Geoff: 0:00

Hello Podcats. Geoff Gascoyne here. Today I'm in Leighton Buzzard to see an old friend of mine, Alan Barnes. Alan's a multi-award-winning alto saxophone player, bandleader and record label owner and I'm really looking forward to seeing him on the train and I think he's going to pick me up.

Announcement: 0:34

The Quartet Jazz Standards Podcast is brought to you by the Quartet app for iOS, taking your jazz play along to another level.

Geoff: 0:47

Hello Hiya, how are you? I to another level, hello Hiya, how are you All right? Good, good to see you, man. Thanks for inviting me. I got a little peek into your world.

Alan: 0:56

Oh, man, you don't know who rings this door who rings.

Geoff: 1:00

Well, because you've got a guest coming round, you didn't have to Just see my house. So here I am with Alan Barnes hello having me no delighted. Yeah, it's so funny coming into someone's house I get to talk to people that I haven't really had any any deep chat with before you know yeah and I get a little peep into your life. I can see your, your beautiful vinyl and your my unsold cds, and they unsold yeah, there's not that many there, no but that's just one outcrop of it.

Alan: 1:29

Yeah, they're around the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 1:31

Can I just ask you about how you got started and where the jazz came from?

Alan: 1:36

Well, my initial thing with jazz was Acker Bilk record that came through the door from a World Records. Well, it was like a floppy disk, but not what we call a floppy disk.

Geoff: 1:45

I remember floppy disks. Yeah, you used to get them in magazines and stuff.

Alan: 1:48

Yeah, and you had to put them on top of a single and play them, and one side was Charmaine by Mantovani and the other side was Acker Bilk playing Stranger on the Shore Wow, which I thought was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. So I got a clarinet.

Geoff: 2:04

And you still play clarinet now. Yeah, yeah.

Alan: 2:07

And I've been very fortunate. My dad made me get grade eight on the clarinet before he'd get me a saxophone.

Geoff: 2:13

Right.

Alan: 2:13

And it was the best thing. I've moaned about it at the time, but it's the best thing that's happened to me in subsequent years being able to double on the clarinet. The clarinet yeah, you shouldn't say it about yourself, but well you know, because clarinet's difficult isn't it? It is, and you have to start on it. I've been less successful on the flute, of course, but you know. But you do play flute as well, more or less stopped now.

Geoff: 2:36

I think the world deserves a break. So what are your doubles in when you do like a big band gig?

Alan: 2:39

I can play enough flute to play like third flute parts and things, but my main doubles are clarinet and bass clarinet. I play a lot of bass clarinet. That's a gorgeous instrument, isn't?

Geoff: 2:49

it, it is yeah.

Alan: 2:50

Wow, wow.

Geoff: 2:51

So you listened to Acker Bilk. That was your. He was your first. He was yeah, did you ever get to?

Alan: 2:56

play with him? Yeah, I toured with him when I. He was a really great bloke, yeah, Hilarious guy.

Geoff: 3:07

It's funny because my wife Trudy, when she first came over from Australia she worked in Acker's booking office.

Alan: 3:14

She told me this.

Geoff: 3:15

Yes.

Alan: 3:16

I remember her telling me yeah.

Geoff: 3:17

Yeah.

Alan: 3:18

Which was known as the Bilk Marketing Board.

Geoff: 3:23

I love that. How did you get into improvising?

Alan: 3:25

My dad had a friend who played cornet in a trad band, a swing band really called Jeff Hayes' Hot Heights, which was run by an ice cream chemist called Jeff Hayes. He was a real character and he had his old dad on it. Hold on an ice cream chemist, chemist yeah, do you know who else was an ice cream chemist? Margaret Thatcher, an ice cream. What is an ice cream chemist, chemist? Yeah, do you know who else was an ice cream chemist? Margaret Thatcher, an ice cream. What is an?

Geoff: 3:45

ice cream.

Alan: 3:45

Well, somebody who formulates the because it's not all milk and honey, it's um.

Alan: 3:52

I've never heard of all kinds of chemicals and stuff.

Alan: 3:55

His dad had been on the halls as a hypnotist. He played piano, yeah, and it was kind of an Eddie Condon style thing, and his Jeff's son used to come along and it's the first time I heard anybody play different instruments on the same tune. So he might do a sort of freewheeling clarinet on the first chorus and then he did a tenor solo in the middle. I thought that's so cool doing it, yeah, and then he'd end up on the baritone for the last chorus and I thought, oh, that's great, yeah, that's great, yeah.

Geoff: 4:21

Yeah, yeah. So when did you switch to the alto saxophone?

Alan: 4:24

It was 15, 15th birthday. Yeah, I've still got the same horn. You've still got the same horn. Yeah, that's this one is it this one here, yeah, that's amazing I've played that for 50 years now. That's amazing. I've been through the pearls twice and it's a bit like the oldest hammer in the world with the 12 new handles and the new but the actual the thing is basically there, you know it's ever in the world.

Geoff: 4:52

Yeah, 12 new heads, 12 new handles but the bones of it is the original, I mean.

Alan: 4:58

So, apart from the keys and everything, yeah, the keys and the uh, the actual body of the instrument.

Geoff: 5:03

Amazing.

Alan: 5:04

Yeah.

Geoff: 5:05

Acker was your first hero. What happened after Acker?

Alan: 5:07

I mean, presumably you heard Bebop, did you?

Alan: 5:11

No, I was listening to those records in a band called the Dutch Swing College. Oh, I remember them, yeah, yeah, which was great because I had a Dutch friend at school who got me into those. And then when I went to buy the saxophone, my dad spent 200 quid on this saxophone and it was a considerable amount of money.

Alan: 5:30

then, yeah, and there was an old saxophone player in the shop, Stock and Chapman in Manchester, who obviously thought I was a spoiled brat because he's got a really good horn because he bought me a really and my dad was an engineer, so he just looked at it as an engineering prospect, not as any music. Just said this is the best made one for the price. Yeah. And then the guy said to me oh, now you've got that, Get some Johnny Hodges records. Yeah, so I did. I bought a double album and I also bought Saxophone Colossus because I had a picture of Sonny rolling his face and like growing up in Manchester I'd never seen a face like that.

Alan: 6:05

Yeah.

Alan: 6:05

It just looks so imposing and handsome and brilliant, and he had a saxophone and I didn't realise it was by one of the most important records made in the 1950s, you know oh yeah, how did you start to improvise?

Geoff: 6:18

Did you transcribe or did you? How did it work?

Alan: 6:20

Well, the guy in Jeff Hayes's Hot Heights said play the tune and embellish it if you can.

Geoff: 6:25

Okay.

Alan: 6:25

You know which is how I used to try.

Alan: 6:27

Right, which is really basically what I still do.

Geoff: 6:30

That's what everyone should do, isn't it yeah?

Alan: 6:32

I think so. I was trying to explain to a student the other day what paraphrasing meant, and it's the hardest thing to explain. Right, you get Ben Webster. He'll play a tune like what was the tune we were listening to. Someone to Watch Over Me. And he actually doesn't play the melody, but you know it is that. Yeah, you aim for that without knowing what it is really.

Geoff: 6:51

I love that phrase paraphrasing I've never thought of that before. So did you actually write stuff down when you were transcribing? Yeah, all the time.

Alan: 7:06

Art Pepper. I transcribed, heard him next on an album and that seemed like the most attractive alto sound to me and more understandable than Charlie Parker for instance, you know who was was difficult, wasn't it well, well, it still is yeah I mean, if you get into that Barry Harris thing I got into that during lockdown more and then you, you, you transcribe a bit of Charlie Parker and you realize it, it is textbook.

Geoff: 7:25

I mean it's all come from that charlie parker just did it instinctively and then someone made you transcribe a bit of Charlie Parker and you realise it is textbook.

Alan: 7:31

I mean it's all come from that. Charlie Parker just did it instinctively, and then someone made a method out of it Well, I think he did it perfectly.

Geoff: 7:35

and then the method came out and they said what on? Earth is he doing yeah, it's this. So Barry Harris came along and actually codified it and made it into a. I think so.

Alan: 7:42

I think so. Yeah, as to Bird being a natural, I'm always suspicious of that. I mean, he used to say he practiced 15 hours a day, but I think he was also undoubtedly a genius.

Alan: 7:53

Yeah.

Alan: 7:53

There isn't any. I've never heard anything. That's bad Bird. No, even the one that's supposed to be a disaster where he was having the nervous breakdown.

Geoff: 8:01

Yeah, even when he's completely off his face and he's stumbling around, he still plays beautiful, that lover man where he struggles to come in.

Alan: 8:09

It's still one of the most beautiful.

Geoff: 8:10

I mean, for me Charlie Parker was exactly the same thing. Charlie Parker was what got me into jazz. I've still got the tape. It was a Woolworths compilation of Charlie Parker.

Alan: 8:29

I've even got the little notebooks I started my transcribing in the same right. Exactly the same thing. Yeah, yeah, so inspiring. I hear great players all the time. So many young great players and players have come up in my time. Uh, really famous ones. But there's a certain um spirituality, shall we say, in a Coltrane or a Bird that that speaks the music, doesn't it? Yeah, a bit corny, this stuff.

Geoff: 8:47

Yeah.

Alan: 8:47

But it's, what.

Geoff: 8:48

I feel, yeah.

Alan: 8:53

You know when you hear Bird of Paradise, played by Bird, you know you go that's something other than the music happening.

Geoff: 8:56

Yeah, it's otherworldly, isn't it? Yeah, in those days, you know, they were playing standards, they were playing show tunes and making their own music out of it, weren't they? Yeah, but they were stars though, weren't they, some of these jazz musicians? They were actually stars? Oh yeah, I think so yeah, like Harry Styles would be nowadays they were actual stars they were and also they made a lot of money.

Alan: 9:19

I mean, when Sonny Rollins was signed after his sabbatical on the bridge, I think it was the highest signing that record company had ever done. It was thousands of dollars for new albums.

Geoff: 9:30

That's amazing. You can't really quite comprehend what that's like, can we? No, you know it's amazing. Have you always been a teacher, an educator?

Alan: 9:46

Not always. No, I did some teaching when I first moved to London in 1980. I'll be quite honest, I wasn't very good at it and the prospect of teaching people used to terrify me. Yeah, because I just I had nothing to tell them, right, really, other than that occasionally I get lucky on a set of chords.

Geoff: 10:02

Yeah. What about licks? Was there particular licks that you took out of your transcriptions and how did you put them into your?

Alan: 10:07

playing. One of the ones I took quite a lot from was Clifford Brown's solo on Pent Up House Right, and there's a lick on there. I used to play it so much that, guys, we used to have that Tuesday night band with Gerard Presenza and Dave. They could hear it coming and they'd play it with me. Yeah, I've got a couple of Benny Carter ones. You see, the problem with transcribing is, if you transcribe something, sometimes I can't hear that tune without playing a bit of the transcription.

Geoff: 10:37

Okay, right.

Alan: 10:38

There's Live at Montreux, Benny Carter in a mellow tone. Yeah, and it's just so perfect yeah.

Geoff: 10:47

And Bruce Adams often plays that with me. I guess you can hear that as part of the composition in some ways.

Alan: 10:50

Well, it is. Yeah, it's like certain intros, isn't it?

Geoff: 10:52

Can you play me what that lick is?

Alan: 10:55

I can play you the lick. Yeah, yeah, the Clifford Brown one.

Alan: 11:00

That's the one on D minor G7.

Alan: 11:12

She's coming down from the 11th to the. It just comes down the chord, but from the 11th on the D minor and then it hooks under the third of the next chord. You know it's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, you know.

Geoff: 11:27

Amazing.

Alan: 11:27

Another one that I really love is when you're in a minor key. Lester Young used to do this thing, where he played the. When he landed on the minor, however, he got there and then he'd land on the third, and then he'd go to the fifth and up to the sixth. Nice and I just thought that sounded so really hip. Well, it is, isn't it?

Geoff: 11:49

yeah, amazing when you're improvising and you you feel a lick coming on, do you not feel that it's kind of stifles your improvising process? Yes, all the time I mean.

Alan: 11:58

This is the problem. This is the problem that did all this study on barry harris yeah you know which is I've? I've discovered quite a lot of what I was already doing went with the rules because you've stolen stuff, yeah and and. But you have to ask yourself, don't you? Am I, am I here, or is it just? Am I just the yeah conduit for other people's stuff?

Alan: 12:21

you know, right and and I think most of us, except early on, we're not going to be a major figure, but that doesn't stop you doing it. But yeah, some of this Barry Harris stuff.

Alan: 12:30

Now I find it crippling because I'm going and if I get one in, I think oh that's good.

Alan: 12:38

But, is it good?

Geoff: 12:39

I'm not sure it is. Would you say it's better to start a solo with a completely clear mind, for example?

Alan: 12:46

Well, I had this discussion with Mark Nightingale, a great jazz trombonist and he said oh, the worst thing you can do is stand there while everyone else is playing, planning your first phrase Planning yeah. It's going to go wrong. Right you have to see what comes out. Yeah, and then you start thinking about it and you think it's like a tightrope walker looking down. You start thinking about it.

Alan: 13:06

And there's another conversation I had with Scott Hamilton in the car. Scott's great to listen to music with and he listens to music all the time, so we did a couple of quintet albums. We toured both of them and I would be in the next hotel room to him. As soon as he got in the hotel room the iPod was on.

Announcement: 13:26

Yeah.

Alan: 13:27

And it was jazz all the time. He can hear everything. He knows all this stuff and I was talking to him about it Felt his playing had been really messed up by thinking. He says he never thinks.

Geoff: 13:37

He just plays. But of course, on the back of that, you need to prepare, don you, you need to have the, the, the foundation of that preparation before you get to that yeah you know, young musicians say how do we get to that point?

Alan: 13:50

just have to keep doing it and hoping, and, and, and. Put your priorities in order. I would, I would suggest which are the the things people hear? One of the things they hear well, the main thing they hear is your sound yeah if you get up there and you've got an ugly sound, yeah, they go. Oh dear, yeah. And then the next thing that comes across is the time.

Geoff: 14:11

Yeah.

Alan: 14:12

You know, yeah, and with horn players you know when you sometimes play on your own, yeah, or you do two horns together. I'm always aware of the drummers going oh gosh, you know, pulling her face, and the bass player's going come on. Yeah yeah, you know, and that's one of the things that I try and work on all the time is my own time. Yeah, to the point that the students I do have, I say even if you do long notes, do them in time. Yeah, counter tempo through them.

Geoff: 14:40

Yeah, so do you play along with things or do?

Alan: 14:46

you use a metronome or what's your, what's your? I've started using a metronome. I thought, oh no, that's not human time. But actually, yeah, you know, you've only been. It got to be in a studio a few times and hear the playback and hear that you're the one in the section that ain't quite on top of it to go all right, come on, barnes.

Geoff: 15:01

You know, yeah, but when you're in a big band, say you're lead alto, you're dictating that very much, aren't you?

Alan: 15:08

Yes, you are. I don't consider myself a lead alto. I like playing second alto and I like playing baritone in a big band. Now, baritone is so big you've got to put the information in a bit earlier. It's weird, but you do.

Geoff: 15:20

It's like the double bass. Is that how that works? Yeah, exactly. It takes a while for the sound to develop, doesn't it it?

Alan: 15:26

does. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, so I soon realised I had to rush a bit in a section Interesting. Yeah, Perhaps rush the entry, not after you're in, yeah, but to go, you know. I mean you hear those things like those Tower of Power things, that they, they got a baritone. I mean it's really up front, isn't?

Geoff: 15:44

it yeah, there's no doubt. So, getting back to the teaching, you were saying you found it difficult. So is it like developing a method, did you?

Alan: 15:55

find that you had to find a method for your. Yeah, I had to give them things to do that would improve them. Yeah, one of the things I try and teach and get away from is it's just this always scales and these horrible names, yeah, the modes and things like that Mexilidian, you know, Phrygian, altered Phrygian, is there an altered Phrygian? I mean, I just cannot Zoot Sims and Elkhorn getting up. Well, they wouldn't have done, would they?

Alan: 16:20

No no, they just but, no, no, but everything they play is right. Yeah, and it's on the changes.

Geoff: 16:25

Yeah, it's a language, isn't it? It is a language.

Alan: 16:28

I mean just to get the alto out again when we're going to play this tune. It's so nice to come home to I mean okay, you've got quite a lot of just A minor. At the beginning the notes of the chords sound great, don't they? Mm-hmm, that's all chord notes, and to me that's. I didn't know I was going to play that, but it's quite a nice play another version of it.

Geoff: 16:52

Oh, okay, so A, that's your tonality, that's the yeah, yeah and so, but if you, if you enclose, so that's, that's taking a note above and below. Yeah, the chord tone, the scale.

Alan: 17:14

Note above yeah, the semitone below yeah but in the minor I like playing the one. It depends. You've got that area in minor, haven't you? You've got the sixth or the?

Alan: 17:24

flat sixth.

Alan: 17:25

Yeah. Now here's another conversation I had with Henry Lowther. I was talking about all these different things you can play on the minor. He says any one of the minor scales fits if you're in the minor. Yeah, and I thought that's right, it's true yeah, they do, they all fit everywhere.

Geoff: 17:42

Really Harmonic minor. If you come down a harmonic minor scale, it kind of sounds a bit like bebop, doesn't it? Yeah, Dee-da-da-dee-da-da, Of course it yeah.

Alan: 17:53

Yeah, yeah, it does yeah, fantastic.

Geoff: 17:56

Yeah, so when did you start teaching then? Was it a necessity or was it a? It wasn't Because. So a lot of musicians do teach because they don't have enough gigs, for example.

Alan: 18:04

I started with the ILEA when I came down to. London.

Announcement: 18:08

So I started getting some gigs, but I gave that up after about six months.

Alan: 18:12

A bit soul-destroying getting kids coming in for 20 minutes clarinet that didn't want to be there in some quite tough schools, you know. Yeah, and then I started getting invited to do courses later on.

Geoff: 18:23

Yeah.

Alan: 18:24

That was.

Geoff: 18:24

Like the Wabandon course, for example. I remember I was on those as well. Right, they were great, weren't they? That kind of started off the summer school kind of thing, didn't it?

Alan: 18:33

And, of course, you start to hear people who are more organised about teaching than yourself.

Geoff: 18:38

Yeah.

Alan: 18:39

And you stop viewing it as a sad thing you have to do because you haven't got enough gigs.

Geoff: 18:45

Yeah. And you think hang on, this is another area you could excel at, so you sort of started taking it a bit more seriously, yeah absolutely, and now I really enjoy it, enjoy the results. So when you teach, like if you're an ensemble on a summer course, do you use a lot of music, do you get them reading or do you do a lot of stuff by ear?

Alan: 19:03

I try and mix it up. If you're going to do something by ear, you've got to really pick something that's possible for the standard of the group. If you start saying right, we're going to learn Panonica by ear and everybody's struggling would struggle with St Thomas, you know, it's like there's no point so when did you come to london 1980, 1980?

Geoff: 19:29

right, okay, june the 6th, june the 6th okay what time?

Alan: 19:32

uh well, my dad, my dad again. He dropped me off at 10 at night.

Geoff: 19:37

That's fantastic and what was the? What was the first thing you did when you came to?

Alan: 19:41

I came to London I went to sit in at a place called The Pindra Wakefield where there was a guy called Keith Nicholls and I sat in with him, came down with a guy called Paul Lacey who played the trumpet, and we sat in and he gave me a part for something and he said oh, you can read as well. We're looking for people to cover rehearsals with the Midnight Follies Orchestra.

Alan: 20:02

Wow.

Alan: 20:03

Which was quite something. It was music of Harlem in the 30s. Was that like a residency or something? No, but they did lots of gigs around and from there I joined the Pasadena Roof Orchestra the same year, which was a touring band which was quite remarkable really. From that I managed to buy a tenor and a baritone.

Geoff: 20:23

And did you start leading your own band at this tour, or did that come later?

Alan: 20:27

Well, no, no, I joined Tommy Chase, Tommy Chase, god, yeah, wow, so that was three years of that so this was, that was in the 90s. No, that was 83 to 86 and and Tommy, you met him did you?

Geoff: 20:42

yes, I remember him one of the world's loudest drummers.

Alan: 20:45

He was yeah, he was also quite an aggressive mind controller. He would brainwash you into certain things.

Geoff: 20:57

I'm very grateful to him for a lot of things, A hustler I mean obviously he got work right.

Alan: 21:01

He did, yeah, but he did give me some good things, like play something you can sing instead of flying about an instrument you know Okay. And he could sing all the Clifford Brown solos which is pretty impressive. That's amazing for a drummer, yeah.

Geoff: 21:17

Yeah. And be careful, if you let them hear that.

Alan: 21:21

That's amazing for a drummer.

Geoff: 21:23

Well, Sebastian de Crom, he can also do that.

Alan: 21:25

Yeah, yeah, I mean, he knows all the that, yeah, yeah, I mean, he knows all the different takes, doesn't he? Yeah?

Geoff: 21:30

Proper jazz nerd. Yeah, sorry, Seb, yeah. And then, of course, when I first met, you was in the 90s, wasn't? It with the Jazz Renegades. Yeah, it was early 90s, so how did that come about?

Alan: 21:40

well, that was I'd left Tommy and I think Steve Rose suggested me for that and I started doing charts for that, because they didn't really have any charts. I was getting more into writing Steve White, the drummer. Steve White, it was Steve White, but it was Steve Rose who was playing organ.

Geoff: 21:55

Oh, I don't know. I think he's a bass player now. Oh, is it the same one? Yeah?

Alan: 21:59

Okay, now here's a connection Dennis Mundy that managed that band, who was something to do with The Style Council. He's the guy who'd compiled the Johnny Hodges record I bought when I was 15. Can?

Geoff: 22:11

you believe that? Amazing. You were kind of co-leading that with Steve White, weren't you? Yeah, the Jazz Renegades, yeah.

Alan: 22:16

And I was lucky enough at the time a guy called John Miles had Miles' music record. He wanted to record me. He recorded me first with Tommy Whittle, which has just been re-released on CD, which was a vinyl with extra tracks. Then he did my own quartet.

Geoff: 22:35

So how has it been over the years, being a band leader and releasing your own CDs and records?

Geoff: 22:38

Well, I recorded a lot for other labels. I've been on lots of different ones Nagel, Hiawe, Warren, Vache, Zephyr, Concord. I did three records for Concord. Sometimes they choose the take you didn't want. Or I did one once where I was messing about in the studio impersonating Earl Bostic and the guy said oh, that's the one, we'll put that one out. I went oh no, no, you can't.

Geoff: 23:01

And you've run your own record label as well haven't you over 20 years, 23 years, I think yeah, and that was because I wanted to just to have more control, yeah, so I was in Humphrey Littleton's band for five years and when I left I'd save some money. So I had three days recording right, which produced three albums in the end.

Geoff: 23:20

So yeah, it doesn't take long to make a jazz album, does it it? No, it doesn't.

Alan: 23:24

No, especially not if you book the guys I've booked, which were Ian Dixon, Andy Panayi, Martin Shaw, Dave Newton, Paul Morgan, Mark Taylor, and that's when I first did a duo album with Dave, because I met Dave in 19.

Geoff: 23:39

Dave Newton. Yeah, I met him.

Alan: 23:40

in 1977, when I went to college, we shared a bedroom bizarrely, uh, in our digs and that's a partnership that continues really does.

Geoff: 23:48

Yeah, it has done, yeah, So that brings us nicely onto composing and arranging. Are you a natural composer? Do you do that a?

Alan: 23:58

lot. If I need to write a tune, I can more or less do it. Sometimes I get stuck. So what's your pro? What's your process? I like to have a title.

Geoff: 24:05

You start with a title.

Alan: 24:06

Yeah, that's why I write these. I mean I've written quite a few literary suites like Jazz, Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Sherlock Holmes Suite. Yeah, I mean if, if you've got a title like the Tiger of San Pedro yeah, you're already.

Geoff: 24:21

You've got images going into your brain. Yeah, you've got a mood already.

Alan: 24:23

You've got a brooding bass line and a bit of menace in there. I never have to check my titles because I don't think anybody's written a song called Mr Dick Flies His Kite.

Alan: 24:36

You know what I mean. It's not going to.

Alan: 24:38

I mean I'm very grateful to Mark Nightingale because he's been in my octet for donkey's years and I gave him kind of carte blanche early on to say what he thought. It's actually similar to my relationship with Andy Panayi is that when you meet somebody who's obviously so mega talented, you'd be a fool if you started not asking what they thought yeah, you don't have to agree every time.

Geoff: 25:02

Well, someone like Andy Panay i, who's a I mean he plays on all four of the Quartet apps now Right, we've recorded 500 standards now Wow. And Andy's on probably 300 of those tracks that we recorded over a period of five or six days in total. So you're talking about recording 25 tunes a day and just improvising and just playing various instruments, and Andy would pick up an alto flute, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone just randomly picking up instruments and playing the most amazing stuff.

Alan: 25:33

Yeah, well, he can do that. He really can do it, can't he? Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 25:36

Hopefully he's going to be a guest on this as well, so I'm going to get to chat to him as well.

Alan: 25:39

Well, I'd love to hear that one, yeah.

Geoff: 25:41

Yeah, yeah.

Alan: 25:51

But you're right asking an opinion from your contemporaries is that's probably, that's probably not something that happens? That much I don't think. I think two things come out of that is you strengthen your bond with that person. It just means you learn a hell of a lot. Mark's great he's. I got him to edit my david copperfield suite. Yeah and he says oh god, not this rhythm again. And then a backing figure comes in. He goes it he goes.

Geoff: 26:06

This sounds familiar.

Alan: 26:07

He's amazing Mark. Once I handed out a new chart for the octet and he looked at the first bit and he looked along the line and he got to Robert Fowler's part and he went I think you should have a C natural in bar four, Robert. He hadn't even heard it yet.

Geoff: 26:23

Oh my God, that's amazing isn't it. Okay, so let's talk about the apps. Are you, are you aware?

Geoff: 26:31

of my Quartet apps.

Geoff: 26:31

Yes, I know they exist, oh okay, right, yeah, basically, let me just explain what they do. So it's um, it's a live trio playing standards. Within the app, you can change key you can change tempo.

Geoff: 26:42

You can loop sections. You can have different mixes. You can have piano, bass and drums, which is the default. You can add a soloist on the top. Yeah, if you, you can have different mixes. You can have piano, bass and drums, which is the default. You can add a soloist on the top if you want. You can have bass and drums, piano and drums any combination that you want, all available inside the app. It's a brilliant practice tool. So we're just about to release Volume 3 and 4, which is why I'm here. I'm doing lots of promo and I just thought making a podcast would be a fantastic idea to to promote the apps and also get to speak to some some great people as well. Yeah, um, so you've. You've picked a tune. I gave you my list and, um, you picked You'll Be So Nice To Come Home To. Yeah, so what did you? Why did you pick that?

Alan: 27:21

well, it's on Art. Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section. It is, isn't it? Yeah yeah, it's just. It's one of those tunes, you, you get a chunk of minor, then you get the major and then you get another 2-5 in a minor key, as it were minor 7, flat 5 to a flat 9 chord. And I find when, especially when I'm teaching, that's the area that everybody doesn't quite get naturally A minor 2-5-1.

Geoff: 27:47

Yeah, doesn't quite get naturally A minor 2-5-1. Yeah, minor 2-5-1. So if you were going to ask someone to improvise on this for the first time, would you have any tips? Where would you start?

Alan: 27:56

Well, I'd start by saying that the first chord isn't A minor 7.

Alan: 28:02

It's.

Alan: 28:02

A minor. So you're looking at A. Am I in the right key? Yeah, a minor as a tonic center, you know, not some droning modal yeah, nonsense, and I've already said that you don't.

Geoff: 28:15

You don't like the modes.

Alan: 28:16

Yeah, yeah, uh and then you've got this lovely thing where you can do your harmonic minor. Or, if you want to be pedantic, do you what you do on your two chord, and but you can do it just by adding notes to the scale you've got. So the a minor is, uh, think of it as a minor six, so that's an f sharp on your c scale, and then you go to your um, your two chord yeah b minor, seven flat five, which is just C scale.

Alan: 28:41

And then you add a g sharp to that c scale and you've got your harmonic minor yeah, just changing one note can make a lot of difference, can't it?

Geoff: 28:48

Yeah?

Alan: 28:49

that's why I love I mean, I used to hate Autumn Leaves, but I really love it because you get your 2-5-1-4 in the major In a major key. And then you get this chord, which is the 2 of the minor key but it's also the 7 of the previous key, yeah, which I think is wonderful.

Geoff: 29:05

I also mean this is the perfect tune, isn't it for?

Alan: 29:07

practicing that yeah.

Geoff: 29:09

So when you're improvising, do you have a sense of a tonic and a five like an altered five? Do you think of that as well? Well, you're always in a key, aren't you? You are thinking kind of modally, aren't you? You're thinking of?

Alan: 29:24

A yeah, I'm not thinking, no, it's just you know.

Geoff: 29:28

So you're just thinking your lines are the most important thing.

Alan: 29:31

Yeah, but it's like the line of the tune. Yeah, I mean the tune does that, doesn't it? I mean it's kind of tonic, dominant tonic, isn't it? Yeah, and then you've got a nice 2-5-1 in the major so you can do your stuff there.

Geoff: 29:50

I'll get the track up. Okay, maybe you can demonstrate a couple of these things. I mean, there's two choruses on here, let me just get. I'll get your track up here Also.

Alan: 30:01

there's the two ways of looking at the tune.

Geoff: 30:03

Yeah.

Alan: 30:04

I mean, I don't know how you think about the tune. Does the tune have to be exactly what the composer wrote.

Geoff: 30:11

Well, it doesn't. No, does it? You're paraphrasing, like you said?

Alan: 30:13

yeah, you said earlier yeah, quite a well-known older musician once sent me a letter with two bars sellotaped in it saying, for your information, the the end of that first 16 of that tune should be this not what you're playing, but I thought, thought, hmm, I did know that You're completely free to have two choruses.

Geoff: 30:31

Oh my God, Whatever you like, right, Without playing the tune. Maybe some paraphrasing. Here we go. So this is your intro, which is the last eight right.

Alan: 30:57

Yeah, thank you me, me do do yeah.

Alan: 32:23

Great, so I was aware I kept playing the same this About 12 times.

Geoff: 32:32

It's funny as soon as you start recording, isn't it how your mind changes.

Alan: 32:36

It does yeah, I mean that's an interesting point about improvising is sometimes you'll be playing with guys that you don't know and they're semi-pros, say, and they're very good, and sometimes you play your best then because you think, hey, I'm great, I'm great. Years ago I walked on at a festival feeling all confident and had a couple of pints, feeling great, and you look out and there's Peter King having a cup of coffee, there's Bobby Wellings wandering about Dick Morrissey. And you go. Oh, I'm not as good as I thought I was.

Alan: 33:05

And you start thinking about everything. Yeah, that's tough, and before you know what you are, you've taught yourself out of it.

Geoff: 33:11

But once you start playing, surely you go to another place and you forget about it. Well, you try to, but you keep thinking oh, well, that wasn't very good.

Alan: 33:20

I wonder what Pete thinks, and of course you've got to get out of that.

Geoff: 33:22

Do you like to challenge yourself? The example that comes to mind is playing with Peter, who would always play the same tunes. Yeah, Do you find as you get older you're more comfortable playing the same tunes, or do you?

Alan: 33:34

like to play new material. No, I always. Well, all these folders here are different things that I like to get out. For instance, there's a tune I've played for years. I haven't played it for about 20 years. I got it out again in the middle of a kiss.

Geoff: 33:46

Oh yeah, nobody else plays that El Boli, that's a really old 20s thing, isn't it?

Alan: 33:50

It is yeah, and for certain points in the gig you just want that medium walker again, a minor to major thing, and people go, oh, I like that. There's certain tunes I used to avoid, like Green Dolphin Street, and then you realise it's the perfect set of changes to play on. Yeah, Dolphin Street, and then you realise it's the perfect set of changes to play on, so why am I avoiding it? You know, because everyone there is a reason everyone plays it. Or, as we said earlier Autumn Leaves?

Geoff: 34:15

Have you got a favourite standard that you will always kind of call?

Alan: 34:19

No, that changes, you know, and I even like the harmonically simpler ones, like when You're Smiling and things like that Bye, Bye Blackbird, because it's harder to play tunes that just hang about. Secret Love's. Another one, acres of one.

Geoff: 34:35

Do you find it easier to play on changes or do you find it difficult to play on a modal tune? You know Impressions, for example.

Alan: 34:41

Yeah, I'm not that hot on that. I do have certain things I've sort of practised where you run out and run back in, you know.

Alan: 34:48

but that soon starts to sound like module four of the Guildhall, Book 12 of the, you know something or other the point I was going to make about Peter, when you said he played the same tunes all the time. Yes, every time I went to see his quartet it was the same repertoire. But if you got him on a festival and you were put with him he would play anything. I remember him once trying a tenor out at a stall at the back of appleby and we were doing a set together. He just came on and played tenor and it and it was incredible and he did. I can't get started as a feature on this tenor he'd never played before.

Geoff: 35:26

Wow, because he used to be a tenor player, of course yeah for a while, until Toby Hayes went off with his wife.

Alan: 35:32

Well, yeah, and he stayed in the band, weirdly. Oh man, yeah, wow.

Geoff: 35:39

Did you read Peter's book? Oh yeah, yeah, it's brilliant, isn't it?

Alan: 35:42

It is. Yeah, I guess there's always a price for that. Played with Pete at the Bull's Head once and he just came up with this incredible thing on Fast. I Got Rhythm. I sat down with him in the interval. I said come on, just give me some insight. What was that? And he went. Well, it's B flat really. I went all right, thanks.

Geoff: 36:03

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he doesn't even think about it. There's so much history, deep stuff, that he's learned over the years. You know from being on on a gig and you know that it just flows out of him, doesn't it like a language? Yeah yeah, amazing. Yeah, a couple of quickfire questions which I've said ask for everyone. Some of them are a bit, but some of them will lead to other conversations. Let's start with a favourite album. A favourite album of all time that you like.

Alan: 36:37

I've already mentioned it Saxophone Colossus it doesn't matter if you're an alto player or a tenor player. If you transcribe that, there's just enough to keep you going for a career in there. Sonny Rollins, of course that there's just about enough to keep you going for a career in there Sonny.

Geoff: 36:49

Rollins, of course, yeah, yeah, all right. So a favourite musician, alive or dead, you'd like to play with?

Alan: 36:53

Well, I do play with him sometimes. My favourite saxophone player in this country is Alex Garnett. I would say Wow. He has a freedom in his playing and a vocabulary quite a lot of which I don't understand, but it always sounds great and it's certainly not repetitive. So I really think he's about the best I've heard.

Geoff: 37:16

Amazing. I should get him on this podcast. You should do. Yeah, absolutely, that'd be great. Would you say there was a highlight of your career, like a memorable gig or something like that.

Alan: 37:25

Well, I'll tell you. Warren Vache asked me to write the pad for his 12-piece band and tour America for three months with it, with an all-star band, and that was a hell of an experience, because it was Jake Hanna on drums and Ricky Woodard was in the band, Harry Allen, whole bunch of guys.

Geoff: 37:43

And you did coast-to-coast, did you? Yeah, yeah.

Alan: 37:48

And I know opportunities arise for a lot of musicians to go to america and do rock things but to actually do a swing yeah when you're touring yeah and met some incredible people. Came to the show as panama francis came and um, oh, the guy that played tenor with Charlie Christian that guy uh Jerome um forgotten his name now. He was a sort of perky Florida pensioner, you know. Came along.

Alan: 38:15

So, yeah, that was, and like listening to Jake tell stories and some of the wisdom he came out with. Jake always pretended he couldn't read Right Because I handed him the drum pad and he went oh you jest, you jest. But I was listening at the time to Un Poco Loco. You know that thing with the yeah.

Geoff: 38:33

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, yeah, that funny kind of tripling thing.

Alan: 38:37

And he wrote the three different. Take cowbell patterns out for me.

Geoff: 38:42

Wow.

Geoff: 38:42

And.

Alan: 38:43

I thought, I thought you could he really knows his?

Alan: 38:44

stuff, oh, yeah, yeah but.

Alan: 38:46

I mean, Jake was swing like unbelievable.

Geoff: 38:49

Amazing Swing. Yeah, so you have done some pop stuff, haven't you? Well, yeah, I remember you played with Brian Ferry, didn't?

Alan: 38:56

you yeah, yeah, twice. I left once and I got fired the last time.

Geoff: 38:59

yeah, what was that like?

Alan: 39:03

Well, I don't want to get into knocking other types of music. It's just not enough content to keep me interested. You know, it's not what I want to do with my life. And maybe some people are so into pop they would do it if it didn't pay any money. But I can't imagine. I mean, isn't that the insensitive for a musician? I mean if it paid the same as a jazz gig you'd do the jazz gig, wouldn't you?

Geoff: 39:28

Yeah, totally yeah. What's the last concert you went to?

Alan: 39:31

Oh, God, now you're going to go right back. I've been to see all the musicians in pubs and things, but going to a concert not for years. Right, I'm ashamed to say.

Geoff: 39:42

That's okay, that's fine. Yeah, what would you say?

Alan: 39:44

your musical weakness was you say your musical weakness was, uh, my musical weakness was starting off with a not very good ear. I had to train myself to get an ear. I didn't know how people did things by ear. I got into college and got in quite a high oral group, so maybe I was better than I thought. I was Dick Horden. Dick Horden played trumpet with the AEM Dankless Band and all that in the 50s and and we had an improvisation class and he said okay, we're going to sing our 12 harmonic minor scales. And of course I was deadly embarrassed and and he said don't worry, I've got a voice like a foghorn. And that's when you realize that singing as an aid to playing doesn't have to be professional standard singing and nobody else has to hear it.

Geoff: 40:30

It has to be you, because you have to hear the music inside you before it comes out of you. Of course you do, yeah.

Alan: 40:37

And students often say to me, how would you learn tunes? And I say, well, how would you not? And then I realised that sometimes jazz is like golf for them. It's like something they do. But when you're chopping onions and making your spaghetti bolognese, you put ABBA on. Yeah, do you know what I mean? That's like music for fun. And then there's this terrible thing you have to put yourself through and study I mean, it's supposed to be a branch of the entertainment industry, isn't it?

Geoff: 41:07

Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Alan: 41:10

No, no, I don't, except if Nigel Hitchcock pops in and stands next to you and stands next to me.

Announcement: 41:16

you know, yeah.

Alan: 41:18

I don't think that's nerves, that's just an abandonment of hope.

Geoff: 41:22

Yeah, when you're playing large gigs, like play at the Albert Hall and those sort of big occasions, yeah, I mean I do that less and less and less.

Alan: 41:28

But I've had to do things. I played the Artie Shaw at the Clarinet Concerto at the Barbican and I've had to do things at the Albert Hall, which involved going out the front and playing the clarinet. Going wrong isn't an option, is it no?

Geoff: 41:40

But you've had enough experience that even if you do play a wrong note, you can make it it into a right note, I suppose Well unless somebody really knows the I mean how classical players cope with the Playing. Everything meticulously correct yeah.

Alan: 41:55

I mean it's staggering. I mean there's clarinet players popping up all the time on YouTube. I've never heard anything like it, the tonguing and the tone and the. Where they're all going to work, I don't know, but it's beyond comprehension yeah, amazing.

Geoff: 42:11

So a couple of more silly questions for you. What's your favorite sandwich?

Alan: 42:15

favorite sandwich now let me think I like ham.

Geoff: 42:20

Ham with emmental on a crusty french stick, oh very good with English mustard with English mustard, have you got a favourite movie?

Alan: 42:31

a favourite movie, I would say, let me think yes, Last Holiday with Alec Guinness.

Geoff: 42:37

Alec Guinness is that one of the Ealing, I think it is an Ealing one.

Alan: 42:41

It's a story of a guy who is told he hasn't got long to live, and he changes his life and becomes a massive success right all the time the he's told he hasn't got long to live and he changes his life and becomes a massive success.

Alan: 42:49

Right All the time the spectre of death is there with him and there's a violinist keeps turning up who sort of represents fate. And then he discovers he's been wrongly diagnosed, but because of the way he changed his life. Yeah, he's a different guy and he's become hugely rich and successful. Yeah, he can't believe it. So, coming back from the docks, of course he gets killed in a car accident. Oh s***, but I love that film.

Geoff: 43:10

You're giving it away now.

Alan: 43:12

Oh sorry, there's another film, I think it's called Kagamusha. Kagamusha, the Japanese film about the emperor dying. They find a criminal who looks exactly like him but has none of the great attributes of the dead emperor. But they've got to replace him or war will break out. So they get him in there and they say, oh, for God's sake, keep him away from the horses and the concubines, because they'll know. And gradually, pretending to be the emperor, he becomes him and they forget that he's replaced him.

Geoff: 43:40

He's not the real one.

Alan: 43:41

The reason I like that film is kind of why I'm to me. I wanted to be a jazz musician, so much Couldn't do.

Geoff: 43:47

It Pretended I was one and lo and behold, before you know it, you're doing it.

Alan: 43:51

Yeah, before you know it, you're earning a living at it and you think, oh God, nobody ever finds me out.

Geoff: 43:56

But this is the thing about improvising, don't you think, if you've got enough confidence?

Alan: 44:00

That is the key Confidence and a bit of attitude, yeah.

Geoff: 44:04

Yeah, totally.

Alan: 44:05

And not being embarrassed about yourself. I mean, some of my favourite players are not the absolute A-team, you know, sometimes you just want to hear Gigi Grice play the alto, and not Bird.

Geoff: 44:16

Do you know what I mean? Totally, yeah. Do you have a favourite venue to play in? I do like playing at the Pizza Express actually, yeah, that's set up as a proper jazz club and they have jazz on, you know. And a favourite place in the world, favourite city. I haven't been there that often but I love Paris. And finally, a silly question a favourite chord to play on.

Alan: 44:36

Favourite chord A minor six chord oh okay, yeah because it went out of fashion, didn't it?

Geoff: 44:43

Excellent. Thank you so much for your time.

Alan: 44:45

Not at all. No, it's been great. I've got lots of it, yeah so, alan.

Geoff: 44:50

So thanks very, very much, and we'll say goodbye and um, I'll see you soon I hope so, hopefully we'll do a part two at some stage.

Alan: 44:56

Yeah, lovely, so much to talk about yeah, all right, do you fancy a bit of lunch?

Announcement: 45:01

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