Geoff: 0:00

Hello, podcats, hope you're well. Geoff Gascoyne, here and today I'm in South London, in Brixton, and I'm on my way to see an old friend of mine, saxophonist Dave O'Higgins, who's a fantastic player, bandleader and educator. I'm sure he'll have a lot of things to say. He's going to pick his favourite standard. We're going to have a play, talk about improvising, so it should be fun.

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: 0:55

Here he is. Hi, Dave, there you go you alright.

Geoff: 0:57

Well, I knew you'd be up early, so there you go. Thank you, alright, yeah. Today, my guest is the great Dave O'Higgins. Hi Dave, how are you doing? I'm good, yeah. So, we're in Brixton. It's a lovely day.

Dave: 1:11

It always is in Brixton. Isn't it, that's why they call it the Brixton Riviera. That big market is amazing, isn't it?

Geoff: 1:16

Yeah, it's really kind of gentrifying around here. How long have you lived here for?

Dave: 1:20

More than 20 years now. Have you noticed a difference in it? Yeah, I noticed a big difference. No one thought I'd survive living in Brixton, but I've survived 20 years. I mean let's see if I'll do another 20. Fantastic.

Geoff: 1:31

Do you want to tell everyone about you, what you do, and brief history of what you've been doing the last 25 years, 30 years, 40 years?

Dave: 1:39

I guess I should tell you what I'm doing at the moment, otherwise I probably won't get past about 1989 or something. Yeah, the latest thing that I have on the go that I've been sort of gigging quite a bit with is a trio of drums, bass and saxophone, with Billy Pod on drums, Luke Fowler on bass, myself on sax, playing the music of Thelonious Monk, and we call that Monkin' Around. Great, and that's obviously a chordless thing.

Dave: 2:16

Yeah, at its heart it obviously a chordless thing. We kind of wanted to do that when there was a proper real piano rather than and so we resist adding piano unless there is a real piano. So it's, the more traditional audiences will prefer to have a piano, I'm guessing? Yeah, to some extent, and also Martin Shaw, who of course you know very well guests on our record as well.

Dave: 2:39

So we go out as a quartet with two horns and we go out as a quintet with piano and we go out as a trio with just myself.

Geoff: 2:47

And do you like playing without chords? Do you find that sort of liberating?

Dave: 2:51

I love it. Yeah, and it's particularly interesting take on Monk, of course, playing it without the harmony instrument, because it demands that you approach it a little differently. Yeah, I really enjoy the chordless trio. I do too, I must admit. Admit it's great yeah, it's very liberating, isn't it for us? guys on bass and saxophone, because, um, if you sort of trust each other harmonically, it leaves things sort of wide open for you. You're not um yeah, necessarily cajoled to play a certain way on things.

Geoff: 3:23

Do you play differently? Do you think, when you're playing without a piano?

Dave: 3:26

Yeah, I've been through various different phases, I think, with that. Originally I tended to overplay to compensate, and then when I realised that actually wasn't necessary and in actual fact I could sort of luxuriate in the additional airspace, that you get.

Dave: 3:42

I can approach it quite differently, because sometimes now, when I go back to playing with a piano or a guitar, I find myself a little fearful of leaving too many gaps because I feel that's encouraging the comper to play overplay, yeah, um, whereas I know that's not going to happen without the chord instrument. I mean, I don't mean that in any way as a derogatory thing, because I'm lucky enough to play with some killer chord players, yeah.

Geoff: 4:09

Can we go back and talk about how you got started and how you got into improvising?

Dave: 4:13

I guess when I was a school kid, I was into progressive rock music, right, and so I guess you'd classify things like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis.

Geoff: 4:25

I didn't know that about you.

Dave: 4:27

I was a super Led Zeppelin freak and I played drums initially and I copied everything that was on those records and I read a lot of interviews with John Bonham and he was always saying how much he liked jazz and liked Elvin Jones and so it kind of piqued my interest a bit and I started listening to, I suppose, the sort of more fusiony things at the time, got into, sort of Billy Cobham and um, of course that was a route into the Brecker Brothers and um, I heard the saxophone. You know jazz wasn't such a dirty word back in sort of 1970, something you know. Yeah, there were lots of people who lent me cassette tapes. One side might be Keith Jarrett 'Belonging' with Jan Garbarek and the European Quartet and the other side might be sort of Dexter Gordon 'Go' or something like that. I got really into that. I thought it was absolutely fantastic.

Dave: 5:19

So I had a weird sort of bit of a double life, I suppose, as a teenager getting into music because I played drums and I had copied everything off these records and I started gigging, doing drums with function bands and I was a sort of a closet wannabe jazz saxophone player. I bought myself a saxophone, taught myself from just picking stuff up from playing in function bands with other musicians. Yeah, thanks to playing in function bands, I learned an extraordinary number of tunes quite early on, which was quite a good grounding you know. Playing saxophone in function No, I was playing drums but I got to learn all these tunes and melodies so I kind of appreciated the benefit of having some repertoire.

Dave: 6:05

I mean playing drums and all these different styles you soon learn you know, playing everything from sort of Gay Gordon to a Cha-Cha, to a Rumba, to whatever the pop songs in the charts. John Miles, you know, Music Is My First Love or Wings and all that kind of stuff.

Announcement: 6:21

Yeah, I love that, yeah.

Dave: 6:22

All the Jeff Beck things and the disco stuff at the time and the soul things I still love that stuff yeah yeah

Geoff: 6:29

So when you started getting into improvising, what was your method for learning vocabulary and licks and so on? did you transcribe?

Geoff: 6:35

Yeah, yeah, I transcribed a load. Um in um Derbyshire, where I come from, um, I met this guy called Andrew Stanton who was a sort of obsessive jazz piano player and who had every Charlie Parker record and every Miles Davis record. And he was very generous with his time and lent me all his records and I sort of did bootleg cassettes of them all and Andrew made a big impression. I mean, if I wanted to be a saxophone player, I had to learn Charlie Parker, and I'm really glad he did, because in my opinion he couldn't have been more correct about that and at the time the Fake Book hadn't come out yet yeah and there wasn't an Omni Omnibook, and so I set about transcribing everything by hand and I wrote everything out in ink.

Geoff: 7:19

I learned it by ear and um and and then, so that you know I could come back to it, wouldn't forget, yeah. So so you're doing stuff vinyl? ?

Geoff: 7:27

You're slow, you're stopping the vinyl.

Dave: 7:28

Yeah, got it yeah, slowed it down to 18 rpm yeah until I wore the record out. Amazing yeah it sounded like a baritone with sort of dust bin lid cymbals yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 7:38

So who were your initial saxophone kind of influences?

Dave: 7:41

Well, the guys I wanted to sound like I guess, guess were very specific. I had my three biggest sound heroes when I started playing sax were, on account of the zeitgeist of the times and what was hip Michael Brecker and on account of what I enjoyed most from the sort of classic vocabulary of the saxophone. I liked John Coltrane from 1957, and I liked Dexter from between 1960 and 1964.

Geoff: 8:11

So it's quite a specific period, especially that Coltrane period and Brecker, the early Brecker especially.

Dave: 8:16

Oh yeah, well, at that time we're talking 1970s, so it was all 70s Brecker, yeah.

Dave: 8:21

I remember seeing you with the Gang of Three.

Dave: 8:23

Remember

Dave: 8:24

the Gang of. Three you used to play, which was the.

Geoff: 8:26

Lawrence Cottle and Mike Bradley at the Prince of Orange and I remember coming to see that I just loved that in those days you were playing kind of fusion versions of bebop, Donna Lee and those sort of.

Dave: 8:36

Yeah, we did a sort of Jacko-ish sort of Donna Lee, and we played Giant Steps where we played the first few choruses of the solo, all in unison. Mike Bradley ran the kit.

Geoff: 8:45

That's right, yeah.

Dave: 8:46

Very technical. That group wasn't it. We were 20-something, we wanted to flex, you know, and so we did Great, fantastic.

Geoff: 8:53

And you've always been a band leader, haven't you? How's that been over the years? Pretty terrible, yeah. Being a saxophone player, you either lead your own band, you play in big bands. That's it almost, isn't it?

Dave: 9:04

you know, as a jazz saxophone player, Well, yeah, I mean it's a different mindset to being rhythm section player where you can be a gun for hire and, yeah, have a substantial career out of being the sideman for everyone yeah, as a saxophone player, you're always perceived, if you're in a small group, as being a co-leader anyway, yeah. So, yeah, you're.

Dave: 9:27

There's a certain obligation to to lead bands, which sometimes I've been more happy to do than at other times yeah it weighs a little heavily sometimes because it's I mean you know, you've led bands before it's a lot of hard work yeah sometimes can be relentless, can't it? Yes, the hustling and also just getting everyone's availability to coordinate and keeping everyone happy all the time. It's not easy.

Geoff: 9:51

Yeah, and you've consistently made your own albums. How many albums have you made now?

Dave: 9:55

Slightly lost count at the moment, but as leader. So you know, either just under my own name or you know like O'Higgins and Luft or Harvey O'Higgins Project or something like that. Or of course what we did Gascoyne O'Higgins. There you go. If you count all of those, then I'm up around about I think, 28 or something at the moment, 29. Wow.

Geoff: 10:19

And where does the composing fit into all this? Were you always a natural composer? No, have you always done that hideously unnatural composer.

Dave: 10:26

I'm kicking and screaming all the way to the manuscript book really yeah, you don't you don't enjoy doing that? Doesn't come naturally to me at all right.

Dave: 10:35

I mean, sometimes I I do enjoy it, but it's born out of a sort of reluctance in the first place, and I don't see myself as a composer at all. But on the other hand, I do see myself as a performer and I kind of am quite particular about what I would like to perform. And so I write from that perspective, thinking, well, what would I like to play, what would be fun to play?

Geoff: 11:00

Do you write specifically for the musicians that you've got in the band, for example?

Dave: 11:04

Yeah, I try to do that. I write on a sort of project by project basis. So if I decide I want to do something with a certain group, then I'll think about, I guess, how the recording should be weighted in terms of number of original compositions.

Geoff: 11:18

And you'll plan the tempos and the feels and so on.

Dave: 11:20

Yeah, I tend to start off from that perspective of thinking do I want a fast tune, do I want a modal tune? I want something with this kind of groove, in the same way as when I choose a tune to play on a gig. It's sort of back to the drummer in me, I suppose. I think first of all, what kind of groove do we want? And then out of that too will come a certain mood, and then what kind of mood, and then it comes on to, more specifically, what would I enjoy playing?

Dave: 11:45

Right, okay. Um, and and for me, the necessity of that is, since I'm an improvising musician, I want to have a chord progression that I'm going to enjoy playing.

Geoff: 11:55

So that's more of the main focus of your compositions is the blowing sections rather than the the first bits.

Dave: 12:00

No, not really, because the whole thing needs to set a mood. Yeah, and songs that I love playing have good melodies with them and strong moods, which is why I like the song in the first place and why I'm drawn into playing. And it's also part of the reason why learning all these Monk tunes is such a lesson, because they're all so strong, so much power in them yeah, Did you find that any of them missed the piano when you got to play them without a piano?

Dave: 12:27

There are some that are more challenging than others. Uh, there's a couple of tunes which we we've been playing um, uh, Off, Off Minor is one. Another one is Played Twice which have very convoluted, weird chord progressions. Right, it's a challenge to uh, what should I say? To pre-hear it to the extent you need to in your mind's ear in order to be able to describe the chords elegantly without being too obvious about it for me.

Geoff: 12:55

I've always found Monk fiendishly hard to play. Yeah, you know, eight bars on a flat seven. It's much harder, isn't it, than when you, when you just got one chord, or you've got two seemingly unrelated chords or something. It's very difficult, isn't it, to make something happen.

Dave: 13:09

This is also the hard thing, you know, in a broader sense, when you talk about, say, playing over a groove, a static groove, because, ok, the rhythmic thing's obvious that you need to tuck into that. But if you just have one chord, say a dominant chord or something for 16 bars, it's in some ways much more of a creative challenge than if you've got a set of complicated changes. I mean, give me Giant Steps any day over 16 bars. on on G7, I've got much more of an idea what to play on it.

Geoff: 13:39

Yeah, yeah, I suppose you've got um landmark points. You can, you can go. I'm going to go to the third or fifth or seventh or something on as they go, as they go past you. So Quartet one and two uh, have been out for a while, which I believe you're you're an owner of. How do you use them?

Dave: 14:02

I just enjoy it as a really good sort of warm-up process to play through some tunes at home with. Effectively, I'm playing with musicians I'm used to playing with. Yeah, there's quite a strong likelihood I might be playing with you and Seb and Graham on a gig somewhere yeah yeah.

Dave: 14:18

So obviously, to have real players playing in a normal way, yeah, on these tunes, is kind of helpful because it puts you into the right zone, and the main thing that I like about having a large collection of tunes is that it helps you refresh your own repertoire because, you know, as a jazz musician I don't know, I haven't counted how many tunes I have in my head, but it would be, I guess, a few hundred.

Geoff: 14:43

Have you got a favourite standard that you like to play, that if you're on a gig or something and I say what do you want to play, Dave? What would you? What would you say?

Dave: 14:50

Oh, it would just depend on what I was doing at any one particular time, probably more than anything else. Often playing a new tune gives me some insight into existing tunes. I've been playing for a while, Right, um, And and of course many tunes share, as you well know, huge blocks of the same material. You know, for instance, if you're playing something like It Could Happen To You or something like like that, and that particular move over the first four bars The Theone one one one, three, six, two, five, one thing yeah you know, those kind of things happen in so many places and in so many tunes.

Dave: 15:28

For instance, you get this last eight where it'll go to the four, the four minor, three, six, two, five, one. Yeah, that happens on a blues, yeah, and it happens on about 50 percent of, yeah, most standards written between about 1920 and 1935 as well, yeah, and once you sort of realize those things, you, you can start putting your own, like your devices into place.

Dave: 15:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah um, and it's I. I find that I get some new insight into things. For instance, there's a tune I didn't really used to play very often, but I've been playing it a little bit lately, which is I'll Be Seeing You, okay, and um, that's on here, by the way. And yeah, and one of the nice things about that is that the move from the third to the fourth bar, which is a little bit unusual, it depends on how you think of it, but you could think of it as a three dominant chord that either moves to a two minor or to a four major depending on how you want to think about it.

Dave: 16:25

Okay, but that move is quite unusual.

Geoff: 16:29

Yeah, shall we think of a tune, well, why don't we do? It Could Happen To you. It Could Happen To you. That's a great choice. Yeah, and what key have you got that one in? I presume that'll be on Quartet one. so that's going to be e flat. Normally, isn't it going to be e flat, isn't it?

Dave: 16:51

Because there's some good ones here with regards to alternate options, whether or not, you're thinking of the bass line going up chromatically okay per bar. So you go E flat for a bar, e diminished for a bar, f for a bar, f sharp, or whether you make it two, fives. So you're going one and three, six, two.

Geoff: 17:05

Yeah, so we go E flat for a bar and then, the three six in the next bar.

Geoff: 17:09

Yeah, G minor C seven, and then the two for a bar and then that funny little thing.

Geoff: 17:13

How would you describe that? A half diminished?

Dave: 17:15

to D seven A half diminished to D seven. Yeah.

Geoff: 17:17

Where does that fit into E flat, the tonality of E flat.

Dave: 17:25

Well, it of e flat. Well, it's D7, isn't it? It's? Yeah, this is what I would call. Uh, Someday My Prince will come right, sort of kind of cadence. Yeah, isn't it? It's like that thing where you get the um, which again relates to I'll Be Seeing You, actually in a sort of a way. So the three becomes a dominant yeah, yeah, that's right.

Geoff: 17:37

And then it moves up to the four, but in this case it's the seven. It's the major seven, yeah, dominant. That resolves to the one. It also does the same thing in. Where else do you get that? You get that in the last bar of the bridge of The Song, Song is You. Right? You get it in the second to the third bar of I'll Remember You?

Geoff: 18:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lovely thing, isn't it? That's something I hear in students, actually, when they play this tune particularly that little nuance of that is missing.

Dave: 18:11

Yeah, do you find that with students?

Geoff: 18:12

Yeah, yeah, Because it's so nuanced and you know there's a couple of nice notes that you could pick there, yeah, which, if you pick them, it's like, ooh, you know a little tiny flick out of the key and then you're back in. Yeah, but it's a lovely little moment, isn't it? And it's so fleeting.

Dave: 18:29

It happens in a bar you know, But there's many different options that sound cool on it as well. You can put natural extensions on it. You can put altered extensions on it. Yeah, if you have altered extensions on it, of course you think of it as the tritone in, in which case it becomes like a four dominant resolving to one. Right. right, yeah, that's true.

Geoff: 18:47

Yeah, fantastic. Should we have a play? Okay, right, so get your saxophone out and um, Put my money where my mouth, Put your money where your mouth is.

Geoff: 18:54

I want to hear all that that you just said in the first two bars, yeah yeah, the last eight will be our introduction and then there'll be two choruses. Okay, generally in these apps, the first chorus will be a introduction and then there'll be two choruses. Okay, generally in these apps, the first chorus will be a two-feel yeah. Second chorus is a four-feel, right? Okay, you ready? Yeah, here we go.

Geoff: 19:23

Thank you uh uh, so, uh, uh uh That's great Bit of lame ending.

Geoff: 21:05

sorry about that. Fabulous Fabulousyeah yeah Fabulous yeah, yeah, I guess memories are flooding back from when you actually played on Quartet 1 and 2, right, yeah yeah, that day that incredible day when we were recording 30 tunes or something, in a day.

Dave: 21:18

My chops were on the floor by the end of that. Yeah, that was hard for all of us.

Geoff: 21:21

Yeah, that was great, fantastic, what went through your mind as you were playing it For all of us, yeah.

Dave: 21:27

That was great, fantastic. What's going through your mind as you were playing?

Geoff: 21:29

It's a bit of a silly question, but what's the last thing that

Dave: 21:30

goes through a fly's mind when it hits the windscreen of your car. Anyway, we won't go there. Well, it's a bit like that, really, isn't it? It's ideally not too much when you actually do it, but it's all in the preparation, isn't it? You sort do it, yeah, but um, it's all in the preparation, isn't it? You sort of train yourself to react as heavily on instinct as you possibly can.

Dave: 21:50

So what I tried to do at the end of that was Graham just did like a chromatic thing down to the ninth just before I started yeah so I sort of tried to pick up on that to get going, and that way it forced me into not being able to preconceive what I was going to do. Yeah, And I quite like playing that. You know. It's a very normal thing for jazz musicians to do, isn't it? To pick up on what the predominant information you get just before you play it. But I guess the idea behind that is it forces you not to preconceive what you're going to play and hopefully therefore gives you a little nugget of inspiration. That is, it forces you not to preconceive what you're going to play and hopefully therefore gives you a little nugget of inspiration Did you find you you find you were picking up on the rhythm section as you were playing through that?

Dave: 22:32

Yeah, I was trying to, um, I was trying to pick up on the feel of, you know, Seb playing on brushes throughout as well, because I was wondering whether he was going to hit the sticks on the second chorus or not, and tried to adapt my sort of intensity accordingly. Yeah, also, I was listening out for the nuance of the, the changes. For instance, when Graham went to the three chord, he played a half diminished chord. Yeah, not sure I did that the first time. It doesn't really matter, particularly because the, the movement is the same and the cadence is the same. Yeah, but I did pick up on it subsequently because I sort of made a little mental note oh yeah, that's what he's going to do at that point.

Geoff: 23:14

Yeah, which is actually what's on the chart the half-dimished Is it? Yeah?

Dave: 23:18

Well, I didn't have the benefit of looking at the chart no, but then that's maybe a good thing, no, I know Because one of the nice things about doing a tune that you know well is you know it well enough to be able to adapt on the fly When you were playing is there any sense of using licks?

Geoff: 23:32

You deliberately thought there's going to be a flat nine here, I'm going to play the diminished. At one point you went. You did that kind of very traditional Like kind of enclosure sort of device with an arpeggiated approach.

Dave: 23:46

Yeah, well, I mean you know it might sound a bit dry and cynical, but I mean it's all licks, isn't it?

Dave: 23:51

you know it's like it at least that that does sound cynical and dry, but it's, it's all about vocab, yeah, and to me that the essence of the music sounding authentic is about the fact that you've clearly you know there's a lineage to what you're playing and where it comes from, but the mere fact that you've still got to put it somewhere, with your sound and your rhythmic placement, your tone, your inflections, makes it completely like you from the minute that you play, in the same way as us talking to each other.

Dave: 24:24

now, We haven't invented the, the language, ourselves we've learned it from repeating what our parents and our family, our friends, our teachers have said to us. Yeah and yeah, we're trying to put our own slant on it and tell our own little story, but it's very much the same thing. That's why everyone says oh, it's a language.

Geoff: 24:42

If someone was trying to learn this tune in particular, is there anything that you'd say to them to get started? Is there any method that you might have for students to learn a tune?

Dave: 24:55

Yeah, I'd say, first of all, find some people playing it who you think play it really well and copy them. . Something that's Something that's nearer the original source, so an earlier version, rather than, you know, at the original source.

Dave: 25:08

So an earlier version, rather than, you know, find Stan Getz playing it in 1950 over Chris Potter playing it in 2020. Not that I mean Chris Potter is absolutely blindingly wonderful. In fact, that's probably one of the reasons why not to think Chris Potter is because it would be so, too, too overwhelming. Yeah, too evolved. Yeah, and of course, Stan Getz is also blindingly wonderful and fantastic, but it was at a time closer to the source, and so the, the, the language you get from it, in a sense, is more pure and it gives you more um scope to distill it as you choose to later on than something has evolved decades after Someone Someonelike like like like Michael Brecker, for example, who's on a whole other planet, isn't he?

Geoff: 25:53

I mean, if you compare that to Dexter Gordon, for example, or Stan Getz, it's like he's from another universe, isn't it?

Dave: 25:58

Yeah. So if you can find, like Dexter playing Fried Bananas, which is the same chord progression, isn't it with a different melody? Or if you find you know Hank Mobley playing it or Sonny Stitt or someone with a really strong I'm talking saxophone players at the moment, obviously you could apply it to your own instrument.

Geoff: 26:21

I've got a few quick questions, if that's all right. Some of them are a bit silly, but I thought I'd put them in for everyone anyway, Sillier the better. A favourite album.

Dave: 26:30

Okay, John Coltrane 'Ballads', Oh good choice.

Geoff: 26:34

yeah, A favourite musician, alive or dead, you'd like to play with?

Dave: 26:40

Well, a favourite musician, live or dead, I'd like to hear in the flesh, is Charlie Parker.

Geoff: 26:45

I would be too terrified to ever want to play with him yeah, Okay, what would you say would be a highlight of your career, one of your best gigs, perhaps?

Dave: 26:56

I've had a couple just in the last few weeks with Monkin and - where where the energy and the vibe just sort of hit the right momentum and the right kind of thing.

Geoff: 27:07

That's a good feeling when that happens, isn't it?

Dave: 27:09

it's so nice, yeah. And then I had a gig last year with the quartet I co-lead with Graham Harvey. We played in Jersey and that right, that gig was just so fantastic and so epic, the way everything came together and the sound was just perfect. Everyone was into it and we were looked after beautifully from the minute we were picked up at the little airport. Sorry, did I say it was in Jersey? It wasn't in Jersey at all, it was in the Isle of Man. Oh blimey.

Geoff: 27:38

So loads of cats walking around with no tails. It's a funny answer I was expecting you to say when I played with Frank Sinatra you know something big like that.

Dave: 27:50

I'm kind of really I enjoy the small band things I'm feeling inherent part of the creative process.

Geoff: 27:56

That's great. Yeah, that's a great answer, and great to be in the moment and be living it now rather than a pointless nostalgic.

Dave: 28:04

The moment and be living it now, rather than a pointless nostalgic. You know well my most nostalgic, misty eyed moments of the best fun I've ever had um gigging, I think was probably um in 1993 when I toured in South Africa for the first time and it was the year that Mandela was released from prison and memorable yeah, he was about to be elected the next year and it was time of change and it was, you know, the hippest place in the world to visit at that time the.

Dave: 28:30

Rainbow Nation. You know the time of hope and everyone was so up for it, just the spirit of all the musicians and they had a festival called the Grahamstown Festival. But many South African musicians would go there, and international musicians as well, and I just remember it being the most fantastically epic vibe and every time we played it just felt historical somehow. It was really great.

Geoff: 28:56

Everyone was up for it. Amazing, amazing. What was the last concert you went to?

Dave: 29:02

I do go and see quite a few gigs at the Pizza Express in Dean Street because I really like the sound in there and they've got a great piano. I went to see Jerry Borgonzi last time. He played there, nice, and he's a big hero of mine and he was playing with Steve Keogh and Matthias Geier was on piano and sounded absolutely fantastic. But best of all was just to hear how great Jerry sounds, sort of in the sort of now he's sort of late 70s or so.

Dave: 29:38

He's absolutely playing his arse off still, and it sounds so hip and such an energy and vibe Great.

Geoff: 29:45

That's inspiring, isn't it? What a role model. Yeah, totally yeah. What would you say Would would your musical weakness be? Oh, everything. Well.

Dave: 30:00

I'd say probably that I have terrible ears. Terrible ears, really, that's surprising.?? and I've really had to work at it, right, okay, um, in what respect? What do you? What do you mean? You know, I've really had to work at the whole thing, the whole sort of oral aspect.

Dave: 30:16

It wasn't natural for you mean yeah I didn't come from musical family, it wasn't instinctive for me, but I've always sort of honed in on it and, you know, made a big effort to memorise stuff and to try and sing things and to transcribe things both from memory and writing them out, because I feel that's the best way to deal with it.

Geoff: 30:39

But you clearly worked really hard at it obviously. How interesting. Have you ever been nervous on stage?

Dave: 30:45

Oh yeah

Dave: 30:46

, Petrified.

Geoff: 30:47

Really

Dave: 30:47

. Yeah.

Dave: 30:48

Many times.

Geoff: 30:49

When, when. Yeah, that's so interesting. What is?

Dave: 30:55

it that causes you to become nervous, Any kind of anxiety that I might screw it up? Self-doubt.

Geoff: 31:00

Yeah.

Dave: 31:00

Self-doubt and performance anxiety Right.

Geoff: 31:03

Wow, not a regular thing for you though, is it? Or is it just on particular things?

Dave: 31:07

It never totally goes away.

Geoff: 31:08

Oh.

Dave: 31:09

The worst it's happened to me in recent years was after lockdown. Yeah, coming back out again and doing my first gig in front of an audience. I was just petrified, really. After lockdown down yeah, and it didn't come naturally at all. I had to really force myself back into it.

Geoff: 31:26

That's so it has astonished me how much it had made me doubt myself. Wow god, this is so interesting blimey.

Dave: 31:31

Each situation has its own little thing. I'll I'll give you an example. Um, I did a thing with the Monking an Around trio for Radio Three, for a program called In Tune.

Geoff: 31:41

Oh yeah, Sean Rafferty.

Dave: 31:43

And it's really nice. Well, it was presented by Katie Durham.

Geoff: 31:47

Oh yeah.

Dave: 31:47

OK, and you get to play three tunes and they all need to be about four minutes long. You have to format it, which of course goes a little bit against your instinct, and no one's going to get to play more than two choruses.

Geoff: 31:58

What, Charlie Parker used to do you listen to those recordings they're half a chorus.

Dave: 32:02

Yeah, so the thing with doing this radio thing is that-.

Geoff: 32:07

And it's live, isn't it? It's totally live, it goes out live.

Dave: 32:10

So you set up, you do a quick sound check and then you sit around waiting for about an hour and a half and you can't go out the building because there's too much security to be able to sort of walk around. So you're sort of captive there and then, uh, the producer comes through and says we'll be ready for you in three minutes. Can you come into the studio so you get to stand there pick up your instrument?

Geoff: 32:30

you can't really blow because there's the radio show is going on and. The the first note you blow is on air, isn't it? Yes, that's right, you're on air.

Dave: 32:38

You've, you've got your live one take. It's four minutes and you've got to. You know you're trying to play some jazz, but you know it's got to be to this sort of format yeah and um, and then after that you've got about another 45 minutes off and then you come back and you do your next four minutes set 45 minutes later and then you do an interview. You sit down, do an interview and then you get to play another four minutes. So it's like you're doing three four-minute sets, live on air. I think we were all pretty nervous on that.

Dave: 33:08

I could sense a certain anxiety. I mean, having said that, I think we did okay and I've heard it back, it sounds fine, but I'm aware as to actually how edgy it was.

Geoff: 33:20

But did that add something to the performance though that tension? Yeah, maybe we didn't edgy it was, but did that add certain something to the performance though that tension?

Dave: 33:23

Yeah, maybe we didn't we didn't want to screw it up, that's for sure. But but then your, your focus becomes more on making damn sure you don't screw it up rather than on actually just relaxing and being kind of creative and in the moment. Yeah, amazing You, you kind of fear getting too much into that because you don't want to lose track of what the objective is.

Geoff: 33:43

That reminds me actually when I did a lunchtime Wogan live Wogan show with Jackie Dankworth yeah and there was Jackie singing, I was playing electric bass and there was a piano player playing an electric keyboard. And it was the same thing. You go in. It was a Sunday lunchtime, when you go in early you do your sound check and then you go away and you come back and there was another band on before us yeah, happened to be Go West, in fact, they were doing an acoustic thing. We came back to do our thing. We trundled into the studio Terry's there giving the intro, piano introduction and, and as soon as it started, this live on air. On Radio Two, same thing. All of a sudden hold on. Something's not right here. The previous piano player had detuned the piano right by a minor third.

Dave: 34:24

Oh no, so this was live on air so you had to find the key. So I had the whole thing I was reading as well I was reading the chart, so Jackie had to sing it a third down.

Geoff: 34:33

You couldn't stop as I realized I had 16 bars introduction on air. Just as that was happening, yeah, all of a sudden just sweat started coming down like oh my god, what are we gonna do? Yeah, you know, but we got through it. I know that feeling. That's just. It's not something they teach in the music school actually I've got another good one like that.

Dave: 34:52

I was asked to play Street Life with Randy Crawford. Wow the Barbican with OS LSO wow wow. So it was full-on production and we had an afternoon rehearsal John Dankwith was conducting. It was like a sort of LSO Pops concert with special guest Randy Crawford. And this was like the last tune of the set and they wanted me to play the Wilton Felder saxophone solo. Exactly.

Dave: 35:21

Note for note, but with the full LS doing i all the strings and everything. And it was incredible and I had this chart, the whole thing transcribed like a five page And it's a great solo isn't it fantastic?

Dave: 35:31

Yeah, and I read it at the rehearsal and it went great. I did the first show and it went great. And then there was the second show. And I came on for the second show and there was no music on the stand and and John was tapping his baton and I'd walked on in my you know the sort of 10 metres in the middle, got the round of applause from everyone and done the bow and I said, John, there's no music on the stand and the previous soloist had taken it away with their music mistakenly. Oh, no.

Dave: 36:01

But, I couldn't go off and get it and John just said to me you're going to have to wing it and this was like the solo feature for the whole bloody thing. God.

Geoff: 36:12

Last, very, very, very quick question. It's going to make my Pilates class possibly, but your sandwich? my my sandwich.

Dave: 36:19

Yeah, I guess my favourite sandwich would be like a kind of a, maybe one of those sort of salt beef ones with lots of mustard on some rye choice rye bread like Carnegie deli artisan, yeah, that's right yeah, or a sort of, you know, like a New York Reuben sandwich or that, that kind of thing.

Geoff: 36:42

Favorite movie yeah, uh, favorite movie.

Dave: 36:46

Um okay, well, one of the ones I most enjoyed that I've seen in recent years was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Geoff: 36:54

Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I went to see it with my daughter when it first came out and I hated it to start with, but I didn't understand it at all and you're going to see it a second time and I went to see it a second time yeah. All of a sudden, the whole genre of where it's set and the whole thing is amazing. It is an amazing movie, isn't it? Do you have a favourite venue to play in London?

Dave: 37:14

venues I play quite a lot For different reasons. I really like the 606 Club and I really like the Pizza Express in Dean Street.

Geoff: 37:22

Excellent. Okay, and what about a favourite place, city, a country to visit? I guess it's probably Cape Town, South Africa. What's your favourite chord?

Dave: 37:34

To play on. Okay, well, my favourite chord to hear and my favourite chord to play on would be two different things. Okay, so my favourite chord to hear and my favourite chord to play on would be two different things. Okay, so, my favourite chord to hear would be like say an E triad over an F chord. Oh yeah, fruity, it's a great last chord. Yeah. But I don't really like playing on that because you're kind of limited with what you can do on it.

Geoff: 37:55

That's kind of sort of almost diminished. Isn't it Sort of yeah, yeah, it could be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave: 38:01

And my favourite chord to play on would definitely be a dominant chord in a minor key. Excellent.

Geoff: 38:09

Okay, with that bombshell, I think we'll say goodbye. That's been amazing. Yeah, there's so much knowledge in there and some great playing as well. So, Dave, thank you very much for doing it.

Dave: 38:18

Thanks, Geoff. Thanks for having me. Yeah, good luck with the app. You're doing You're doing a great job with that stuff thank you very much. Look forward to 3 and 4 and . and 6 a and 5 and 6.

Announcement: 38:26

Y thank you Thank making it to the end of another podcast. Please subscribe if you want to hear more of them as they land. The Quartet Jazz Standards podcast is a UK Music Apps production Quartet for Quartet, taking your jazz play along to another level. Search for Quartet on the App Store or find out more at quartetappcom.