Geoff: 0:00

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here, Hope you're well. It's another fine spring morning and I'm in south London, in Wallington, which is near Croydon, to see a fabulous piano player called Phil Merriman. Phil studied with the great John Taylor, so we're going to get some insight into that, how he approaches the piano, in a very non-bebop kind of way. I'm looking forward to chatting with him. So here we go.

Announcement: 0:38

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

Hey Geoff, hi Phil, Good to see you. Mate, all right, how are you very well? Thanks, I'm all right. Yeah, so we played together with Chris Standring last week, didn't we? Yeah? We did do you do a lot of that sort of stuff?

Phil: 0:56

Not so much. No, there's. It's a bit of a different side of things for me. A lot of what I do is much more acoustic and piano based or acoustic music based. So what's in the room is what you get, although I kind of do dip into some gospel side of things every now and then so um, again, that is very much who's in the room, so, but yeah, it was.

Phil: 1:18

It was great. It was great to play with you and fun, yeah, we only just met yeah, So how did you get started in improvising and playing? piano. I think I got started in improvising by accident. I remember my classical teacher always saying don't improvise, don't make that bit up, yeah, um. So it's definitely something that was naturally happening, anyway, You felt the need to improvise quite early on, did you?

Phil: 1:38

yeah, it wasn't even a need, it was just. This happens, I remember writing down melodies and chords in the most elongated way you know, before understanding notation, really even just writing down the letter name with a circle in it for a bass note, and then the chord will be written in a different way. So, yeah, it's um. Yeah, I think I've always been writing and always been improvising. My brother is eight years older than me and it was always listening to great music and I think that helps when you've got music in the house, a role model. Yeah, absolutely, and he was playing as well. I would go to his concerts all the time. As a kid. He was a drummer and is a drummer, so he'd be the last one out of the gig as well. So, just being surrounded by music and, um, music making. And your brother is the guy that runs th stud s

Phil: 2:27

Yeah, yeah Crown L i L ne a in Studio L Studio in Morden. Yeah, it's been going for 16 years plus now, so it's it's brilliant and it's not far from me, so it's great to get to work with him every now and then different projects.

Phil: 2:38

So yeah, so o you had classical piano lessons, presumably ? Yeah the classical right up to university and wanted to go to a university or to further education where I could continue both classical and jazz, and that was a really hard thing to find an establishment that would do both. It was either you're a jazz musician or a classical musician, and at the time when I went to uni in 2005 to 2008, york York seemed to be the only place that I could find that had a course that would do classical and jazz in equal measure and you could elect your subjects as you went on. One term was on bartok Bartok one was on stravinsky Stravinsky then the next term was on um jazz arrangement and then the next term was on 18th century performance practice and then so you really could build a course down to to, like, down to the letter of what you wanted to study.

Phil: 3:27

That's amazing.. which I love and they now don't do it. I absolutely loved it and it was. It was just the thing for me, both classical and jazz lessons. For me it's not about two camps at all and one completely goes into the other, and I find a lot of my time, a lot of my teaching is is trying to say these aren't two things. I even struggle saying you know, I'm a lot of my time, a lot of my teaching is is trying to say these aren't two things. I even struggle saying you know, I'm a jazz piano teacher. I think I just teach the piano. I wish there was much more improvisation in classical teaching and I think there should be. There always used to be every, every one of the composers that classical people play.

Phil: 4:01

They were improvisers right, yeah that's one of my big things is that it's not two camps, it's a.

Geoff: 4:06

It's much more of a blurred and overlapping and sharing.. So you you get So you you you get your students to improvise every time, do you?

Phil: 4:13

yeah, I mean, yeah, I do. Um, young kids too, a few young ones that tend to be into improvisation already if they come to me. But even if I'm learning classical stuff, I still work out what the harmony is. I find it easier to sight read if I can see what the harmony is. So if I can see through a piece of Taboosian thing, right. So you write the chord symbols above it. Yeah, yeah, um, particularly if it's a challenging bit. So I remember playing some Bax, a Bax piano sonata and thinking well, you know these chords, it just looks a mess. On the the pages there's loads of black ink, whereas when you look at it really it's just a bunch of slash chords, yeah, and interesting extensions to chords. I suppose it's our way of assimilating it. As a jazz musician, you assimilate lots of dots as one thing rather than as seven or eight different things.

Geoff: 5:01

Yeah, yeah that certainly helps me right. Who who were your jazz teachers and who were your influences?

Phil: 5:08

and so at university John Taylor, great british jazz pianist, was there. Um had the absolute privilege and joy of learning with him for the three years that I was there. I think he was only teaching there for four years and I happened to overlap um with him being there. I think I'm still learning stuff from those sessions now and thinking about his approach to music.

Geoff: 5:30

Because he's very much the classical jazz kind of crossover kind of thing, isn't he? That's very much his thing as well, Totally totally.

Phil: 5:37

I remember him saying that he was really into Messiaen the Vangt, Regard s, the 20 pieces of really intense music, regard the 20 pieces, um, of really intense music. One of his pupils, I think in Cologne, had organized the harmony from those pieces in order from most simple to most complex in a ring-bound book. For him there's one, only one copy. I'd love to know where it is now. Um, that he would dip into for compositional inspiration. And I remember him also saying the quartet for the end of time, beautiful piece messian as e well well, that that would dip into for compositional inspiration. And I remember him also saying the Quartet for the End of Time, beautiful piece by Messiaen as well, that that would be his go-to piece if he ever needed inspiration.

Geoff: 6:13

So typically, what would happen in a lesson with John Taylor? What kind of things would you do?

Phil: 6:17

Very different to any other lessons or teachers Very warm and very welcoming nature which, even before you've begun the music that is, that says so much, doesn't it, when you, when you you feel that hurry open situation absolutely. Um, you could tell that he was fully present to you in the room and it would often be a case of well, what would you like to do today, Phil?

Phil: 6:40

and um, it was quickly learned and that it was going to be directed by me. I'd have to ask good questions to get stuff out of, out of the maestro. So I needed to to come prepared. So I'd often bring one of his pieces or one of Kenny Wheeler's pieces and he'd say, well, why don't you play?

Phil: 7:03

I'd play, and then he'd just say well that was.

Phil: 7:04

And he'd say, well, why don't you play? I'd play, and then he'd just say, well, that was very nice.

Phil: 7:07

He'd say stuff like oh wonderful.

Phil: 7:09

I'm kind of thinking well, you know, what should I be practicing? Normally, my next step would be how would you approach this and how would you play this? Well, let me see. And then he'd sit down and play something unbelievable and I got as much from the notes as his gradation of tone, his sound production, his approach just to the actual instrument, how he approaches the instrument, as much as the notes that he was playing and the way he listened. We'd play duets as well and two piano duos. I'd learn so much from that very, very open. He would take one little nugget of a piece and just you know this bar here. Let's think of all the different ways we could start the piece based on that bar and then we start again.

Phil: 7:57

Let's start, let's do another intro based on that bar. Let's do another intro based on that bar, but take the melody as as your inspiration. Right? Let's do that bar again, but just take that rhythmic hook.

Geoff: 8:07

So what you're talking about really is it's got nothing to do with bebop, has it?

Phil: 8:12

No. But then you listen to his playing and you're like, well, where did all this come from? He clearly was well versed in all of that.

Geoff: 8:19

So there's no sense of licks or anything here, is there no?

Phil: 8:26

And that's what I love about it is that there's no pressure to play. It never felt like he wanted you to play anything that had been played before, and it always felt I mean, that's the idea even if you're playing bop, isn't it to feel new. Bop can be?

Geoff: 8:39

a little kind of it's very prescriptive sometimes, isn't it?

Geoff: 8:42

Yes.

Geoff: 8:42

It can be. Yeah, you it's. It's very prescriptive sometimes, isn't it? It can can be, yes, yeah, you know. In terms of licks and surrounding notes, yeah, using the flat nine and blah, blah, blah.

Phil: 8:50

Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's like quite rules-based perhaps. Yeah, um, it's looking at how you shape or navigate your way through the rules, but um it it felt like that stuff. He assumed you had that and then you're like now but what else can we do?

Geoff: 9:06

So he had done that, had he he understands that language so well but his approach to it isn't.

Phil: 9:12

I'm going to play a line here. I mean, I was just teaching this morning, playing over some changes, and I was saying that what you're playing here sounds like it could be transcribed by a horn player.

Phil: 9:21

They could play exactly the same lines he actually happens to be a horn player as well um, how can you play more like a piano player?

Phil: 9:28

and um, I think John did that so well, so you're hearing in his soloing he would. He would play sharing the line between the left and the right hand um I mean, he's not the only piano player to do it, for sure, I mean brad meldow and those kind of newer players have taken that idea. Totally, but he just really assimilates a lot of creative and fresh ways of playing, I think.

Geoff: 9:51

The bebop piano players are very much right hand, with comp comping in the left hand.

Phil: 10:03

Maybe the independence between the left and the right hand comes from, you know, from Bach and these kind of people. I kind of made it my mission for university to have my left hand as strong as my right, and even now I'm still working on it. I have left hand pieces just written for left hand to try and shape it. Unfortunately, the repertoire will always push you to use your right hand more, but I think it's nice to keep pushing the left hand and even just trying to take a solo just in the left hand, even if it's like a bop solo.

Phil: 10:28

It's a bit like when you play an instrument that's not your first instrument. You find all new ways, new routes of playing. There's something about when you put a parameter on your playing, whether it's a hand or it's a distance between two notes or something you actually play differently.

Geoff: 10:45

That's a good thing sometimes. So did you study in London, or did you just came back and then you started working?

Phil: 10:56

No, I did actually intend to try for kind of a postgrad at the academy or something like that. Again, that would be kind of do my undergrad at York and then. But I was so desperate to play and, um, make music that I was I kind of put it off. I thought, well, maybe I'll do it in a year. I had access to lessons with John Taylor, which is probably what I would have done if I'd been at the academy at the time anyway, um, I had lots of friends there so I was kind of going to the academy to play for other people's recitals and stuff. So I felt really fortunate that I'd had access to a lot of those great minds and mentors already and did quite a lot of work after university with Pete Churchill on some education projects, learning from him how he gets ideas from kids for songwriting and writing for them as well.

Phil: 11:47

So it was a natural thing to come to town and it felt like just the right thing to carry on making music from where I was at already. Fabulous.

Geoff: 11:59

I have some apps on the market, as you probably know. Do you have any of my apps? I?

Phil: 12:03

I love your apps, yeah, and when I first played, you have any of my. I love your apps. Yeah, and um, when I first played or showed one of my pupils the Quartet o app, I can remember his face and his face just lit up and um, it is such a step ahead of um, what he'd been using before, right, um, and so you presumably a pianist too.

Geoff: 12:23

So you took off the piano and just had the bass and the drums?, Just bass and drums.

Phil: 12:26

Yeah, and if we're all honest, as a piano player, we get not so many opportunities to play ensemble, particularly growing up in school. So if you're a horn player, you probably are in the big band. If you're a rhythm section player, you need to be the best or second best person in the whole school to be in in the band. Yeah, um, so there are few opportunities. It's brilliant for giving piano players access to playing with other people. It really is playing with other people.

Phil: 13:00

Um, I mean, I was using the app this morning and I would say it was actually you, wasn't it? Well, I was saying I think about the bassist. Actually respond to what the bassist is doing, like they're playing a line here. Do you think you should be playing a line here? Probably not. Let them play their bit, you know Right, and using it as a real life tool, even things like comping, I would say it's a brilliant way to experience what comping is like in a trio setting, where other apps are very flat and there's a lot more nuance and shaping I like to talk about when you're playing in the rhythm section.

Phil: 13:46

It's like adding fuel to the fire and it's choosing when to add some more fuel. And if you've got the three of you bass, drums, piano set around this, one of those incinerators like you might have on like an allotment or something like when are you adding? You don't all add it at the same point, necessarily, but um, and that was part of my lesson today with this pupil just like when's your moment, and that's just when to place a chord in comping, you know that's yes um and uh, the app allows for that because it's not just.

Phil: 14:12

Do you ever? put the soloist on have you? yeah again for comping, for comping, and that then puts a fourth person around the stove, and uh, and then you become a quarter of the equation rather than a third, and um, how does that affect? You know, it really does affect the change of how you approach comping.

Geoff: 14:30

So what's the age of the student that you had this morning?

Phil: 14:32

I'd say I think he's 16, 15, 16. But yeah, my youngest ones that use it are probably down to. I've got an absolutely burning nine-year-old at the moment. Amazing who's been absolutely burning through loads of changes at the moment. Yeah mega mega. He's been playing A-Train but really plays it. You know, like inverting things and placing chords in nice places, Thinking about volume five and six now.

Geoff: 15:01

Yes, so if there's anything that's missing that you, you know a slower, for example. I've heard you know a slower rhythm changes. Yeah, you know, another Autumn Leaves in three. I mean unusual things that you have any ideas, please let me know. Yeah, great, I'm putting that together at the moment, including some more sophisticated things. You know, like Kenny Wheeler and Dave Holland. You know all these other composers, even John Taylor. Maybe you can do some John Taylor in the next time. That would be.

Phil: 15:27

That would be absolutely amazing.

Geoff: 15:29

I mean, this is the stuff that I'm showing to my pupils a lot of the time, so it's great to have real life examples of things they can play along with it's fabulous, yeah, So I asked you to pick a tune that you were going to improvise on today, and what did you choose?

Phil: 15:42

Well, I felt like it would be best and I had to pick Everybody's Song But My Own, because that is on your second.

Geoff: 15:49

Yeah, um, Volume two I picked that for a few reasons.

Phil: 15:52

One is, um, I love the song.

Phil: 15:55

Two, it's just a great Kenny song (Kenny Wheeler) Kenny Wheeler, sorry and uh, the way that the harmony and melody work together and yet still honours the tradition of kind of A, a, b, c kind of feel. And when John was teaching me he would pretty much always play it in concerts, this piece, and he said that it was his favourite of Kenny's pieces to play. Yeah, and when you listen to his recordings you can really hear that it's his favourite to play. It's the way, different ways that he approaches it. It's that lovely balance of what you might call European jazz, but honouring the tradition. But that album is it Flutterby Butterfly which I think they recorded in Europe, didn't they?

Geoff: 16:39

while? they were on tour.

Geoff: 16:41

Dave Holland who's? On drums good question who else is on that? It's uh Stan, Stan, Sulzmann tan Sulzmann yeah, um, it's a lovely sounding record. That isn't? It's amazing.

Phil: 16:56

It's amazing and that's I think that's the first recording of the song. My favorite is the one on the Whirlpool album with with Palle Danielsson and Martin France, where they go at an absolutely breakneck speed through it. It's pretty much in one, you know it's so fast.

Geoff: 17:13

That's what happens when you're on tour and you play something a lot.

Phil: 17:15

The tempos get faster don't they. The gig gets quicker and there's a lovely recording in four that Nikki Iles has recorded, oh, interesting. Where I think she solos it in four, which is nice so yeah that would be my volume, maybe volume seven.

Geoff: 17:34

I'll be checking that one out for sure. Yeah, you know you're talking about John taking an idea as an intro. Could you demonstrate a kind of thing that he would be talking about? Yeah, great, Okay, so there's a minor second. Yeah.

Geoff: 17:48

There we go.

Phil: 17:51

So that's the first bit of information that you have as a player of the melody. So be thinking where else can you play that? I'm going to major seconds now mixed with minor seconds. I'm going to two parts, but still nothing more than seconds, and they're still descending mostly, maybe three parts Yeah, beautiful now, you're obviously thinking of a particular scale or a particular mode here ?

Geoff: 18:41

Right, I know you went out of the key at the end. Yeah, you have this Bb sort of tonality.

Phil: 18:46

Yeah, kind of Bb sus.

Geoff: 18:48

Yeah, which is the first chord of the tune.

Phil: 18:50

Yeah, exactly, yeah that kind of sound. Yeah, which has got so much tension, hasn't it? Yeah, that's the sus 13 thing, which is it can go anywhere, but it's also okay-ish to be static for a while, so you can just play.

Geoff: 19:05

Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 19:09

Fabulous. Stay in one area. Fabulous, right, okay. So we're going to play two choruses of Everybody's Song, but my Own by Kenny Wheeler, and we're not going to play the tune. You can play whatever you like, great, okay. So let me give you a click. Here we go.

Geoff: 19:45

Thank you so so Thank you.

Geoff: 21:00

so so Thank you, yeah, Phil, great. Yeah, how did it feel playing with the, with the app?

Phil: 21:48

Yeah, lovely. I mean, mean, it just feels right. You know, it flows, doesn't it? It feels in a good way, normal. It feels like what?

Geoff: 21:59

I'm used to playing with pieces. Good, excellent. I love that composition because you've got that vampy section and then you've got the changes that it is kind of bebop-y, isn't it? You know, the B diminished to the C minor, you know it's got a lot of bebop stuff in it, hasn't?

Phil: 22:13

it. Plenty of five ones, yeah, um, and then setting up what you think is going to happen. It doesn't quite. This is, this is the kind of like. It honors the style but doesn't quite go away every time There's that lovely little bit before.

Geoff: 22:25

The last A isn't there where it kind of goes out of the key. The F, sharp minor. Yeah, that is just yeah. Can you go from like four bars before that leading into that section, Like that?

Phil: 22:42

There. Yeah, because that's like a 2-5 in E, a 2-5 in E, but without the E. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Geoff: 22:49

There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, it's amazing. Such a nice chord.

Phil: 22:56

Exactly yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, into the major major third yeah, you're right and then just straight back.

Geoff: 23:12

Yeah, I get to be that same key as well. Yeah, well, that's killing, Can you?

Geoff: 23:15

just play me one more, chorus.

Geoff: 23:22

Just a single chorus, but I want to hear the two hand thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, where you're swapping between the two hands. Yeah, just see if you could demonstrate that for me, because I love that idea, thank you, yeah, beautiful. Yeah, it's like you're having a dialogue, a left and right dialogue with each other, right?

Phil: 24:45

Yeah, yeah, okay, that's the idea.

Geoff: 24:49

Fabulous. Yeah, Anything else you want to mention about that tune? Is there anything else that we haven't really talked about? I love the connection between the Never Been in Love Before and the never referred to me before.

Phil: 25:00

No, it's just a lot of these little corners where it goes into F sharp major, f major Like that, like kind of B sus into B flat sus.

Announcement: 25:16

It's one of those things where it doesn't feel like it's getting duller even though it steps down the semitones.

Phil: 25:20

Yeah, it feels right. Yeah, and also just starting ahead on the sus, on the five is just a really nice thing, yeah unusual. Very unusual. Yeah, it doesn't really land on the one. Does it? Really nice thing? Yeah, unusual, very unusual. Yeah, it doesn't really land on the one, does it? Because, even though it goes, kind of is one, but then you realise that that one is actually the sus, yeah, and you're actually in E flat the whole time, yeah, but it never plays in.

Geoff: 25:48

E flat. I guess it's like a lot of Kenny's tunes, isn't it? There's a lot of Lydian kind of tonality in them aren't there yeah, Very open. Yeah, did you ever play with Kenny I?

Phil: 25:58

I didn't. No, I got to hear him up in a tiny little pub up in north London. I'm trying to think of the name of the pub now John Paratelli was on guitar.

Geoff: 26:06

I think I know what you mean. Yeah, it was run by the drummer. Yeah, that's where I met him actually, right, yeah.

Phil: 26:12

And I remember being so blown away by his sound was just as bit like warm, but quiet and flugelhorn.

Geoff: 26:20

And flugel.

Phil: 26:21

Yeah, and I realized so much in that moment the balance of him and John, because he sounds like he's got this massive sound, but I think he's just close mic'd, yeah, whereas John sounds like he's got this massive sound, but I think he's just close-mic'd, whereas John sounds like he's got this really gentle sound, but he actually would play with a lot of deep tone, and that was another thing. from being in the room with him when he played, I remember being blown away by wow, you're playing quite loud here.

Phil: 26:45

But it never felt harsh.

Phil: 26:47

So it's like his tone choice was always a warm colour.

Geoff: 26:54

Stuff you actually don't get, until you actually see someone in your life. You can't get that from a record No, no exactly, exactly, yeah.

Phil: 26:59

Um, when I was in New York there was someone doing a phd in Kenny Wheeler's small band solos and that was his phd was I think we'd gone through all of the small band recordings that Kenny had ever done, transcribed every solo, yeah, yeah, so that was probably the closest I got to his actual play.

Geoff: 27:20

That reminds me. Actually I saw the original Joshua Redmond Quartet with Brad Meldow and Actually it wasn't Brad Mehldau, it was Peter Martin, because Brad refused entry at the country, but Christian McBride and Brian Blade at Ronnie Scott's. The first time they came over. Christian McBride was 20 probably and I remember sitting down the front and hardly any PA, nothing at all, just acoustic, and the sound that came off the stage was just incredible.

Geoff: 27:48

And Winton as well. I remember seeing Winton. Have you ever seen Winton Marsalis play up close? No, and Wynton as well. I remember seeing Wynton. Have you ever seen Wynton Marsalis play up close? No it's just. It's the sound that comes out of that trumpet just fills the room. I saw him at Ronnie's and he would always do a Cherokee, fast with a quartet, and he'd stand over by the dressing room door and play. And it was just filling the room it was just incredible.

Phil: 28:08

It's a thing we don't really talk about much, and it's particularly as piano players that tone production in the jazz world is a huge thing that I think a lot of us can learn from.

Geoff: 28:18

Could you give us an example of how you could teach that?

Phil: 28:21

Yeah. So number one if you find that your sound is harsh and you want to warm it up it's not that it's being too loud, but it's a harsh sound you need to really use the weight of the hands. So it would be a case of just dropping your hands onto the piano and not hitting them. If you're finding it's harsh. This is going towards the piano. That's kind of pushing my hand towards the piano and carrying on putting force onto it, even when I've touched the keys, Whereas if I drop my hands it's not necessarily a dynamic difference.

Phil: 28:59

You should be able to hear a warmer, a more full tone. So it's using the weight of the hands, really, and then, on a smaller scale, the fingers as well. So you can just drop one finger and that's even if you're playing pianissimo and, a smaller scale, the fingers as well. So you can just drop one finger, and that's even if you're playing pianissimo, Because if you're filling a big room even Ronnie's is quite a big room, if you fill that room like a line like this, you'd have to play like that to play piano, Whereas if you're playing forte, you really have to use the weight of the hands to get that through so yeah, whereas a lot of people play into themselves.

Phil: 29:38

So interesting, isn't it.

Geoff: 29:45

So are you a composer as well?

Phil: 29:47

Yeah, I write for my trio so upright bass drums and me on acoustic piano, and I've been writing more material for the band recently. We released an album last year called The Roots Beneath, and that's all my stuff. We do one track which is a cover of My Romance, which was not intended. We actually just did a couple of free plays and I think we went into that in a key that none of us have ever played it in before and um in a quite a pointillistic way and um but otherwise I yeah, I've written, written the pieces. And what's your inspiration for, for composing?

Phil: 30:24

My inspiration for composing is. And yeah no, I, I wish it.

Phil: 30:31

I wish it was, um, you know The Sunsets and stuff like that, but it really is just choosing time at the piano and choosing to often lose out on something else. So whether I'm losing out on getting some admin done or some housework that feels really important at the time, um, it's hard. I think that stuff. It's a bit like practice. It's not paid, you can't always show something for it, so you might spend hours writing or trying to write, but the practice of it. I'm sure I've said before, but I'm really inspired by Benjamin Britten's approach, where he would just have an absolute. this is what I do every day, I wake up, I compose, then I have breakfast.

Geoff: 31:11

That's like the Brill Building and all those guys would actually do that as a job, right, and that's exactly the same thing. You just do it enough. It's practice, practice. Totally. Exercising a muscle isn't it Absolutely, totally, is that?

Phil: 31:24

So I wrote the music for that album on Thursdays, because I chose to put Thursdays

Geoff: 31:29

aside, Because now you have young kids, of course. Yeah, so your time is, Exactly so nine till three on Thursday.

Phil: 31:34

I know that feeling so well oh my God, and funnily, enough. I started writing when my youngest was at school for the first time, from nine till three, so I had a window.

Geoff: 31:43

It's so funny, you know, because when my kids were small and they're all grown up now, but I remember that feeling and trying to get inspiration. Like 9 o'clock, oh it's 10 o'clock, I have lunch. 12 o'clock, nothing's happening. 12, 2 o'clock yeah, it's really happening. 3 o'clock I've got to go and do the school run.

Phil: 32:01

I know, oh man . I reckon I made most of my actual decisions on that school run on the pick-up, you know.

Geoff: 32:07

Between 2.30 and 3.

Phil: 32:09

Between 2.30 and 3, because you're like right, I've got to get this done.

Geoff: 32:11

I've even not. The lesson of that is deadline right? Deadline. You need to give yourself deadlines, Totally. Maybe. I should have given myself 12 o'clock it would have happened anyway, If you join my songwriting club. That's all about deadlines, Right? This is it. Well, it is.

Phil: 32:27

I mean even a gig. n the diary, I can write a song for a gig that's it no problem at all.

Geoff: 32:32

I'm going to finish off with a few questions, if that's alright. Yeah, please, what's your favourite album?

Phil: 32:43

Oh, wow, I can't not keep coming back to the 1964 My Funny Valentine live album, the Miles album, And didn't they famously hate it or something, or Herbie Hancock hated that, So there's, I mean there are various stories going around the stories that I'm aware of are that they had been touring. They went elsewhere and they were coming back for this. Miles didn't tell them that it was going to be a charity gig until after the gig.

Phil: 33:08

So they Charity meaning they don't get paid as meaning they don't get paid, or maybe he told them before, because then they're they're supposedly really angry with each other. There's this real tension or angry with Miles yeah there's real tension.

Geoff: 33:18

He liked that Miles Davis, didn't he?

Phil: 33:20

He liked the tension, stirring, that's what created the good I . Yeah, and I don't think they knew it was being recorded as well, so there's this kind of like double-edged sword that it's uh, that it was just frustration and tension, which is everything you need for a great jazz gig, isn't it?

Geoff: 33:37

I did about three or four albums with Georgie Fame at Ronnie Scott in exactly the same situation. He didn't tell us we were recording it and he was grumpy. Wow, wow. And did it go down alright ? I mean, it's a documentation of a live band, yeah, and it's natural. So that's how it should be. That's a good technique, I think.

Phil: 33:55

And it encourages dialogue, doesn't it.

Phil: 33:57

It's still dialogue, even if it's frustration.

Phil: 34:00

Yeah, and I think that's what I love about that album is that there are moments where Tony Williams just stops playing the drums for a whole chorus. Yeah, there are loads of bold choices on it. Miles playing about 15% of a melody and that just felt like he's playing plenty Herbie's playing on it.

Phil: 34:20

It's just amazing. And the way that the band flow, make decisions together. It's funny, isn't it? Because if they're mad at each other, they're still hugely trusting, and trust is so important for that creative kind of music. You could be mad at someone and still trust them, can't you?

Geoff: 34:38

Well, you go to a different headspace as soon as you start playing with someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is there a favorite musician, alive or dead, that you'd like to play with?

Phil: 34:47

Yes, I would love to play some piano duets with Bartok and I think he'd be so killing. I think he'd be really into, like, why are you doing it in that key? Why don't we play it in two keys at the same time? Why don't we try it in this time signature? I love his writing and use of melody at the core, with all that folk stuff. Yeah, I think it's got to be Bartók.

Phil: 35:15

Bartók excellent choice. Yeah, I just think again, honouring the tradition but doing something completely wild with it. It's kind of what we do as jazz musicians. If I could go and see him play a gig, I think I could imagine him doing something at the 606. You imagine?

Geoff: 35:32

I can't doing something at the 606. Can you imagine?

Phil: 35:35

I can't imagine him at the Barbican, but I could imagine him at the 606 just going. Guys, I've just discovered this new way of doing this and I think it would be absolutely amazing.

Phil: 35:45

A little bit less piano please. ? Has there been a highlight of your career so far?

Phil: 35:50

fa. So the album that I made with the trio was just such a joy to make and it was the first album I've made under my own name. Having been a sideman on so many people's projects. It was just a real honour to get to play my own music with other people that seemed to like it, in a space which was beautiful, with a lovely piano, and then to release that and share it with other people.

Geoff: 36:16

Great. What was the last concert you attended?

Phil: 36:18

Oh, I went to see Maria Schneider and the Oslo Jazz Ensemble at the Barbican just the other week and that was fantastic, absolutely amazing, and like absolute schooling in writing and arrangement for big band. It really feels like she writes for the whole vehicle. You could almost get through a night without any solos. You know there are solo features and I think that's just to help tell the story, but most of the story is told through this amazing orchestration. Again, I love her because she writes. I feel like she writes for a big band in the same way that Bartok would write for an orchestra. For me, orchestration is everything. Yeah, I think that. part part of part h part part of the composition, isn't it? Totally, totally yeah.

Geoff: 37:06

What would you say was your musical weakness? Great question.

Phil: 37:12

I was talking earlier about the John Taylor thing of open exploration of songs. At the same time, I was having lessons with Julian Aguelas, sax player, and he would be much more. Play this in every key. In terms of approach to practicing, make sure you can do it in all keys. I don't do as much of that one thing in every key but what I do with that weakness perhaps is I will try and spend a fortnight, for example, in a key, so I'll choose a key that I feel less familiar with. I'll be playing standards in that key rather than going through every key. I just find keys where I feel I'm weaker.

Geoff: 37:52

But I mean that's a physical thing on the piano, isn't?

Phil: 37:54

it, it is, you know.

Geoff: 37:55

B major is a lot harder than C. It is Just physically because negotiating the black keys... Totally.

Phil: 38:02

And so I do a lot of the you know the hand, those things, do those, and then do those the keys that I don't know as well. And then I also find because the left hand thing comes up again if you just do it the left, if you just do it the left, it's actually harder than doing it with both hands, because the right hand will always lead. So, yeah, that would be another thing that I'm just always working on Left hand strength keys. Yeah, well, that would be another thing that I'm just always working on?

Geoff: 38:32

Yeah, Left hand strength keys, yeah Well, just work on your weaknesses.

Phil: 38:35

But then again there's that thing of most of the material that we play is it just leads back into the keys that we feel familiar in. So you have to practice extra hard to go the other way. Blues . Blues in F, for example.

Geoff: 38:45

Yeah.

Phil: 38:46

Do you ever get nervous on stage? I get more nervous, for sure, if I'm playing any classical repertoire, yeah, and I know that people are expecting something to be played in a certain way. I don't know how classical musicians do the thing of just deploying a piece. It's just amazing. I get least nervous when they say Phil, can you just play something here? Um. So I suppose that's the, the polar opposite.

Geoff: 39:16

Yeah, do you believe in muscle memory in terms of classical?

Phil: 39:18

music. Yeah, I think muscle memory combined with like a harmonic analysis is like the way. Yeah. So I think if you know where your landmarks are and what your key centers are, you can lose muscle memory a bit, whereas you can remember key. Well, I can remember key relationships better than I can muscle memory.

Geoff: 39:37

It's funny because I started on piano right. Yeah, six I did. I did all my grades and Scott Joplin and piano rags and stuff. At least one of the Scott Joplin rags I can still play right, yes, memory, if I play it slowly, I'll get it wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah the middle part of Maple Leaf Rag. Yes, I could still sit at the piano and play that almost perfectly, isn't it? And I don't know how I can still do that, because that's stride, you know, that's quite that's hard the stride in the left hand is stride you know, yeah, yeah, yeah and I think and I don, how can I do that?

Geoff: 40:07

How?

Phil: 40:07

where is it in your brain? Where is it?

Geoff: 40:10

Somewhere. Yeah, what's your favorite sandwich? Oh, turns a left corner.

Phil: 40:17

Oh, that's a it's the right time day to ask as well. Um, I've started making these rainbow wraps for the kids and the kids absolutely love them and it's basically just really finely and long chopped um vegetables. Uh, the kids absolutely love them and it's basically just really finely and long chopped um vegetables with hummus and and yeah with all the colors of the rainbow, All the colors of the rainbow.

Phil: 40:39

Maybe, uh, you might even sneak a couple of blueberries in there as well. Um so, rainbow wraps that's that's gonna be my, that's a great one sandwich of choice uh, what about Favorite favorite movie. Favorite movie I I think everyone that knows me would say it's lord Lord of the rings Rings um the extended editions.

Geoff: 40:57

Oh you've got the patience to sit through that.

Phil: 41:00

Those are the only ones to sit through. Um, maybe it's because I like like longer form albums as well. I love like long story, the long story, so you love fantasy and sci-fi.

Geoff: 41:11

Do you like sci-fi?

Phil: 41:12

Not so much, not so much. I didn't grow up with any of the Star Wars thing. Hannah and I tried to watch those a couple of years ago. We really struggled, but it's funny. If you don't grow up in something like that, yeah, You don't have a connection to it no exactly.

Phil: 41:32

But no Lord of the Rings, I'd definitely say so great story. Is there a favorite venue that you like to play? I mean, they're the kind of inverted commas, obvious ones for different reasons I love, I love The Six for intimacy. Um, I love, uh. Ronnie's for occasion. It always feels like an occasion. However many times you've been there, even if you walk in that room and there's no one there, it still feels occasion it still feels like history.

Phil: 41:51

Yeah, that's right um, but I recently played uh with the trio at World Heartbeat, which is a new venue in um, Battersea Nine Elms. So for me as a piano player, the, the, the golden things coming together, a great piano in a great room, and it was that. And having the audience surrounding us rather than you know a stage and separate.

Geoff: 42:12

I've heard good things about this place, so yeah that was for now.

Phil: 42:15

If I could choose to play a gig tonight, I think I'd say there. Excellent.

Geoff: 42:20

Have you got a favourite country or a city you've visited?

Phil: 42:23

London is the best city in the world, but Budapest has some great spas. You're you're the first person that said that really? ? really yeah really.

Geoff: 42:30

I agree with you.

Phil: 42:31

There's so so much great stuff which is part of it's problem, isn't it that you feel like, oh well, I won't go to that gig because there'll be another great gig, but the reality is there's so much great great art and culture, but I would like to have maybe a flat in Budapest, because the spas are great there.

Geoff: 42:55

You get a good cheap orchestra there too.

Phil: 42:57

Yes, yes, we can, you've worked with them right. No, being in one of those spas outdoors while it's raining, Ah that's it.

Geoff: 43:06

I've never done that before. The spa then.

Phil: 43:08

They've got these amazing places where they've got about 20 different pools, all of a different temperature, so it's really relaxing, really, really chilled it's a little bit different to your local leisure centre pool in south London.

Geoff: 43:21

And finally, what's your favourite chord? ?

Phil: 43:23

Really really really simple favourite chord I like. Oh no, I've actually got a few. It has to be a Bb, but this, if you voice it, well, that's four parts in Bb. That inversion for me. Lovely spacing, yeah, and on the piano you can feel the resonance. It doesn't feel the same.

Geoff: 43:46

Give us those notes from Bb, f, d and Bb.

Phil: 43:54

So the tonics on the bottom and the top Surrounded yeah, exactly, it doesn't. It's the same on every piano. I find it doesn't. That doesn't feel as warm or it doesn't resonate in the same Something about the Bb, doesn't that one does? That's that's. I love that. I love that. Um. My next favorite chord would be basically the same thing. Let's do it in c, but with the f as well. Um, where you're taught that you can't resolve and have tension at the same time.

Phil: 44:25

So that's the third and the fourth yeah, yeah, I'd love finishing a piece on that, so so it's kind of up to you. Is it resolved, is it not, um? And then, in a similar way, I like b major over V major and I'd probably play.

Geoff: 44:54

play the B and the C together, that chord has come up before, has it, but was it? Like this Just a B over C.

Phil: 45:02

I think you have to split that with the tenth on the left hand, because if it's too clustered you've got the Stravinsky, which is amazing. It's like E flat over E, oh, e flat over E, yeah, e flat. 7 over E, which is the Right of Spring. Ah, so that's another favourite, yeah.

Geoff: 45:33

Phil, thank you so much for your time and your insights and it's been lovely talking to you.

Phil: 45:37

Thanks so much for having me, Geoff. Yeah, it's been wonderful.

Geoff: 45:40

And let's do it again sometime. I hope we can play together soon.

Phil: 45:43

Thank you, yeah, likewise, yeah, love to Thank you. All right, we'll see you soon.

Announcement: 45:47

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