges of the music you choose to play. There’s a very cruel, though funny, aphorism attributed to the great guitarist and pedagogue Mick Goodrick in which he will say to somebody struggling through something - ‘Yeah man, I hear what you’re trying to say......’ Which kind of sums it up for me – is the player technically equipped to deal with the musical challenges of a given piece of music? If so, this is a real demonstration of craft. But if a musician is struggling through something and clearly trying to play something that is beyond them technically, then there's definitely a craft problem.

Which brings me back to the Hamiet Bluiett video mentioned earlier. Bluiett is well known, and highly regarded as a member of the World Saxophone Quartet, and is a player from the freer end of the spectrum of jazz. But here he’s playing ‘Peggy’s Blue Skylight’ with Charles Mingus, a piece with both form and changes, and when it comes to the playing over the changes, his level of craft in this area is just not high enough to make his playing sound convincing. He opens his solo with a sonic barrage, which is very impressive, and you can clearly see that this is an area in which he’s very comfortable, and there’s no doubting the raw excitement it generates, with both audience and drummer Roy Books responding to it. But throughout the solo he alternates these frenzied passages with playing lines over the changes, and whenever he does the latter the rhythm is poor, the voice leading is poor - in short the craft is poor. And he’s clearly trying to play conventional lines in these sections, but he just hasn’t put in the man-hours on this particular facet of improvising to be convincing in it. This to me is a demonstrable lack of craft, and prevents me from enjoying the solo since there are so many flaws in the technique that it gets in then way of the music. The craft doesn’t support the art.

Opinion in the jazz world seems to be divided on the issue of craft. On the one hand you have the people who revere a very narrow definition of instrumental technique and equate that with musical greatness. This is clearly a very myopic and shallow way to think about music – craft does not automatically equal art, nor is there only one kind of craft.

On the opposing side you have the people who dismiss musicians who do have high levels of technical craft in their armoury, for just that reason – implying that the playing of changes with ease, (for example), automatically makes the musician a hollow vessel, incapable of real feeling, emotion and creativity. This attitude not only disrespects the work that’s been undertaken by the musician to achieve a high level of craft, it also denies craft in itself as being something worthy of respect.

Both of these attitudes are seriously flawed – a plague on both their houses just about sums it up. As someone who has spent the majority of his life, playing, thinking and talking about jazz, I do believe there’s far too much high craft put to poor use these days – far too much technical skill used for far too little result. But as a musician, I will always respect the craft of good musicians. Someone who can play at a high technical level has spent years getting to that level, which means they must be serious about what they do. Whether we like the result or not, the effort, skill and sheer hard work that’s gone into the music should be respected. Sometimes the art and the craft are in perfect harmony, sometimes they’re not, but though great art may be the ultimate goal for all creative musicians, great craft should equally be something that’s respected and recognised.

Art and Craft - like so many things in jazz, and in life, it's not simply an either/or issue.....................

On the Road

Métier recently had a series of three gigs (which counts as a tour these days..........) culminating in an appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the London Jazz Festival. I decided to keep a road diary and take some photos and film footage - the results are below.

Limerick, Wednesday


I head off on what can only be described as a dreary drive to Limerick. Driving through the midlands is never a good advertisement for the island of Ireland - the road is pretty featureless and the greyness of the day does nothing to add to its meagre charms. The highight of the trip is when I hear a wonderful malapropism on the radio when one of the presenters describes last year's Christmas party as being a 'damp squid'.

I arrive in Limerick in the middle of a deluge, find the hotel (thanks Satnav!), check in quickly and head over to Dolan's Warehouse at around 4.30 - I'm doing a workshop at 6 with some local kids and I've arranged to meet the band beforehand to run through the material for tonight's gig - we haven't played in a while and we need to chip a bit of the rust off the written parts of the music. Of course as always in these situations the rehearsal starts later than advertised, but eventually we're all there and manage to get through all the material before the workshop starts.

We finish the last few notes of the rehearsal in front of a possibly interested, (it's hard to tell, so blank are their expressions), audience of kids - aged between 12 and 17 or so, who have come for the workshop. Limerick Jazz Society who are putting on the gig, are not only doing a great service in keeping the music alive in this part of the country, but are also doing trojan work in organising workshops for kids and giving them an opportunity to have access to proper instrumental training as well as introducing them to jazz.

Workshop

But though they're not strangers to the concept of jazz, it's hard to know what to usefully do with an unknown group of teenagers in an hour and a half. They're very shy too, as is often the case in these situations, so there's nothing really coming back off them and it's difficult to know whether what I'm pitching to them is getting a response. I've opted for a two pronged approach - talk a bit about jazz, discuss what some of the most common constituents in the music might be, see what they know about the music - and secondly, play with them and see what that brings up in terms of conversation points.

Regarding chatting with them, it's hard to tell what they think or what they know, since my invitation to them to contribute to the conversation is not enthusiastically taken up - shyness gets the better of them and they have the look of a group who have been sentenced by a court to attend a jazz workshop....... As always, there's one kid who's really into it and asks lots of questions, while the rest are content to let him!

Things perk up a bit when we get up to play - I ask the drummer to play any kind of groove he wants since he's a bit self-conscious about playing any jazz things, so he goes into a rock groove played at the most phenomenal volume....... It's extraordinary the tolerance these kids have for volume, the noise he's making is absolutely deafening and my little Acoustic Image amp and acoustic bass wouldn't have a hope pitted against that. So I ask him to keep the same groove, but play quieter, which, he says, makes it much harder for him to play because now he's 'holding back'. But we eventually get something going and I agree on playing a blues with the third member of our trio, a really talented 12 year old who has the most astonishing technical facility for someone so young, and a lot of vocabulary. He's a student of Joe's, living in Limerick, though originally from Slovenia, and, all things being equal, a real prospect for the future.

After this trio I get another group up to play and we again do a blues (the true Lingua Franca of contemporary music), and this time the volume is being blasted out from both drums AND guitar! We eventually get that under control and then form issues raise their ugly head. It is always interesting to me when I hear people just play their licks, but don't notice that said licks don't work over the form they're allegedly playing. It's a really common problem and comes from the typical rock way of learning to play - attack the instrument first, learn some licks, and no matter what the context, get those licks in! It's a very instrument-driven way of learning, and uses the eyes as much as the ears, but it's hard to get the kids to let go of the safety net of what they know works technically, and just play by ear. To paraphrase the old saying, there's nothing to fear but ear itself.............

As always with these things, when the workshop is officially over and the kids are released from the dread of being asked to play in front of everybody, the atmosphere palpably relaxes and chatter breaks out for the first time.

It's hard to know how much the kids got from the workshop, but hopefully there'll be something in there for at least some of them which might spark their interest in investigating jazz a bit more.

At least one satisfied customer........

One great thing about playing in Dolan's is that they have a 'band menu' down in the restaurant section, a good variety of stuff, well prepared, and all for a tenner - the best deal in town by far.It should never be underestimated how large looms the importance of having somewhere to eat and a good hotel when one is on the road. Promoters often don't get this, and are surpised at the vehemence of a band's reaction when they're offered substandard accommodation or if no consideration is given to how, when or where they're going to eat before or after the gig. What people forget is that when you've spent all day travelling in an enclosed space, with the same people, what you want at the end of the day is something decent to eat and a decent place where you can have a rest and get a bit of privacy for a few hours.

The gig itself is fun - as always with these things, all the other stuff you go through, the driving, the hanging around, dealing with the little and large annoyances of being on the road, all fade into the background once you start playing, and suddenly you remember why you play this music in the first place. Since Limerick Jazz Society is a dedicated jazz organisation, you're always playing to a jazz audience there, which is nice. There's a decent crowd (for a jazz gig on a Wednesday evening when it's lashing rain outside.......), and they give us a good response.

We've opted for one long set rather than two shorter ones - this 90 minute festival-style set is one I'm a big fan of. I think it's just long enough for the band to really get going, yet not too long where you get into the situation where it's too long for the audience and musicians alike and where both lose focus. I like this long set format both as a listener and as a player. Sometimes the two-set format makes for too long an evening, unless the band plays a 45 minutes first set, followed by a 2nd of roughly the same length. Often jazz groups play for an hour, then take an interminably long break and come back and play for another hour or so. By which time some of the audience have left to catch buses etc, some have drunk too much and are noisy, or are suffering from too much music fatigue. I'm not sure that more music is always better - for example how often have you listened to all 70 minutes of a contemporary CD? The older 40-50 minutes format of LPs definitely made it easier to assimilate a whole programme of music - to me 'A Love Supreme' or 'Kind of Blue' would not necessarily have benefitted by having another 25 minutes of music tacked onto them........

So, the gig is fun, though we were a bit dodgy on some of the written material - when you've five people in a band playing challenging music, and especially when it's challenging music you haven't played for a while, or very often, you've five possibilities of something going wrong at any one time. So inevitably there will be a few hiccups, and indeed there were on this gig. But nothing major and the improv sections were all really strong. Everybody in the band is both a strong soloist and has a strong personality and this makes for very satisfying music. The group's been together with just one personnel change for nearly three years now, and it shows. We played some pieces from our CD Cascade, and from the recent suite of music I composed, about contemporary Ireland, called 'Fiasco', and the balance of the material works quite well - I think I'll keep this set list for tomorrow night's gig in Wexford as well..........



Musician, film thyself.......

Wexford, Thursday

Leaving the hotel the next morning I misjudge the exit from their underground car park and give my car a good scraping on the left rear of the vehicle - nice! Another campaign scar earned in the cause of jazz..................



According to the AA Routeplanner Wexford is only 189 Km from Limerick, yet according to the same source it will take me almost three hours to cover that distance. On setting out it soon becomes obvious why this skewed distance vs. time ratio is suggested - the road between Limerick and Wexford is completely shite! Single carriageway for much of it, infested with agricultural vehicles of all kinds, peopled by overtaking maniacs who refuse to accept the limitations of driving on such a road and who thunder past in a homicidal manner, and intermittent showers all make for a testing drive. At least the newly opened Waterford bypass has saved me from the hell of entering Waterford city during rush hour.

The roads in Ireland are definitely getting better, but there are still rogue sections like this one, which are completely motorway-free and would probably be recognisable to someone who'd driven these roads in the 1930s. But one of the few nice things about driving on Irish roads is that you often come across many unexpectedly picturesque and beautiful sights. The quality of the light is kind of unique in this country and even in November you can come across sights like this:




and this:




Great town names like this:




and even evidence that great jazz pianists have been reincarnated and are now making a living in the construction industry in Tipperary:



And, coming through New Ross I came across the 'Dunbrody Famine Ship' - a restored ship of the type that took many Irish to America during the Famine in the 19th Century - its masts silhouetted against the evening sun........



Eventually I arrive in Wexford, where we're playing at the Arts Centre. I decide to check into the hotel first - the Maldron - but on arrival in my room I find it's not very promising. The room is cold, there's a fair bit of traffic noise outside and the wireless internet (that indispensable aid to travelling musicians these days), is not working in the room. Wexford is only 90 minutes away from Dublin, so I decide that I'll just leave my suitcase and computer here, do the gig, pick the stuff up and drive back home after the gig. A lot of musicians I know are quite into driving home after out of town gigs if it's at all feasible - but I'm not one of them. In general I like to relax after a gig and not get into the car and drive while tired, in the dark and on roads often unsuited to night driving of any kind. But this room seems so uninviting that I decide I'll just split after the gig and get a comfortable night's sleep at home.

Wexford has a world famous Opera Festival, and through this has a reputation for music and cuture. But strangely enough it's never been a regular stop on the jazz circuit in Ireland, neighbouring Waterford having much more activity happening in the jazz field, mainly due to the pro-jazz leanings of the Garter Lane Arts Centre there. So up to fairly recently I'd hardly ever played in Wexford. However that changed recently with a more pro-jazz policy emanating from the Wexford Arts Centre, and I'd already played two very nice gigs there earlier this year, one in January, playing the music of John Coltrane, and one later playing in a trio with Tommy Halferty.

It's a good place to play, audiences are enthusiastic and the management are cool - however before getting to play one has to negotiate two flights of stairs. So often jazz gigs are upstairs - or downstairs - as if the music wasn't difficult enough to play, rhythm section players have to add the skills of a stevedore to their portfolio if they're to make it in the jazz world. It's at times like these that I give thanks to the people at Acoustic Image who at last have figured out how to make a small bass amp that sounds good..........



(Setting up in Wexford)

We carry the gear upstairs and get set up, (one thing I find incredibly wearing - musicians practicing on stage while everyone's getting set up, maybe I'm becoming a grumpy old man, but it always seems so inconsiderate to be blasting through your shit while people are all around you trying to set their gear up), run through a couple of things that were untidy the night before, agree on the set list and soundcheck. We're playing mostly acoustically, with only the tenor going through the PA which always speeds things up. Michael discovers a piano in a cupboard and plays some true upright piano........



I remember Tom Rainey saying to me on a gig that the four most important words at a soundcheck are 'sounds great, let's eat!' - and how right he was. Another nice thing about playing Wexford is that there's an excellent Italian restaurant right across the road - 'La Scala' - a very unprepossessing looking place but one that nevertheless serves really good and different Italian food - wish it was in Dublin............



So, food eaten, (Papardelle with porcini mushrooms and truffle oil - result!), we head back to the venue for the gig - the usual stage wait in an ante-room, though this one is a cut above the normal dressing room since it's also part of an art exhibition at the Centre. It's very true to say that being on the road is like being in the army during a war - lots of travelling, boredom and hanging around followed by forty five minutes of fear, confusion, and chaos!



(Joe, Sean, and Justin contemplate the infinite while waiting to go over the top..........)

The Gig

Definitely better than the night before - playing music properly has so much to do with just playing it enough times. Compared to our jazz ancestors we play hardly at all - one can never underestimate the effect that the number of gigs that earlier generations of jazz musicians played must have had on their techniques, their stamina, their ability to play at a consistently high level and of course, by extension, the quality of the music that they produced. I notice immediately the difference in my own ability to play when I have the chance to play a few gigs in a row. It has something to do with the physical technique becoming more lubricated, and this has a knock-on effect on the creative mind. With the fingers working better you become less distracted by the physical and the instrument seems to play itself somehow.

And of course playing a series of gigs with a band has the effect of both tightening up the ensemble passages and at the same time (in a creative band at least), making everything looser. Because the band members are more immediately comfortable with what comes next in each tune - where the backgrounds happen, how the tune ends, who solos where, what the cues are etc. - everyone feels freer to take chances in the full confidence that if something doesn't quite work out the music won't fall apart. Tonight's gig definitely feels like that - there's more confidence in the band and having a second go at the same set definitely helps in freeing any creative shackles that may have been there previously. Since we have a fairly major gig in London coming up on Saturday, having these two gigs has been really useful to us and I feel we're more than ready to play the London Jazz Festival.

On arrival back to the hotel I find that the heating is now on, the wireless now working and the noise from the road has disappeared - I reconsider my decision to drive back to Dublin.................

London, Saturday



The ‘Red Eye’ is well named — those flights that leave at an ungodly hour, and that seemed to make up 90% of all flights that musicians are condemned to take. Red eyes are not the only thing that you suffer from on these flights, I always have a feeling that my eyes are about to drop out of my head when the alarm clock rudely interrupts what would otherwise be a perfectly satisfactory sleep. Those first 20 minutes are the worst, after that it kind of becomes okay to the point where I often arrive at the airport terminal and am actually surprised to realise that it's only 5:30 AM. This flight is not too early - 9 AM, but that means being at the airport at 7 AM, which means leaving my house at 5:45 AM, and getting up at 5:15 AM. Such is life — or at least a musician’s life.

Having made all that effort it’s a little bit irritating to find that the airport is half empty, and that we could have come a half an hour later and got an extra 30 minutes of valuable sleep — it’s November and serious low season for flying, so the usual early morning chaos is notable by its absence. We check in — I’m the only one checking in any luggage because my bass is too big to go in the cabin, and therefore has to go in the hold. Fortunately I have a custom-built case that can pretty much withstand everything except US Homeland Security..............

A quick coffee before we board the plane, (a quick tip if you’re passing through Dublin Airport — Butler’s has the best coffee not only at the airport, but possibly in Dublin too), we meet up with Ronan from IMC (who have hooked up the gig for us), who will be riding shotgun with us, and we’re off.





50 minutes later we’re in London, where we meet up with Joe, who is that most unusual of Irish Jazz musicians in that he doesn’t live in Dublin, and so has flown to London from Shannon in the west of Ireland.

We’re picked up by the festival driver and head into London, then check into the hotel. For once we actually have time to have a small bite of lunch before going to the sound check. We are immediately reminded that though Dublin may be expensive, it can’t hold a candle to London — I buy a cappuccino at the hotel and it cost me the equivalent of four euro — you would be hard-pressed to pay that at the Four Seasons in Dublin, but even in a bog-standard London hotel like this one they can demand this astronomical figure without a blush apparently.

On to the South Bank Centre where we'll be playing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall opposite Tomasz Stanko. It's good to have Ronan with us to organise the logistics of the trip - no matter how many times I do this, I always find the logistical chore of being a bandleader, (calling cabs, dealing with the hotel, telling everyone where to be at what time etc.) to be a drag, and I find it difficult to switch that tour manager side of my brain off when it comes to performance time, and concentrate solely on the music. But for once I don't have to do it and so I wallow in the luxury of being the band leader yet not having to deal with all that logistical shite.



The weather's really crap - we apparently are arriving in the middle of the 'worst storm for 30 years', but it doesn't seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of the London Jazz Festival audiences - no less than three of the major shows are sold out tonight, including the one we're playing.We get our passes and enter the bowels of the QEH, find the dressing room and calculate that since Stanko is only just finishing his soundcheck and they have to reset the stage for us, we have enough time for a coffee - the trick with soundchecks is to be prepared for interminable bouts of hanging around, especially if you're soundchecking 2nd, (or even worse - 3rd!), either have a book with you or be good at estimating how much quality time you can squeeze in before you're really needed to soundcheck. The experienced soundchecker will arrive at the appointed time and then immediately find out what stage the sound crew/other band are at in their soundcheck and make their plans accordingly. So, over to the Royal Festival Hall's café which seems to have all its tables taken up by people taking advantage of the free WiFi rather than actually buying any food......... A quick exorbitantly priced coffee later, it's back to the QEH to find that they've somehow mislaid the bass amp and there'll be a delay while they find out what's happened to it.


The QEH is an impressive looking space with raked seating and a large stage - we find that the audience will be sitting behind us as well as the in the more usual frontal position. It's been a while since I played 'in the round' but it shows the pulling power of Stanko, that despite the fact that Sonny Rollins is playing at the same time a few hundred yards away, he can sell out the QEH to such an extent that they have to open the seats behind the stage. Apart from the missing bass amp, it's a quick enough set up and the sound guys are very good - it doesn't take long to get a decent sound once all the equipment is in place, and that's another thing to be grateful for. A quick soundcheck with an efficient sound crew is a pearl beyond price, it helps so much. The alternative - an interminable sound check with nothing working, punctuated by howling feedback - can be such a downer before you play, cheating you of valuable eating or rest time. Actually good soundmen/women who take care of business quickly and efficiently are rare - it always baffles me why so many sound people are so crap at their job - especially given they're usually dealing with the same equipment every day. Yet time and again they seem to forget that if you press THAT button, you get THIS deafening noise............................................

The gig will start at 7.30. so we decide to eat afterwards, and hang around in the Green Room, snacking on cheese and fruit - more waiting! Eventually it's showtime, and I'm asked to have a chat with Jez Nelson, the BBC's jazz guy who will be introducing the concert - basically what this means is that I have to tell him who the hell we are! A festival worker asks me how long the first piece will be so they can tell latecomers how long to expect to wait before they can take their seats. When I say 10 minutes at least, she seems surprised and says 'oh, that seems a very long time' - really? When was the last time you went to a jazz gig and the first piece was shorter than 10 minutes?



(The QEH from the stage)



(Sean plays tandem drums)

The Gig

So on we go eventually and it all goes very well. We play a truncated version of the set we played in Limerick and Wexford. We only have 40 minutes to do our stuff, and in a situation like this you really have to stick to the schedule - if you bogart the gig everyone gets pissed off - the radio people (the BBC were recording this), the organisers, the headliners. I've seen situations where bands get an opportunity to play a big gig as an opener for a famous act and think that by playing really long people will see just how great they are - WRONG! The audience are really there to see the main act, and in an ideal situation you can add to their enjoyment and do yourself some good by providing an unexpected extra musical treat for them, but unless you ARE actually the main act, you should never lose sight of the fact that you're not the main reason the audience is there.

The sound was good, for me at least, on the stage - though Michael said afterwards that he couldn't hear some things well at all - it's often the case with these big stages, you can have a very different aural experience to the guy standing only a couple of feet away from you. But for me, I enjoyed the sound, though it was different to hear the music played with the thicker, richer texture of the grand piano, rather than the Fender Rhodes we'd been using on the other gigs. I really like the Rhodes, I like the transparent texture it gives to the music and its percussive nature, but it was nice to hear the music with the big sound of the grand piano on this occasion. The band sounded really good too - the previous concerts having honed our set into something that could be shown to maximum effect in the short time we had and in the big space we were in.

But of course there are certain things you can't legislate for, in this case Joe breaking a string in the second piece! He had to go off and get a new string, while I tried to fill in time on the mic - not very successfully! Eventually we just started the next piece without Joe, though he did manage to join us half way through. The audience were terrific - I wasn't sure how we'd be received because we were definitely an unknown quantity. As always with a Stanko concert there were a huge number of Poles in the hall, and there we were - an unknown band of Irish guys taking up space and time which could have been filled by their hero and compatriot - it could have got ugly! But it didn't, indeed it went even better than I'd hoped and we were warmly received on entering the stage and even more warmly applauded at the end of the last piece.

So everyone was happy - the promoters were happy, the audience were happy, the band were happy, even the man from the BBC music blog was happy!

So that was that - there remained only one last piece of road duty to fulfill - and we did it - we had a great meal in a Persian restaurant. It may be true, as Napoleon said, that an army marches on its stomach, but it's even more true of a band.............



Something attempted, something done................

The ABG

I got my first Acoustic Bass Guitar in 1983. From the beginning of buying my first bass – an Ibanez electric which cost me £49 – I was listening pretty much exclusively to jazz which of course was pretty much exclusively played on upright bass. And I’d have loved to have played an upright bass – virtually everyone I was listening to was an upright player – but I couldn’t afford a good one. I got an opportunity to play an upright bass when a friend of mine loaned me one, but it wasn’t a good instrument, was physically difficult to play, and I hated the feel and sound of it. So going on the basis that I’d rather have a decent electric sound than a crap acoustic one, I persevered with the electric and just tried to make it as acoustic sounding as possible – flatwound strings, fretless, using the left hand (the plucking hand – I’m left handed) close to the end of the fretboard in order to get a softer sound, using the side rather than the tip of my finger to get a fatter sound etc. All my efforts were directed towards making the electric instrument sound more acoustic.

Then a student of mine arrived at the house one day with an Acoustic Bass Guitar – must have been one of the first ones manufactured around that time – an EKO, an Italian factory built instrument – not a very good one but it was a revelation to me. It had the acoustic property I’d been looking for, but had the physical characteristics of the bass guitar – I’d seen the future, and it worked! I had a bit of work done on it to customise it for me, and from then on I gave up the electric bass and focussed exclusively on the ABG.

And have been doing so ever since. I’ve been exclusively playing ABG for the past 26 years with a few returns to the electric bass for gigs of Brazilian music, or occasional other situations where the electric is more suitable. But in general it’s been the ABG all the way since then, and I really love it. I love the fact that it blends well with other acoustic instruments, I love the way it can sound so good in the traditional role of the bass in jazz. I love the way you can manipulate the sound with your fingers rather than through electronics, and I even love the fact that you have to fight a bit harder to get the sound from the instrument than you do on an electric – there’s something about that little bit of extra work you have to do that is more satisfying than the instant touch response of the electric, on the ABG I feel more connected to the resultant sound than I do on the electric. I got a custom-built instrument in 1993, with a deeper body and longer scale neck, and a double cutaway, and I’m still using this instrument – as the wood has matured and settled the sound has got better and better.

One thing that’s always surprised me about the ABG is how few jazz players have taken to it. There are many electric players playing jazz these days but the instrument is problematic when playing with acoustic instruments, and especially in a more traditional jazz setting. The electric’s sonority is very prominent and it tends to stick its nose out of the ensemble too much and rudely draw attention to itself. The upright bass lends itself better to blending into the ensemble while proving the essential bottom to the music in an unobtrusive way. The ABG has this quality too and although it has a smaller sound than the upright, it has a similar sonority and tonal character. So it's ideal for acoustic jazz, and is an ideal vehicle for bass guitar players in that idiom, but it has never taken off for some reason. Apart from myself, the only other person I’m aware of playing the ABG exclusively is Jerome Harris – and even he plays regular guitar from time to time. The great Steve Swallow, who of course pioneered the electric bass in jazz, has also recently taken to playing an ABG of his own design , but that seems to be pretty much it for ABG players in jazz – I’m sure there are more I’m not aware of, but there’s no doubt that it’s still a rarity in jazz. Which is a pity because it’s a great instrument, with lots of potential for expressive and diverse playing.



Over the years I’ve made several solo recordings of the ABG, though I’ve never released any of them, (strangely enough the jazz record companies have not been beating a path to my door or squabbling among themselves for the privilege of releasing an album of solo ABG improvisations..........). I love making these recordings as I can utilise the natural sound of the instrument without pickups (essential for playing with a band, since the ABG’s sound is not loud enough to compete with drums or piano for example), and feature its full sonority. I recently recorded a few pieces and put them up on Youtube – I wanted to capture various aspects of the instrument in an improvised setting. So I recorded some different types of pieces – such as Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ in 7, (below), a piece featuring walking bass, an exploration of the sonic possibilities of the instrument, a piece based on traditional bebop bass soloing techniques, a classic ballad standard, and Ornette’s classic ’Round Trip’


I met the legendary Muhal Richard Abrams over twenty years ago and he did a double-take on seeing the instrument and immediately said ‘Wow man, with that you’ve got the portability and facility of the electric cats, but the sound of the acoustic cats’ - exactly! So why don’t more people see that as quickly as Muhal did............?