Geoff: 0:00

Hello again, podcats. This is Geoff Gascoyne, Hope you're well. Today I'm going up to central London, to Waterloo actually. I'm going to see a very old friend of mine, Ian Shaw, singer, improviser, broadcaster and comedian. I'm looking forward to it very much, so here we go.

Announcement: 0:17

The Quartet app for iOS. Taking your jazz play along to another level.

Geoff: 0:42

Thanks for inviting me round. It's my absolute pleasure. What a wheeze. So you're busy doing so many things, aren't you? The career in singing, and you're a comedian as well, aren't you?

Ian: 0:50

I cut my teeth on two scenes, the sort of piano bar scene, so just getting gigs when I was a student. You know playing piano, not singing, actually just playing poppy stuff. You know just background music in restaurants and things. You know just background music in restaurants and things. And then I got an agent called Jack Fallon and he started this agency called because he saw, I think probably I mean it had been going a long time before I met him.

Ian: 1:10

I auditioned down in Pizza on the Park, so I saw it in The Stage, 'stage on television today and it said wanted piano bar entertainers and I didn't know what that was really. So I went along to the audition in a kilt, Doc Martin boots, full makeup, punky sort of biker jacket. I was still at college, so it would have been 1981, I think and he'd already been running this wheeze where he realised that he could put singer pianists in hotels and wine bars and create a really nice roster of people. And he really looked after us all as well. I did the audition. There was roster of people and he looked, really looked after us all as well. You know, I did the audition. There was one woman. There must have been 30 to 40 men of all different shapes and sizes and you know ages.

Ian: 1:56

All dressed in DJs and I thought well, that's it, I rock up in my kilt with more eyeliner than my then girlfriend Susan and um, I just did my thing and I just thought he's not going to like me. I remember what I did. Actually I did. I did Your Song, Elton John. I did Willkommen, Bienvenue from Cabaret and I did Ain't Misbehavin right, which I love singing.

Ian: 2:15

You said you want to go to Sweden and I went yeah so I went to Sweden and played in a hotel in Stockholm and then that was it then for four or five years between auditioning for acting jobs and doing the odd comedy thing. But yeah, I cut my teeth here on the comedy circuit.

Geoff: 2:29

When you start to sing, did you feel like you were a singer or was it? How did it work?

Ian: 2:34

Well, I sang in choirs in school, Okay because you're from Wales, aren't you?

Geoff: 2:37

Yeah, did you grow up with that then?

Ian: 2:46

Yeah, sort, two of my uncles were in male voice choirs, which is a great Welsh tradition, you know, and I was in a brass band with my dad, so I was. I never knew what it was like not to be able to read music. I can't really learn anything from a tape, you know.

Ian: 2:57

I've got to see the music.

Ian: 2:58

Recently I did a thing Mark- Anthony Turnage

Geoff: 3:01

Would have been,

Geoff: 3:01

What a classical??

Ian: 3:03

Yeah, it was a piece for a reduced orchestra. It was during COVID and he had this idea of writing. He's always wanted to write something for me to sing and it was a poem called Black Milk by Paul Celan. So anyway, Mark- Anthony Turnage took this poem and he set it. It's like I don't know 15 minutes tops 15 minutes and it's a through sung thing really hard. And he said, oh, just be yourself on it, you know 15 minutes and it's a through sung thing really hard.

Ian: 3:27

And he said oh, just be yourself on it. You know classic, Mark. I've got a little place down in Kent and I took myself off there for two weeks to learn it. I wanted to be off the page and learn it. You know like an actor would learn a script. And I did learn it and it was during COVID. So all the orchestra, we were all baffled. You know plastic separation things. I loved it. I really, really enjoyed it. It reminded me of doing stuff, having to do stuff at college but really not wanting to do it because it was college but I could not have learnt it off a tape. That really pushed me in the way that doing an acting job pushes me.

Geoff: 4:00

Do you call him Mar? Antony, I call him Mark. Do you call him Mark?

Ian: 4:01

Anthony Antony, I call him Mark. Do you want to call him? No, I call him Mark.

Geoff: 4:04

Anthony it Mark Antony Turnage?

Ian: 4:05

I'm not sure. Anthony No, it's Mark.

Geoff: 4:07

Anthony Turnage.

Ian: 4:08

I think this is his mother's name.

Geoff: 4:09

Like the guy that killed Caesar. Yeah, Mark.

Ian: 4:11

Anthony. Yeah, this is Mark.

Geoff: 4:13

Turnage. So when did you start improvising? When did you get into?

Ian: 4:21

jazz? David Bowie, Hunky Dory and I listened to something and I thought what's that?

Ian: 4:25

What David that? What style is this?

Geoff: 4:29

Funny you should say that I was listening with Ruby last night to Aladdin Sane. That's the one right at the end where there's all this avant-garde piano. It's Mike Garson.

Ian: 4:36

It's incredible, and at the end he just goes like this yeah.

Geoff: 4:41

Right at the end, doesn't it? But it's so out, isn't it yeah?

Ian: 4:44

That's on that track. That's incredible, it's Aladdin Sane, isn't it?

Geoff: 4:48

Yeah, ha ha, ha, ha ha. Yeah, that's the one, yeah.

Ian: 4:51

The Lord Roses. Oh, it's amazing, brilliant. Every track on that's amazing. So Honky Dory I heard first Actually was disturbing, because it's quite disturbing. But then when I heard Hunky Dory fill your heart with love today, I think, well, that's jazz, isn't it it is. And then listening to David Bowie do things live, and how he altered his own um phrasing and altered his own the notes that he picked on his own yeah songs and he always went to. I noticed it with Joni Mitchell as well that at the end of a phrase he always went to like a second. So he'd go um, you know, like um.

Ian: 5:28

I I would be king. Yeah, yeah, the original was I will be king yeah, I was thinking that's different yeah, so that was the first thing.

Ian: 5:39

I thought, oh, if you sing, and you sing sort of poppy music, you can. And then I thought some of my parents record oh, I see, that's how that works then. So then Mel

Geoff: 5:48

Torme may not Sinatra actually, so Mel Torme, Sarah Vaughn

Geoff: 5:52

I mean Sinatra did that a little bit when changing. Yeah, not very much so did he?

Ian: 5:56

no, Sinatra was all about the timbre, the timing, the storytelling. Yeah, uh, keeping it nice and swinging and the ballads are really the I mean, it's Sinatra it's the best, it's the sound amazing, you know but and then and then Billie Holiday, Betty Carter, Mark Murphy, in that order. When I was at college I used to trawl the record shops, you know, Oxford Street, down in those dirty basements and massive basements of shops with kind of imports with ticks out the top of the records and.

Ian: 6:27

I bought everything. I spent all my grant on records. Really, I remember buying Bitches Brew because I loved the cover.

Announcement: 6:34

And.

Ian: 6:34

I'd never really known what the music was, and it completely changed my whole focus on how you could make music you know. So yeah, and Sarah Vaughan live at Ronnie Scott's. Carmen Karma McRae, Thelonious Monk. Carmen that is another accidental purchase.

Geoff: 6:49

And then Rah R-A-H.

Ian: 6:51

Mark.

Ian: 6:52

Murphy, I thought what's this?

Ian: 6:54

Who's he?

Ian: 6:59

Because, he looked not like you'd expect him to look?

Geoff: 7:01

Was he like a role model to you? Oh, completely, still is, still is still is.

Ian: 7:05

If I'm singing with a band, he is. If I'm on my own, I'm more sort of cabaret, more sort of stopping and starting comedy, more bluesy, more poppy folky. But when I'm with a band, especially a trio, not necessarily a section How did you get a vocabulary for jazz then? How did I do it? I did it very, very suddenly and very quickly. I went and bought the Real books and I used to go to you know, there's true camp gentlemen in Chappell's music Music With with the polo necks and the rings.

Ian: 7:36

Do you remember them? I used to say have you got Volume Two yet?

Geoff: 7:39

Under the desk Under the desk, you know.

Ian: 7:42

Dirty books, dirty books Under the desk. Under the desk you know Dirty books, dirty books, yeah.

Ian: 7:45

And you'd be passing with like the best part of them, 35, 40 quid.

Geoff: 7:48

So were they illegal then? Yeah, of course they were.

Ian: 7:50

I don't remember that I just photocopied and then spiral bound, wasn't?

Ian: 7:53

I that's right yeah.

Ian: 7:55

I learn songs very, very quickly. I can learn the muscularity of an A you know. So when I first heard Detour Ahead, I remember it was almost like a photographic memory of the melody and the chords, because it was so unusual so the more unusual a song is, the easier for me is to learn, you know.

Geoff: 8:13

You've done some acting as well, haven't you? I've done loads of acting, yeah, how did you get into that then? Where did that start?

Ian: 8:19

You know, I come from a really working class area, working class education. We didn't know that you could go to a kibbutz or have a gap year. My dad just went OK, what's this called then? Ok, he didn't talk like that because he's Welsh, that's Stepney Green. I'd just applied for all the colleges. I got into Trinity, King's, Goldsmiths and RADA and it was like do I do music or do I do drama? Got into both of those things and I just went King's. And you know why I did it? It's because King's was on the river and I really liked the look of it.

Geoff: 8:51

You wanted a good view. I wanted a good view from college, and it was near Covent Garden.

Ian: 8:55

I hadn't really heard of Soho in those days, right At 17. I came down here. I was barely 18 when I came to London, but did you still sort of keep in touch with the acting side.

Geoff: 9:07

You had the two things going at the same time, right, oh yeah.

Ian: 9:09

Yeah, I did Othello at university. I did plays. I was part of the Ludd's London University Drama SOC. I went to Edinburgh. We did a play up there. We did Cabaret the Musical with my now manager, Charlotte, who played Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret. I constantly did it. And then I did Fringe Theatre Rep, did some films, did a great film with Juliet Stevenson, Tim Sporkle, Pier Point that was much later. Um, I did, yeah, plays, radio things always, always maybe one thing a year.

Ian: 9:46

Now, one thing a year, Charlotte, my manager said to me recently. She said she said you should, we should, you should do more. Acting, 63 years old, you know, in, in.

Geoff: 9:56

June 63 in June.

Ian: 9:59

So I don't know whether it's too late to do that. I've been offered something this year which I'm considering doing.

Ian: 10:04

I don't know yet Because it's a chunk out of your gigging life and also financially it's very different to gigging, because gigging we can be lucky and get a very well-paid one-off gig which will be two weeks acting work. But I love acting, I love words, I love playing, I love being directed. So I wish I could do more of it really, but I've left it too late really. I'm not really known as an actor. I'm known as a musician and occasional comedian, cabaret singer, broadcaster and then probably at the bottom of that, would be actor, I think.

Geoff: 10:39

Is it difficult to balance all those things nowadays?

Ian: 10:42

Not enough hours in the day and even then, sometimes when I've got, I can't have days off. I'm hopeless. If I've got a day off, I don't know what to do with myself. I've always got something. I mean books, trying to write songs, doing stuff. I need to do something every day. Really, I'm very good at procrastinating.

Geoff: 11:01

It doesn't sound like you have much time for that, do you oh?

Ian: 11:04

yeah.

Ian: 11:06

I mean I've done. You know, this week I'm trying to write some songs for a new project. I've recorded a Sondheim album, that's not out yet. So 13 Sondheim songs Because I've always wanted to record them and I met him years ago. Mark Murphy really put me onto Sondheim songs. There's a wonderful four CD collection of Sondheim by jazz musicians on ECM.

Geoff: 11:29

It's great wow, check that out. It's very nice, is that a?

Ian: 11:32

recent thing no it's about 15 years old. I think, okay, yeah, it's about 15 years old. I think, okay, yeah, it's lovely. It's very weird making albums nowadays, because it's a different animal, isn't it?

Geoff: 11:42

Do you still make CDs, actual CDs?

Ian: 11:44

Yeah, you do, yeah, and they sell at gigs only yeah. Because I think people think well, it's a tenner, if I've paid 20-odd quid to come and see to hear some music, then I might just have a momento, you know. It's a certain it's either really young couples. At my gigs they're really odd Sort of young couples in their early 20s.

Geoff: 12:05

You haven't thought about making T-shirts or anything like that.

Announcement: 12:08

T-towels.

Ian: 12:08

Claire Teal's got a Teal Towel. A teal, that's a great idea. We sell jam and pickle, really, yeah, for charity, because I support refugee charities. So every year Charlotte, my manager, she's down in the shed stirring a great pot. Yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, we sell them for like a fiver and every album I've done she makes the, she does a pun on. So The Theory of Jam is one of them. Uh, I did an album of Fran Landesman songs Ghosting, jam session, yeah, jam session. And she puts the label of the actual album on with the renamed thing.

Ian: 12:43

You know great idea, but we do that for the refugee charity. Fiver a pop and people love it who doesn't want jam.

Ian: 12:49

So can we talk about my apps? Four volumes now are out. Yeah, 500 tunes altogether.

Geoff: 12:53

wow, you're so. Can we talk about my apps? Four volumes now are out. Yeah, 500 tunes altogether. Wow, you're quite new to it, aren't you?

Ian: 13:02

Yeah.

Geoff: 13:02

I gave it to you recently, yeah. So I asked you to pick a tune, and I think you mentioned it earlier. What tune?

Ian: 13:08

Well, I chose Ain't

Ian: 13:09

Misbehavin', because I knew you'd ask me how I would get into starting singing. It was the first jazz thing I ever learned.

Geoff: 13:14

You've done this before, haven't you? Yeah, I've done it before.

Ian: 13:17

I learned how to play it. I couldn't believe how old the recording that I learned it from was. It was very old, like 30s old, like Fats Waller or something.

Geoff: 13:27

Yeah, Fats Waller. Yeah, what we're going to do, stick your headphones on. We're in the key of A flat, I believe. Hello, I'm going to put my headphones on too.

Ian: 13:38

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Q1 and Q2 by Geoff Gascoyne.

Geoff: 13:46

So you've done a lot of broadcasting. You're used to this right. Have you been interviewed like this much? Because you're usually on the other side.

Ian: 13:53

I'm on the other side yeah, if.

Ian: 13:55

I've got a record out. I've got a record out, yeah, something like I've interviewed some massive legends, and one or two of them have been. I almost had to just shut up shop and leave. You know, Al Jarreau, Patti Austin, everyone. You know Van Morrison, he was lovely yeah and he was a great. He was a great interviewee. All I wanted to do was talk about music with him.

Geoff: 14:16

The key of A flat. You're not going to sing the tune and I've got two choruses to sing.

Ian: 14:21

You've got two choruses to sing and none of them can be the tune. Yeah, can I use something? That other words then I've always got like three or four books on the go now, but we are sitting in my sort of in my music room, in my sort of in my music room, come library, come sleeping room. We're actually in the bedroom. Yes, we're in the bedroom. So I'm reading Annie Erno's book The Years, which I really enjoy and I'm also reading Andrew Hagen's book Caledonian Road.

Geoff: 14:46

Okay, which one do you want? We'll have Caledonia Road. Yeah, and we'll have page 112.

Ian: 14:53

Okay, Caledonian Road page 100.

Ian: 14:56

Second paragraph, please 12, second paragraph 112.

Ian: 15:01

Okay, oh, this is exciting because I don't think I've got that far yet.

Geoff: 15:05

Have you All right, are you ready? Yeah, here we go.

Ian: 15:15

Standing in the hall, Campbell felt positive. It was one of those bright evenings in the country when everything seems well. The birds were singing as the setting sun struck, the mullioned windows giving hope, Hindoclée had the dusty, resplendent pattern of centuries. The candles went all the way back to Flodden and they had the musketry to prove it. Oh yeah, gleaming darkly from the walls above the tapestries and busts. In the drawing room, Morios and Harkness just held on the red damask wallpaper and the multiple sofas were backed with tables crowded with family pictures no children, alas, but adults choked in uniforms or pearls.

Ian: 16:04

A number of people stood in the room, but even Campbell walked alone to the drinks table. They always had these tables everywhere, with tins of tonic water, tomato juice, stacked up, cheap whiskeys and old tumblers. He put a gin and looked up at a cabinet of books A full run of Trollops bound in red leather. At the end on its own was a copy of Campbell's The Mail. He surveyed the room and took a deep breath. The Duke had been off his head, Campbell thought, since Cannon turned forty-five and Antony released. Their inability to produce an heir meant the Duke might die Within. Such things can corrupt you. He was all of a sudden beside him. The Duke dressed in a ridiculous narrow jacket and white linen trousers above a pair of slippers. I have to confess. He said I still ain't read this book of yours. Too much work, if you ask me. That's idiotic, Tony, I speak as a writer. Of course you do. He touched Campbell's arm as they turned towards the others. I'm afraid I'm rather depending on you tonight. The Duke said Okay, we got some crashes.

Geoff: 17:29

That's great. Yeah, the words didn't really matter to me. Nah, didn't have any idea what you were going on about, to be honest, but the shape of the improvising and the melody was great.

Ian: 17:40

It was quite bluesy, wasn't it, I suppose? Some blues in there yeah, yeah, the words felt very different because I'm a big fan of Andrew Hagan, you know. He's a genius and he writes these incredibly dense character based books, you know and this one's.

Ian: 17:55

This one's set in London, you know, it's just wonderful. But I wasn't really, because I know who those characters are. Because I'm, you can see where I am in the book. It's not that far away from what I've just done, but I wasn't really thinking about how that bore any relevance to what the narrative was so far.

Announcement: 18:14

So that's interesting, isn't it, Paul, or any?

Ian: 18:15

relevance to what the narrative was so far. So that's interesting, isn't it? Paul Gambaccini, who's a really good mate of mine. I've known him for years. He's apart from being a very knowledgeable kind of guru. You know he knows everything about pop music and jazz as well.

Ian: 18:27

And he's written a beautiful book called Love Letters. It's an old book now it's about 28 years old, I think it is and it's based on seven people in his life that made a great impression on him. Some of them now are dead, so I think there's only one of them left. So we just got talking and I just thought they're so honest and yet they're kind of redolent and rich and beautiful. So I've been trying to write 14 songs out of seven chapters. You know the characters are all names Love Letters. You've got an introduction, which in itself is good letters, uh, you've got an introduction, which in itself is good. And then you've got Henry, Scott, David, Steven, George Terry and Chris, and Chris is the lead singer of Kajagoogoo. What, basically? What I do is I read the chapter and then I try to write a song based on what I've just read by memory. Then I go back to try and get the essence of each chapter into a song structure.

Geoff: 19:18

Are these unrequited love letters?

Ian: 19:20

Yeah, they've all got different flavours. One of them is written with absolute venom by someone who really, really messed him around and lied, and that's a really these people that he's had relationships? Yes, they are okay, and they go right back to when he was a little boy, uh, north of New York, uh, when he went to school and the first kind of crush he had uh, not all of them are sexual partners. So he's got there's two friends in there as well, and they've all got different flavors, you know, know, they've got different emotions.

Ian: 19:51

One of them is rueful, one of them is really venomous. One of them is you know, the last line of it is I can't believe how much I miss you. That's the last line. We've got a meeting at the weekend to try and get some sort of mise-en-scene, to try and get some sort of plot, and we've come up with some ideas, which is basically a young man, a singer we know exactly who we're going to have to sing it as well A young guy called Matt Kent, who's brilliant, and he said he'd do it.

Geoff: 20:21

So, between some dialogue, So you wouldn't sing it yourself then? No, it's not for me.

Ian: 20:27

Which is really a much more enjoyable way of doing things. I write better. If I know it's, it's not for me. I think it would be lovely to have a trio a singer and a set and lighting, so quite simple. So really it's. It's a one-person show, I think, and he finds the letters in a box and then I can't really give you the spoiler, but there's an ending which, hopefully, is quite shocking. So this character, this young man who's barely 26 now, he's a New York singer-songwriter called Matt Kent, who I've worked with. So it's at a very, very early stage. We might even just do it as a gig, we don't know Putting on a show is needs money.

Geoff: 21:10

There's a lot of money. You know that's going to be a great project. Hope so, um, hope so, yeah, yeah, good luck with that, thank you very much, thank you.

Ian: 21:16

I'll pass on your, your, your, your good wishes to the man himself.

Geoff: 21:20

On Sunday and we're having lots to do, yeah, yeah so, to finish off, I've got a few questions, a few yeah. So do you have a favourite album?

Ian: 21:36

Oh, God, it's always hard, that isn't?

Geoff: 21:38

it.

Ian: 21:39

I think I'm going to have to say Hejira by Joni Mitchell, because every time I listen to it I hear something new. I've never heard music like it. I didn't even realise there wasn't a kit playing at one point. I was so sort of hypnotised by the. Every song is completely different. Every setting is different. She almost sings differently on every one as well. Either that or any recording of the Quartet for the End of Time, Olivier Messiaen.

Geoff: 22:06

Quite a diverse couple of albums there. Do you have a favourite musician, alive or dead, that you would like to play with?

Ian: 22:13

Oh, that's another difficult one, really, isn't it? No, musician, yeah, I'd like to sing some ballads with Fred Hirsch.

Geoff: 22:23

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

Ian: 22:26

Vaguely vaguely know him, but we did an interview together for an American magazine years ago when I was doing records in America. Yeah, I mean, the thing about the jazz world is that everyone is fairly accessible and you sort of especially now with social media you can sort of say, hey, do you fancy doing this, or we've got a budget for this, or are you in town for that, and you can sort of boldly go somewhere, can't you? I mean, I always wanted to work with Madeline Bell because I had all her albums when I was a kid and I am now her band. We do duo gigs together. We just did Ronnie Scott's just me playing the piano and her singing and I was thinking, how is this panned out? You know, she was my favourite singer when I was a kid.

Ian: 23:06

Panned out, panned out, I know, yeah, so.

Ian: 23:10

I'd like to sing a duet with Cecile McLorin Salvant as well. Okay, I think she's amazing, yeah.

Geoff: 23:20

What would you say?

Ian: 23:21

would the highlight of your career be so far? He added very quickly.

Ian: 23:26

Highlight of my career would probably be being on stage with Quincy Jones. I think he conducted a band, it was like a composite band done for the Jazz Festival, Jazz Awards, and I got to sing the arrangement of Fly Me to the Moon with him standing there sort of beaming and conducting it.

Ian: 23:42

That was pretty special, you know that and I think touring with Cedar Walton yeah, I think that's Cedar Walton. Yeah, I think that's got to be up there. In terms of being a musician, yeah, acting with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Ben Vereen in New York, that was good. Kurt Elling wrote me a part in a play with music called the Big Blind with a big band, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ben Vereen, me, him. I played his sort of vicious English agent.

Geoff: 24:17

What was the last concert you attended?

Ian: 24:20

I went to hear Chopin Nocturnes at the Wigmore Hall Beautiful. To my shame that was the last concert I attended and that was in probably September last year. It was definitely autumn, so I remember walking home thinking the leaves the whole day made complete sense. So that was the last concert I attended.

Geoff: 24:40

What would you say is your musical weakness?

Ian: 24:43

At the moment trying to get a sound out of the flugel. What it's? The piano, yeah.

Geoff: 24:49

I didn't even know you played that. Yeah, I'm trying to get a sound out of the flugel. What it's the piano? Yeah, I didn't even know you played that.

Ian: 24:51

Yeah, I'm a horn player, originally trumpet and cornet so I bought the flugel two Christmases ago and I've been secretly blowing into the pillow just doing long notes really Great. But I'd love to just pick it up and play a head on a ballad or something.

Geoff: 25:06

Have you played much of that over the years, or is that just something you've recently picked up again?

Ian: 25:10

Well, it's the muscle thing, because I used to play really very, very well. You know, I played classical trumpet at college, I played cornet in brass bands and we competed. You know, I was really good, you know, but I had the freedom of youth and I didn't really care if I splitted, splat, splot. A few notes.

Geoff: 25:26

Now it's like you need a tight embouchure.

Ian: 25:31

You need a very, very tight embouchure.

Ian: 25:34

Yes, I tell you, what we do need is a plastic mouthpiece. That's really hard.

Geoff: 25:40

Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Ian: 25:42

I get nervous waiting to go on stage, every time. Just a little. It's kind of good nerves, I think.

Geoff: 25:50

Just a little. Ooh, it's kind of good nerves, I think.

Ian: 25:51

Ooh just a little bit like ooh, yeah, ooh. I get nervous if I look at the stage and think, oh no, the microphone's wound around the microphone's stand to the bottom.

Geoff: 25:58

Yeah.

Ian: 25:59

That makes me nervous, because there's nothing worse than seeing someone unravel a microphone on stage. It's so tedious.

Geoff: 26:05

It's not very professional, is it?

Ian: 26:06

No, get nervous about that, get nervous about monitors, don't get nervous about the music.

Geoff: 26:10

Really, so it's more of a technical thing. Yeah, what's your favourite sandwich?

Ian: 26:15

Well, I'm gluten-free at the moment, but my favourite sandwich is sharp cheddar with pickle. Any pickle, chutney, , Branston. Really, my favourite sandwich is sharp cheddar and Branston.

Geoff: 26:31

That's come up a few times actually.

Geoff: 26:33

Yeah, funny, right, there's a couple more questions.

Ian: 26:36

A favorite movie? Probably either Cinema Paradiso, All about Eve or Citizen Kane excellent yeah classics all three, yeah, yeah, uh.

Geoff: 26:47

What about favorite venues that you've played in?

Ian: 26:50

Ronnie Scott's.

Geoff: 26:51

And what about a favourite country or city?

Ian: 26:54

Favourite city is, without a doubt, Naples, Napoli.

Geoff: 26:59

Okay, one last question what's your favourite chord?

Ian: 27:02

That's Stevie Wonder. I don't want to bore you ever and I don't want to bore you ever?

Geoff: 27:13

Can you tell everyone what that chord is? Yeah, it's.

Ian: 27:16

No, I'd say it was an E7. What is it?

Geoff: 27:23

E13 with a flat 9.

Ian: 27:25

E13, flat 9, isn't it?

Ian: 27:26

Yeah, I don't wanna know yeah, that one.

Geoff: 27:34

It's my favorite. It's a good one. It's the context, though, isn't it where?

Ian: 27:36

it's totally where it's come from and where it's going to. Oh, absolutely, totally context. Yeah, there's some. I just did a recently did a record with Tony Kofi and Dave Green and Barry Green, Mr and Mrs Green of Stray horn and some oh god blimey, some buttes in there, there is yeah you know we did Passion Flower and A Flower is a Love some Thing and oh yeah, obviously Lush Life, some good chord, yeah, but chords like what. It'd be like saying what's your favorite word, I suppose isn't it? Yeah depends.

Geoff: 28:01

What depends. What's surprising? I've had some, some quite direct answers to that.

Ian: 28:06

People have an instinct about what their favorite chord is, and is it note-related as well? Yeah, Okay. I like that chord, which is just basically A sus, a sus. It's like a C11. Yeah, I like that.

Geoff: 28:28

That thing always gets me going isn't that interesting people are drawn to different?

Ian: 28:34

yeah, things aren't they I remember sitting in, uh, getting drunk with Jamie Cullum, who you know you've worked with, and he we were talking about favorite chords in in some pop music and he I can't remember which one it is, but it it was in Tiny Dancer yeah right, he was absolutely adamant that that was his favourite chord.

Geoff: 28:52

Is that right yeah?

Ian: 28:53

I can't remember which chord it, where it occurs, and every time I hear Tiny Dancer, which is a beautiful song, I think, oh, it's that one. And sometimes I think I'm going to have to ring him up and ask him which one it is.

Geoff: 29:09

Well, Ian, See you soon.

Ian: 29:11

Thanks, you too.

Announcement: 29:11

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