Geoff: 0:01

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here. Today I'm in Essex and I'm on my way to see a great friend of mine, great saxophone player, band leader, good bloke, Derek Nash. I've known Derek for many, many, many years and I'm actually doing a gig with him tonight. We're going to have a chat about practising, teaching, all sorts of things. So here we go.

Announcement: 0:45

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

Geoff: 0:54

Today

Geoff: 0:55

my guest is, my great friend Derek Nash.

Geoff: 0:57

Oh, good day. Lovely to be here. How are you today? Yeah, good.

Derek: 0:58

Excellent Sun is shining. Spring's about to happen. It's a beautiful day, isn't it? Spring is here and we're going to do a yeah good, excellent Sun is shining, spring's about to happen, it's a beautiful day, isn't? It yeah, spring is here.

Geoff: 1:05

And we're going to do a gig tonight too.

Derek: 1:07

We certainly are. We've got my quintet playing tonight with Sebastiaan de Krom, the fabulous David Newton and the lovely Martin Shaw. Fantastic. And there's a very fine bass player on the gig as well.

Geoff: 1:17

I thought we'd just start with a little chat. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and what you've achieved so far in your life Wow.

Derek: 1:25

How long have you got? I've had all sorts of different musical jackets on over the years. I started out playing saxophone at about the age of 12, persuaded my dad to buy me one. Saxophone was purely down to the joy of the Pink Panther. About 12 years old I went to hear my dad's band and they were doing a radio broadcast there with the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra.

Geoff: 1:45

So your dad was an arranger, wasn't he? Yeah?

Derek: 1:46

he was mainly arranger. He obviously played piano as well and did quite a lot of gigs himself. So I grew up listening to piano around the house all the time and he was a great one for chords and voicings and things like that. So I just turned up and it was half term. Go with your dad to work. So I had to sit and listen to a 16, 17 piece big band playing and the Pink Panther film had just come out and Gary Cox, amazing tenor player, was playing the Pink Panther theme for a recording for radio. Probably the light program in those days as it was called and I just thought that's what I want to do.

Derek: 2:20

So from then onwards, joined schools bands, went to university, actually did an acoustics course at university. All got complicated because I couldn't do physics, maths and music at school as A level. So my parents said we'll get another string to your bow. So I thought the next best thing is acoustics. Joined the BBC, did 20 odd years of there as a sound assistant to a sound engineer, becoming a deputy sound supervisor, mainly in television, though, so not necessarily music all the time. They had its own music studio at the BBC called TMS, which was based at Shepherds Bush and I got involved in that so we were recording the music that was then used on television programmes. So worked an awful lot with people like Ronnie Hazlehurst and doing music for Hetty Wainthropp and Last of the Summer Wine with Jack Em Emblow on accordion. We used to have a little joke about probably the richest person that was ever walking through the gates of a television centre was probably Ronnie.

Derek: 3:10

Hazlehurst because he had so many amazing television signature tunes all going at the same time. Playing saxophone just continued throughout all of this. I was notorious at the BBC for disappearing on Saturday nights and swapping shifts. Disappearing on Saturday nights and swapping shifts. I can't do Match of the Day Saturday night, because I've got a gig.

Derek: 3:28

Can I do your Blue Peter on Tuesday instead? All that kind of um. So eventually, um, I quit the BBC to run my recording studio and play saxophone full time. I had this kind of early midlife crisis. That said, I don't want to be one of those people that thought I wonder if I could just play saxophone all the time and here I am 20 odd years later playing saxophone all the time and here. I am, 20-odd years later, playing saxophone all the time.

Geoff: 3:45

There you go, and your studio was called Clowns Pocket, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Derek: 3:49

Great name. It's got several meanings, but basically something you know. It looks like a normal tiny little space pocket on the outside and it's much bigger and all sorts of magical things happen within it and there weren't there.

Derek: 4:05

oh gosh, I mean uh you brought Jamie Cullum to me. We did the first, the first ever Jamie Cullum album. And then he came back to me and said look, I want to do an album in my own right but I can't afford it. I don't know what to do. So I I just knew, you know he was one of those that you just knew he was great. So I said, look, come and record it. You will get a deal and I'll get paid eventually. I don't care. So I like to think I kind of helped him get up there. And then we did George Melly albums with Digby Fairweather and Georgie Fame turned up at certain times. All sorts of people have been in and out. Stan Tracey. I did at least three, maybe four albums for Stan Tracey which was an amazing thing to do as well.

Geoff: 4:38

And also, you're good with singers, aren't you?

Derek: 4:39

Yeah, I've worked with so many singers, you develop a sort of little language of how to be polite. Well, I don't think it was a great take. So you kind of subtly suggest maybe we'll just do a couple more takes of that bridge, just in case. Can we just guide this? There is a whole sound engineering art. I mean, it's people management and that is what running a recording studio is all about. It is yeah, I found out when I moved house. I have an enormous bucket of CDs. I mean it's huge. It's the kind of thing that you take when you're moving house and I've made every single one of those albums. It's hundreds, it's thousands of albums and EPs and stuff I've recorded over the years.

Geoff: 5:19

So it's been an incredible thing. That's a big legacy, isn't it? Yeah, so, getting back to your playing, what's your earliest memory of improvising, for example?

Derek: 5:26

Well, no one told me I couldn't improvise and I used to sit with my dad's band. It was called the Wally MacKenzie Dance Band, Melody Maker Runner Band of the Year 1954. I used to say that on the back of the cards. It always made me smile, that did. I sat next to the other saxophone players so they would play a melody or a chorus or something, or September in the Rain, or something like that, and then they'd improvise and I would just hear this happen and thought, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm just, instead of the tune, I'm making up my own tune at this moment. So no one told me I couldn't improvise. I thought, oh, that's what you do.

Geoff: 5:57

Once you were improvising. How did you learn? How did you get a vocabulary?

Derek: 6:05

I think the most important thing is to listen to thousands of other players and then transcribe it and then try and copy it, because basically it's like learning new words. Every time you hear a new word you try and use it, and then you have to use it sensibly. In a sentence, I discovered Sonny Stitt before I discovered Charlie Parker, and so a friend of my dad's lent me a cassette and when I heard Charlie Parker I just thought, oh, he's just a Sonny Stitt imitator. And then I started to go a little bit sideways. I was listening to pop music as well, and then Steely Dan.

Derek: 6:30

Then I suddenly saw Victor Feldman was on Steely Dan albums and I ended up with a school's band and we ended up playing at the Albert Hall and Ronnie Scott was our guest. It was called the School's Proms. So we all went down to Ronnie Scott's club, we begged him. Could we go? You know a bunch of 13, 14-year-olds and he let us all in and Victor Feldman was on that night with his trio. So I got to hear Victor Feldman and kind of like the gates of heaven opened, wow. And I was going forward and backwards at the same time. So Weather Report and David Sanborn were appearing at one end of the spectrum and the early smooth jazz people like Grover Washington Jr and Ronnie Laws, but then also I was going Sonny Stitt, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Pepper, Hank Mobley. So I was kind of just I just couldn't believe there was all this stuff and I needed to listen to all of it and I needed to somehow absorb it.

Geoff: 7:21

So what about instruments then? Were you playing tenor or alto, or which saxophone were you playing?

Derek: 7:25

Originally I was an alto player and then I was alto and soprano in the early version of Sax Appeal, which is the eight-piece band I still run. And that's still what it's nearly 50 years now 50?, 50 years of Sax Appeal. I was at school when I started. Wow, that's crazy yeah saxophone was the sax section of the youth big band that I played in, which is called Stockport School Stage Sound, so you just thought I don't need the brass I don't need the brass just on the saxophone just five saxophones, piano, bass, drums.

Derek: 7:51

It's a big band without trumpets and trombones. That's what Sax Appeal was right and that was really inspired. We used to do school trips every year to go and see the Buddy Rich Big Band and just hearing Buddy Rich play, swing, play, funk, funk. They were doing Birdland and Steve Marcus was in the band. Bob Mintzer was the first baritone player I ever saw with him. Andy Fusco on the alto those people that was another massive awakening for me.

Geoff: 8:15

So what age would you have been at?

Derek: 8:16

this point, Probably 15, 16 by then. Wow, two or three years into playing, I mean, the band I was playing was still doing In the Mood and String of Pearls and things like that, but we were just beginning to play a couple of Chicago things 25, 6 to 4, and things like this. So I was beginning to learn about all of that stuff.

Geoff: 8:35

Were there seminal albums that you'd listened to around this time? Is there particular ones that you would count as memorable albums?

Derek: 8:42

I mean certainly Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section was absolutely massive. Hank Mobley's Soul Station was massive. Something else actually, which was the Cannonball Adley, Miles Davis, that for me, was above some of the Miles Davis sextet albums there's something about that album. There's something else about it. Then I remember somebody giving me the Coltrane Meets Cannonball and that really did blow my head.

Geoff: 9:07

Yeah, also had a really early love of progressive rock as well so Camel Caravan, Genesis and I know you loved 10cc as well, like I do 10cc absolutely adored 10cc.

Derek: 9:20

I had kind of felt an affinity because they were based in Stockport and I was born in Stockport. So the original Strawberry Studios was in Stockport and then when the Northern Dance Orchestra couldn't record where they normally recorded, they went to Strawberry Studios to record there. So I went there, stood in that room and they owned that studio, didn't they?

Geoff: 9:39

They owned that studio.

Derek: 9:40

Sat there. I've touched the desk that I'm Not In Love was recorded on Absolutely sat there.

Geoff: 9:43

I've touched the desk that I'm Not In Love was recorded on, absolutely fantastic.

Derek: 9:45

Amazing, so I used to love all of those, and probably the pop band I saw more than anything else was 10cc Wow.

Geoff: 9:58

So, have you thought about a standard you might want to play today?

Derek: 10:01

I had a quick look through the list. Boy is it comprehensive. It's fantastic.

Geoff: 10:04

It looks like you've got your baritone out there. So are we thinking about Gerry Mulligan a bit here.

Derek: 10:08

Which Mulligans have you got?

Geoff: 10:09

Let's have a look here.

Derek: 10:10

I know Bernie's Tune's in there, I've seen that.

Geoff: 10:12

So I'm just typing in Gerry Mulligan and anything that's associated with Gerry Mulligan, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You, Line for Lyons. Oh yeah, that's specific of him, isn't it? Let me go down the list here. Walking Shoes, oh yeah. Yeah, that's a nice one, isn't it? Yeah, okay, do you want to play that one?

Derek: 10:33

Yeah, why not?

Geoff: 10:34

We're going to play two choruses of Walking Shoes by Gerry Mulligan. Did he write this? Yes, Derek's going to be hinting at the tune. He won't be playing the tune. He's going to hint at the tune and we'll talk about it afterwards. So here we go. All right, recognise that drum. Thank you. Thank you, that was really great. I love the way you hinted at the tune there, but you kind of played it round the other way.

Derek: 13:04

Yeah, so, just talking as a jazzer, a melody is just a bucket full of ideas. Yeah, so each single fragment of the melody, be it two notes, three notes, four notes, eight notes, can all be used as your bucket of ideas. So you play with the rhythm, you play with the pitch, you play with the volume of it, you play with the contour of it. Contour is something people don't think about, so for a phrase goes but, but, but, do that, but, but, but, but. So you just think I can imagine the contour, the shape of those three notes, and then you head up like that. Yeah, so if you just keep expanding the contour or take it lower or do exactly the same thing, the opposite direction, yeah, playing around with the contour of a phrase, for me is is great fun and it's always worth exploring and trying to do something yeah, great.

Geoff: 13:49

So what were you thinking about in mid-flow then? Was anything particular going through your mind?

Derek: 13:54

It is funny because I do treat jazz these days as almost like you're driving a car. You don't think about the nuts and bolts, you just look at the road ahead and you do what's required to safely negotiate that road.

Geoff: 14:08

So does that analogy like sometimes I don't remember driving home, you don't remember the solo?

Derek: 14:14

No, you don't remember, I don't know what I played. I know I took the melody and I sort of turned it upside down. So rather than going so, I took the rhythm and turned it upside down and then I kind of listen to what I've played and then start, because I'm very much a theme and variations guy. So I'll listen to what I played and use that. And then I've also got this idea of the shape of the tune and what chords are coming up and as we're approaching the bridge, my brain has already decided a nice little phrase to start the first chord of the bridge. I'm actually thinking in the new key. So my finger muscle memory has thought about what I'm going to play and then?

Geoff: 14:58

well, that will. That will give you an idea for what to play next.

Derek: 15:01

Yes, yeah, usually. And then, uh, because this app uses human beings and he not some of those I won't use disparaging words, but less spiritually satisfying apps that play backings. I'm getting ideas because it's Graham Harvey on piano. It is yeah, and it's wonderful. So if you leave a tiny bit of space in your solo with this app, I heard something to bounce back off, and I did. I heard Graham just do a little fill or something. He just suddenly went diddle-a-dum and I heard this lovely four-note thing and it's just like having a real band behind you.

Derek: 15:34

And in which case I can do that, and it moves up to the ride cymbal for the second chorus.

Geoff: 15:40

No, it doesn't.

Geoff: 15:41

That was me miming it, but it went into four.

Geoff: 15:43

So traditionally what happens in these tunes, most of the tunes will be two choruses. The first chorus will be the bass playing in two, the second will be in four. So it just gives it that kind of moving into the next gear kind of vibe.

Derek: 15:55

Well, that's so much better than any other app that I've ever worked with. Just that alone gives you a chance, and then your solo will be different because you've got a different bass part going underneath it. Yeah, this is true.

Geoff: 16:07

And of course you can loop it as many times, but the loop will go from the four sections, so from the swingy bit. It will loop as many times as you want. And you can also see I forgot to mention you can see the chords display in real time in B-flat or E-flat.

Derek: 16:29

Oh, now you tell me the chords are available to look at. Oh, it's just so long because we got this quartet, we have this Gerry Mulligan pianoless quartet album to still come out. That's going to come out this year, isn't? It is going to come out this year, and it's one of those things.

Derek: 16:35

We recorded it pre-lockdown, oh my god, and I mixed it during lockdown, and then I got involved with other things and other things happened in in my life and and it just sat on the back burner and actually I was inspired by some incredible artwork by Alban Low and I suddenly thought I have to put this album out. So it's going to come out, and that's one of the tunes on the album, or certainly one of the tunes that we used to do with that quartet. Yeah, so let's get back to doing some of those. It's such a great idea. When's that going to come out then? Um, I would say September, October, and then we'll probably tour it early next year January, February, 26. Fantastic, we'll try and get five or six gigs together with it that'll be really good fun amazing. Now on this app

Derek: 17:15

if I wanted to emulate that, can I turn the piano player off and just have bass and drums? Of course you can Derek of course you can. Okay, so I can actually emulate. Yeah, even with another horn player we could do the Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker pianoless versions of these. We could yeah. Sadly sorry, Mr Graham Harvey, because you are so talented, turning you off.

Geoff: 17:32

Great, OK, there's another one on here. Actually, I want to show you Just bear with a second. I remember playing a bass introduction and I think it might be Line for Lyons. Let me just try this. Oh yeah, that's the one you thought we were playing first.

Derek: 18:01

That's the one I thought we were playing first Because you'd mentioned it. So obviously I'm subconscious, and they're both in G as well, aren't they?

Geoff: 18:07

They're both in G, so you'll probably find fragments of both as you speak. I just turned off the piano so you can have this. So it'll sound like this Instantly, you've got instant Gerry Mulligan, instant Gerry Mulligan. That's fantastic. And then I'm going to put the piano back in. Hold on. There's the piano. Yeah, we can also have a soloist in here. I forget who's soloing on this one, but I need to be on the internet. I'm not the internet, so I can't do that. Okay, anyway, so but that facility is available.

Derek: 18:44

Oh, stop, stop, stop, sorry, that facility is available to actually have a soloist.

Geoff: 18:47

Yes, so you have a soloist on there.

Derek: 18:50

So if you're a piano player and you want to comp along with a soloist, you can do that with a decent bass, drummer, so it's just as equally valid.

Geoff: 18:56

You can do that, or even be a bass player. That's true, yeah.

Derek: 18:59

Okay.

Geoff: 19:01

I was thinking about doing a couple of quickfire questions to end it. Your favourite sandwich?

Derek: 19:09

Usually some sort of cheese and pickle. I'll always go for that, although saying that anything, Coronation Chicken.

Geoff: 19:13

Oh, okay.

Geoff: 19:15

Your favourite venue to play.

Derek: 19:17

There's something amazing about doing the Albert Hall Now. I know that sounds a bit crass, but yeah, no, that's true.

Geoff: 19:24

Favourite country or city?

Derek: 19:27

Rome or Seville. Okay.

Geoff: 19:31

This is one that my daughter suggested. Favourite chord.

Derek: 19:34

Favourite chord.

Derek: 19:37

I love flat nines because you can then use diminished and rip around all over the place. Yep, that's a good answer, and they're just sexy enough, but you can still play all the roots and get away with over the place. Yep, that's a good answer, and they're just sexy enough, but you can still play all the roots and get away with it as well.

Geoff: 19:47

Do you ever get nervous on stage? When was the last time?

Derek: 19:51

Yes, but very rarely. I do remember being on the main stage at Glastonbury with Jools, which was pretty amazing.

Geoff: 20:00

Yeah.

Derek: 20:01

And we were only doing an hour set and we normally do a two hour set. Yeah, started playing the intro. Oh gosh, that was butterflies. I suddenly realized, a main stage at Glastonbury. I was going to have to do this and it was being televised live as well yeah so I think that was the last time I got nervous.

Derek: 20:32

And sometimes actually the tiny little venues if I've got new music, yeah, I actually get quite nervous because you've got real jack. You see, you might Jools playing to thousands of people, but no, they've paid a lot of money to see Jools with their. I know the gig's going to work and everyone's going to have a good time. Yeah, when it's your music that you really care about, yeah, that's a bit different.

Geoff: 20:52

Yeah, yeah, um, what would you say is your musical weakness?

Derek: 20:57

Oh, sight reading, sight reading I'm not a great sight reader. Um, I never did it very often. So you know me, Geoff, if I do any gig, I will always ask for the charts in advance. I don't mind doing my homework. I'll do my stuff, but don't just throw stuff in front of me and expect it to happen.

Geoff: 21:13

Okay, okay, excellent. What was the last concert you attended?

Derek: 21:18

I've been out a couple of times recently, but it's both comedians. I went to see Jimmy Carr and Jack Dee over the last month, but I haven't seen any bands. Isn't that terrible? I was at a festival not so long back and I saw Beth Hart and I just thought she was amazing.

Geoff: 21:32

That's a good one. Yeah, excellent. Any advice for young musicians starting out?

Derek: 21:37

Play any kind of music anywhere. Grab any musical opportunity, even if you think it's a genre that you would not normally play or not even enjoy. One of two things will happen. You'll actually either discover it's not the genre for you, but you've got to try it, and the second thing that's going to happen is you're going to meet all sorts of like-minded musical people that are perfectly happy to try out any musical, and the networking that you do by just taking any gig anywhere and trying stuff out will be amazing.

Geoff: 22:08

Excellent. Who or what was your biggest influence?

Derek: 22:13

Well, my biggest influence is the love child that doesn't exist, but if David Sanborn and Cannonball Adderly had one, that would be it,

Geoff: 22:20

Don't you think the alto saxophone is amazing.

Geoff: 22:22

It's the one instrument that you know. You compare Paul Desmond to David Sanborn, and and how it's like a completely different instrument, isn't? It it's completely amazing it is completely different.

Derek: 22:33

Wow, uh, and I actually, I find pawns.. find In Jools hardest. Even though I started first, 12 years old, started on alto, yeah, I still find it the most challenging. It's it's it's the mistress that gives you most grief, wow, um, but I love it But you play alto in Jools band, don't you exclusively?

Geoff: 22:50

yeah, do you wish you played the other pawns um, because J J because

Derek: 22:55

Uh, in a weird way, I'd quite enjoy playing baritone with Jools because it's kind of rhythm and blues bass, so there's lots of fantastic. You really feel you're holding the whole section. Yeah, then again I'd love to take all the big roaring tenor solos, and when I go out with people like Ben Waters I just play tenor all night and ground away and jump around the stage and have a good time.

Geoff: 23:14

So, okay, fantastic. And one last one your favourite album. I think I know what you're going to say, but I think I know what you're going to say.

Derek: 23:22

It could be Soul Station, Soul Station or something else, yeah.

Geoff: 23:27

Excellent. Thank you so much for coming today. Absolute pleasure and it's been really, really good fun. I'll see you soon, Great Thanks.

Announcement: 23:33

Geoff Bye. Thank you for 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 iOS, taking your jazz play along to another level. Search for Quartet on the App Store or find out more at quartetappdotcom.