Geoff: 0:01

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here, hope you're well. Today I'm in Box Hill and it's south of London. I'm going to speak to a legend, a legend of the British jazz scene. His name is Stan Sulzmann. He is a tenor player and a flute player and he's got some great stories to tell. He's done it all. He's going to chat to me about Kenny Wheeler, about touring, about studio stuff. So I'm really looking forward to speaking to him.

Geoff: 0:46

Here we go.

Announcement: 0:47

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Stan: 1:04

Three pints please. Stan. How great to see you, lovely to see you. You found it, then, obviously Good. You have a set that's pretty good here, isn't it? As you can see what happens, that's beautiful.

Geoff: 1:20

Stan, there you are. How lovely to see you. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you for inviting me. Can we talk about how you got started in jazz and your background of it?

Stan: 1:31

I got a saxophone when I was about 13 because I lived in Essex, Harold Hill, a big council house estate. I was born in the age of Islington actually, we were rehoused after the Second World War, like a lot of people were from London and my dad was a semi-pro musician, right, he played a bit of piano and accordion. He couldn't read music or anything, but he had a busking book with all the tunes, all the standards you know, but it was just written out in notes like A, c, d, e, just in notes like that. Yeah, yeah, anyway. And he played accordion. Accordion was a big instrument in those days. And then we moved to Essex. Eventually we went to Harold Hill Grammar School and of course that was still the days. Instrument lessons and stuff were free in the schools and the instruments were free. You could go in and they'd give you something you know Amazing now when you think about it Out of what was available, available, I sort of asked for a flute or a French horn, I don't know why, French horn anyway, but they'd all gone, so they'd all been taken. So, oh, and I wasn't really doing me, I didn't. I never did do music at school, ever. Anyway, I was never allowed to take music I mean, it's nuts, this anyway but my. So I was about 13 and my dad wasn't playing any longer.

Stan: 2:40

We were in now in Essex, a long story short, we he decided to sell it. We went to Charing Cross Road and then which used to have a Selmer shop so anybody knows about saxophones called Selmer's, one of the big makes. There was actually a Selmer shop in Charing Cross Road, so in we trooped, you know, and of course I'm completely boggled with all these nice shiny instruments everywhere and he bought me a secondhand Selmer Super Action. I think it was lovely, old tenor, beautiful and part exchanges his accordion because he wasn't playing. And so back I went home to Essex and there were no teachers anywhere or anything and looked in a paper in the local paper and we found the saxophone lessons from this guy, Terry Porter, who lived in Becontree near Dagenham, and of course it was a very unpopular instrument at the time. All my friends and the kids used to laugh at you. What's that? It's a saxophone. It was the age of three guitars and drums, as you know. But he was a great teacher, very good musician, but he had no formal training about jazz. He used to loan me his records, don't scratch it. Yeah, exactly yeah, because, um, oh, he's a lovely man.

Stan: 3:47

So we stayed in touch right up to till he passed a few years ago, taught you to play the instrument really well. It was a bit old school, you know. There was things like, well, no, you put it in, you have to do this with your lip and you mustn't know. That's right, you know. It's like there was a way to do it, but it didn't work for me. You know I was having trouble with lips and teeth and stuff.

Stan: 4:02

But these guys played in dance bands and stuff. I mean they made fantastic sounds. They projected sound. Funny enough, a little bit later on I was still very young because of Andy McIntosh. I knew Andy when he came in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and through all that and I got to him and we did a few gigs with his dad's big band because he didn't have a saxophone section. Ken, his dad would walk around the front of the stage playing the alto. It's a huge sound. Now they don't mean huge, thin, raspy, it was just like an incredible. They do have to fill a room with sound. I was taught to play like that, you know.

Geoff: 4:35

Did you transcribe? No, nobody ever talks about that?

Stan: 4:39

No, nobody told me about that. All I did was sit at home because nobody else I didn't know anybody that liked jazz. Nobody at all. Nobody, except at school. My French teacher turned out played a bit of piano, but he didn't say much because he was a bit frowned upon in the school. You see, jazz was his school and the art teacher. I took my tenor in to show him and he was thrilled. He said it's all a bit in the corner, don't? And he was tall and thin, with a big beard. And what did he play? Baritone. And he looked like Gerry Mulligan.

Stan: 5:08

That's why he loved it. You know he wa a piece of a baritone player.

Stan: 5:11

But I didn't know anybody on the estate and I used to just play in my bedroom with a little Dansette record player a horrible thing on four legs, you know. Legs, you know. And it was the old black leg with the gold feet on the stuff. Mono, of course, you know. Wonder of mono, yeah, and then you play your LPs. Let's just sit and play along with them. So I had records.

Geoff: 5:30

There's ones that were nice to play along with okay, so you've got your vocabulary from just from imitating stuff.

Stan: 5:37

Well, just listening to those records, and playing along, but I don't think I really had any vocabulary. Nobody ever talked about the idea, so nobody ever said anything about any of that. I just played along and might picked up the odd phrase yeah, and I mean, I really didn't know how they did it. You know what I mean. So and then. But then we moved back to London. I was playing in a few pop groups type things at school and then I took a job at Wimbledon Palais, which was great, three nights a week in the house band playing top ten hits. It was a nice little band but we just played pop tunes. I had a red mohair suit and Beatle boots and I loved it. I was only 15, 16. Imagine being in this massive ballroom.

Geoff: 6:16

That's young, that's amazing.

Stan: 6:18

I was on the side of the stage so all the bands used to come, all the big rock.. Even the Beatles played there when they first started On Friday nights was the guest and Jerry Lee Lewis guy holding the piano legs up with Jerry Lee Lewis jumping about on top of his old white piano. You know, yeah, it was mad, yeah, but Fame Fames used to come through there. Yeah, and I loved Georgie's band.

Stan: 6:37

And then I was working there and then, somehow or other, we got involved with a band, the guys who got a few gigs at the Flamingo in Wardour Street, which was the R&B club you know Well.

Geoff: 6:45

Georgie Fane talked about that all the time. Yeah, when on gigs. Well, that's the time.

Stan: 6:49

I used to go there when he was there because I was thrilled because he'd be playing there and we'd do these ridiculous things You'd do the all-nighter the all could do a gig in Nottingham and get back in time to do the all nighter. I was still at school. I should never have done it really, but I loved it and I was still playing at the Wimbledon Palais. My dad saw an advert in the paper . . He was forming a jazz orchestra, the London Youth Jazz Orchestra, which became the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Bill Ashton's forming this band, looking for people interested to come along. So my dad called it up because you know, so this is the day you or you just had a phone if you were lucky, yeah or you had to go out and use a pay phone. And that's how I got involved in jazz really any proper, because that's the first time I met other people that, like jazz, left school at 15, got a job in an insurance company because I was told that was a safe job.

Geoff: 7:42

You know something to fall back on?

Stan: 7:43

yes, yeah, this is your job, and then you play a bit in the evenings, which is why my dad bought me a saxophone to do what he did yeah, more playing those pub gigs and stuff than he did working, you know, as a clerk. But anyway I was still going to NYGO at that time, you know, I was still young, only 16, 17. Somebody got in touch with Bill. They were short of a saxophone player to go on the Queen Mary, so that's how I went on there in 67 and I did a year on there, so 17 or 18. I went to New York, you know, in and out every three weeks on the Mary, which was me like I can't even begin to tell you.

Geoff: 8:17

I've been everywhere for a jazz musician to go to New York in the 60s Talk us through what you saw, I mean what you must have seen.

Stan: 8:23

Well, you, can't, because you couldn't get there any other way. As you know, the famous one you know, Dankworth used to do it, Ronnie Scott did it. Everybody took jobs on the Mary and t t because because of no cheap flights and it cost you a fortune. So you get to New York and you're docked on 52nd Street. So there you are and the first thing I a 24-hour restaurant which you've never seen, never heard of, you know.

Stan: 8:43

So we're off, we trooped in there trying to get served, and then you carry on walking up 52nd Street and the first place you came to was the Hickory House, which was like a Berni Inn, like a steakhouse, big one. It had an oval-shaped stage in the middle of the room and the trio was Billy Taylor Trio with Grady Tate and Bob Crenshaw, you know. God God, and a trio with Grady Tate and Bob Cranshaw, you know. And they used to sit in the bath, sit around the bath, and it was not really an entrance fee, just bought a drink, you know, which was reasonably expensive, but you could just go in and have a drink and hear the trio. And then we used to buy a paper called the Village Voice. Village Voice, I remember it well maybe look at it.

Stan: 9:19

Or there was a phone number called the Jazz Line. They used to find a phone booth or a phone, yeah, somewhere, call the jazz line. And it went. Good evening jazz lovers. You know, in town tonight at the Blue Note we have blah, blah, blah. Yeah, cover charge so and so two dollars or something. You know Village Vanguard, and you have a bit of paper and a pencil and you sit there writing it all down. So we'd all be sat in the Hickory House, you know we'd listen to what we're going to see tonight where are you going?

Stan: 9:44

well, I'm going there, I want to go in here, so and so, so enough. We'd all go different places, but of course they all played to, like Ronnie's. They all worked till three in the morning, so you could make two or three places, you didn't have to go to one. So I mean I went to all sorts sorts of things. I went loads to the Village Vanguard, Mel and Thad's band.

Stan: 10:04

You know the original band yeah the very original band, um six or seven times at least. Yeah, and saw Herbie Hancock depping with the band, you know, with his head, with his glasses on, looking at the pile of paper, you know. And in the Vanguard I saw, uh, Bill Evans Trio with Philly Joe um, did you?

Geoff: 10:20

remember Les McCann. Yeah, yeah, it's great to watch.

Stan: 10:23

Yeah, but at that time you know he's got a thing. But with Leroy Vinnegar, yeah, and I've never forgotten Leroy Vinnegar, isn't it funny? I talked to Dave Holland about that. I think he's got Leroy's old bass. Really, he's really had a thing about Leroy.

Stan: 10:50

I remember sitting in front black guy with the biggest smile I've ever seen playing the bass.

Stan: 10:52

You know that walking thing with a big smile like, yeah, I've got an album of his Leroy Walks!, yeah, Walks Again. And he's just on the front of the cover with his bass and he's walking with a big smile. Oh, he's fabulous, wow. But he's on some of those Sonny Rollins records as well, isn't he? Yeah, I went to the Blue Note. I saw. I saw Elvin with the band, because that's the year Coltrane died. He, he didn't play anymore and he was a bit worse for wear. Let's put it that way, Elvin.

Stan: 11:06

But I didn't really understand all this. And there was nobody in there. I mean, a lot of these clubs were empty. You know, jazz was dying at that time. But I saw incredible things, like Lionel Hampton's big band, the Metropole Bar, you know the legendary bar, all all in a straight line down the bar, because that's all the depth there was. It was a one straight long bar, that's all there was, and behind it was a raised bit which is, say, from that wall to here. So there's only room to like one person or the drum kit or that. So, depending on what you want to listen to, you could move to the section you're interested in.

Stan: 11:36

You move down the bar one end to the other. Memorable, the two really memorable gigs. One was Joe Henderson with Kenny Barron, Louis Hayes, and so I saw that and then the other major gig, which was fabulous.

Stan: 11:50

That was fantastic. You know, Joe Henderson, what a master.

Stan: 11:51

Oh, we went to the Village Gate. We went in that classic double bill, Miles Davis Quintet and Dizzy Gillespie Quintet and they got to the door and the guy said where do you want to sit? It was only like $2 to get in or something. It was so cheap. I said, well, I don't know, the stage was built out and it had a couple of rows of just tables, yeah, and I could see it was sort of fairly empty. I said, can we go? He said yeah, so we sat on the stage in front of the bands. Oh my.

Stan: 12:20

God, so you know Dizzy's band was great James Moody.

Stan: 12:24

But the Miles band that would have been Herbie, Tony and Ron and Wayne, yeah, that's the band, and I mean I'd never heard any music like that ever.

Geoff: 12:31

I mean I'd never heard any records or anything like that, so by 67, it would have been fairly out right, it's a bit like Plugged Nickel, isn't it?

Stan: 12:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. And I sat on the stage and we just sat there with our mouths open. I couldn't imagine what that's like. You know what I mean. So it's not like oh yeah, fantastic, you just, I had no idea, completely puzzled by it.

Geoff: 12:53

you know Right. Did you understand what they were doing at this stage?

Stan: 12:56

No, of course not, I had no idea at all. You just go away with this thing that you've heard. Wow, incredible.

Geoff: 13:02

So how was Miles in that gig. What was he like to watch? I found it.

Stan: 13:07

It's all a bit I can't think of the right word. I was going to say frightening, scary, but a bit dark. I suppose they're all kind of serious. And they all walked on. Miles didn't say anything, got his back to the man and just a few taps of his foot. I don't know if it went and it's off. And that's it. And I was just sort of looking at these, as opposed to say like Dizzy who's telling funny stories.

Geoff: 13:30

Yeah, completely opposite, isn't it?

Stan: 13:31

Complete opposite, there's a show, you know, but Miles was just the music.

Geoff: 13:35

you know Dave Holland talks about that, doesn't he? He talks about his first experience with Miles just walking onto the stage with Jack DeJohnette, and he says that Miles didn't speak, he just started and it was da da, da, da, da da. And Dave, he described it as just being pulled along in a force field by the band, just being swept up into it. That's right, he knew Jack DeJohnette. He knew Jack in London.

Stan: 13:58

Yeah, I was at that gig. I went to those gigs. He was was playing with Bill Evans at Ronnie's yeah is what was going on. Yeah, and the first sets Dave Holland was playing with Ronnie Scott's quartet yeah and Ronnie never used to play the first sets because there's nobody in you know?

Stan: 14:11

yeah, that's when Miles saw Dave, yeah and he got and so the story you know called out. Yeah, you know, white English bass player turned up. It was not what he wanted. He said Herbie was fantastic, he's called to come around in the afternoon. And yeah, he said, look, we might do this. Show him a few things. He said don't, you can't have any music on the stage. He was just unheard of. Yeah, he said, but look, he should write a few things just on a piece of paper. Put me in the well, the piano, look over. So that's what he did, you know he said Herbie

Stan: 14:42

He was really nice to him, and so was Tony. Later on it all kind of settled and I think he maybe sort of apologised to him for being so hard on him. And Wayne is Wayne, isn't he? I presume he's sort of out to lunch somewhere. Well, he was, wasn't he? In a nice way he's on another planet. Yeah, he's sort of walking around, Talk about baptism of fire, you know. Yeah, so I mean I did that whole year hearing all this music and of course I was very young, very naive. Nobody taught me anything. I had a great schooling and everything. I had a great life, but nobody taught me very much about making a life or something. You know, it was just this. I'll get a decent job, you know, you'll be right Something safe.

Geoff: 15:23

How old were you when you quit the day job then?

Stan: 15:26

Well, I came off the boat, so I would have been 18. Then I went to the BBC and worked in the record library for a short period because I thought it was something connected with music. I was basically a librarian there, Eg in the house, you know, just up from there, and then this job came on the Mary, 67, so I was born in 48, working out. When I came off I tried for the Guildhall and I didn't get in because I was trying to do first study flute and obviously it wasn't good enough. I wanted flute lessons and then I went to the academy and did saxophone and I got in. And, of course, John Dankworth was the first guy that came in teaching saxophone at the Academy and they put me with him. But, funny enough, by that time I just started doing gigs with his band and so I spent three years at the Academy, but I was what you, what you, would call a mature student. You know, yeah, um, I was also married incredibly young and um, and I was gigging a lot and working with these bands.

Stan: 16:17

I had a great time at the Academy. I wasted a lot of it. I think in hindsight, things that I could have done and learned about, but I didn't have the mental mechanisms, I didn't understand how. So I entered in the business thinking it was just about being a musician not inverted commas, a jazz musician. I mean, I actually played at the Bag O'Nails Jimi Hendrix and he just kind of played the bass. Can I sit in on bass guitar? Yeah, sure, you know, we were like just kids, you know, with an amateur rock and roll blues band, R and B band, you know.

Stan: 16:48

So I was married and I got a phone call in the middle of the night and I mean, you know, like three or four, when we were asleep, I mean I don't know, is it? Oh, it's Pete King here you know, Ronnie's Pete Yeah, he said you, you working on Friday You know, I went, Pete it's three o'clock. Yeah, we said well, said well, got a gig for you. It's in Germany. It's Kenny Clarke Francy Boland Big Band. Do you want to do it? You know I go what? It was a record with Stan Getz. So you've got to remember I'm only like 20, 21 or something. I mean only for three years before I had a collection of 78 Stan Getz records I thought I'd bought in Dobell's with my dad. I went, oh, yeah, yeah, because they knew I could read, because I'd been in Dankworth's band. So the next minute.

Stan: 17:29

I went with Tony Coe because Tony wouldn't fly anywhere, terrified of flying. So I went on the ferry and the train to Cologne. So I turned up there to do this gig, you know, and of course I was thrilled is one thing, but I was terrified, absolutely petrified you know?

Geoff: 17:48

I don't know any of these people. You're mixing with the big boys here, aren't you?

Stan: 17:50

this is serious and of course everybody knew everybody. So you know that kind of everybody's back slapping and cuddling and hey man, how you doing it's all firing on because I don't know anybody, you know just Derek and Derek Watkins and stuff. So I sat there and I do the gig and it all went fine. I remember when Stan Getz appeared in the room because I'd had all these records and then some of the English guys of probably best to say they weren't named names, but some of the guys that were well known at the time, and through that you know, when the music had gone very kind of um, everybody was Coltrane mad. You know modal kind of music man thought it was, everything had to be full on. You know, like energy, stay guess. You know it's terrible, wasn't a sound, you know that whispery thing sound anyway in walks Getz and I'm sort of I couldn't believe it.

Stan: 18:37

you know, stands right in front of me because in front of the sax is and turn around, starts playing and the whole room is filled with this sound. It's the same thing about projection making a sound. It isn't volume, that's not what it is. That's the first time I learned about what that is. It's something different. It's something about being centred and about making things go that way. Getz was nice. I met him again in London at Ronnie's after that. He's very nice. People have always put, as have hired, you know, put big bands together because we like for fun. But I mean Francy's, that band, Kenny Clarke Francy Boland Boland. It's because of the people in it. It got good gigs and could do a tour or something. You know Chris Pine Ken, Wheeler did. You know he was doing loads of studio TV shows yeah a lot of sessions around in those days.

Geoff: 19:31

Well, there was a load of work.

Stan: 19:32

yeah, there was a ton of work because we are completely pre-synthesizers and computers and everything. So rock and roll bands don't hire horns to come in and play stuff.

Stan: 19:41

But there was TV shows if you were a good doubler, films and this and so all of a sudden somebody called me out the blue, you know to work for one of the fixers they because they were always looking for who's coming up and that what you work for suddenly, for David Katz and then one of the other ones that hear about you, then your name would be passed and the other someone else would ring you up next minute. You'd be getting to do work, because it's all freelance, obviously, as you know, and you worked for these people who? They were very dubious characters, you know. There was so much work. You could walk out of things if you didn't like it and still had plenty of work, because did you find yourself on big pop sessions and things like this?

Geoff: 20:15

yeah, you did loads of stuff. What sort of things did you do?

Stan: 20:17

Things for Elton John, but of course on your titles it would just be a working title, but working. So you didn't know what church and we never wrote any of them down because it was just what you're doing. I don't know something. down at Henley he turned up to anyone what we're doing. Oh, it's Elton John tracks. You know, you wouldn't even know before you got there and by the time we left you'd be in too hurry to get to the pub and you weren't really bothered, just to go no, yeah, you don't write any of it down or anything, because obviously it became later on, when PPL opened up, everybody was trying to scramble up to

Stan: 20:44

find what they played on. I've got a few McCartney things. I did, you know, Broad Street and then some other. Then there was a Christmas single I played on.

Stan: 20:53

At that time my marriage had fallen apart, I was getting divorced, I was on my own and I got this call oh, we're doing a promo video of that record with McCartney. So would you like to do it? Well, I needed the money because things had gone a bit wrong. So off I went, we made this little video and then we got the promo gigs about six or seven of those running around Europe in his plane, his little private plane, doing these things. And at the end of it I think it was very nice, he treated us all very well. At the end of it he said would you be interested in blah, blah, blah if Paul's going to do a big tour next time? I said no, I've got a son at home, which is true. My son was living with me, my eldest son, and the truth is we probably wouldn't get on because I'm a jazz fan. You know I don't really like this music much.

Stan: 21:37

I did do another record for him later on. He never came out. He got very interested in songs and Nat King Cole. So he wrote these couple of songs and he asked me would you play a solo? So I thought he's not going to like this. Paul, I knew what he was like, you know, because I'd already done this Christmas single. What he wants is someone to just play the tune, you know. So I do what I'm told in the sessions. You do what you're told. Paul kept saying yeah, sounds great, but can you come up, you know, and have a listen? Yeah, try another one, you know, like you know take 10 or something you know take 12. He says, yeah, it's really little. I said, Paul, shall I just play the tune? He went, yeah, so I played it. He went fantastic.

Geoff: 22:16

Thanks, Sam.

Stan: 22:16

Great, you know, to me doing sessions was going to work it.

Geoff: 22:31

Can we talk about your partnership association with Kenny Wheeler?

Stan: 22:35

Yeah, so I first met Kenny when funnily enough, when I was still working at Wimbledon Palais Kenny's, right back to then, right? Or you heard of Tin Pan Alley, which is off Charing Cross Road, yeah, which is where all the pop records were made which you were talking about. I had's go along do this session. You know I can't remember what we got paid and the trumpet player walked in, which was Ken, but he's so quiet, you know, he's legendary. At that time he was really quiet and so was I. I was like him.

Stan: 22:59

I never used to say a word to anybody. I was so shy and insecure as a person. You know, I wasn't very grown up in a way. We sat together and sort of said hello, said something about jazz, you know, I said I'll do National Youth Jazz. I love it, you know. Oh, that's great. You know his old quiet voice and we played this thing and he sort of got through it all and then off he went because he wasn't enjoying being there. You know, Ken really didn't like this sort. Yeah, and that was my first meeting with Ken. But then, um, the first time I heard his music, he got a gig at one of the summer schools, Barry Summer School. So there was this 12 piece band which I was playing in and we turned up and some of the music was a Ken Wheeler piece called 25 Blue, which is actually one of the pieces on Windmill Tilter, and it was like, oh, it's just like the whole world opened up. You know, when you play music that you identify with yeah, it's the same with John.

Geoff: 23:47

Taylor, you know, with John's music. So both of those guys had their own thing quite early on. Yeah, in terms of composing.

Stan: 23:54

Yeah, I mean John developed and changed a bit. I mean you might say there was quite a bit of Herbie type stuff. He probably would have not liked me to say that, but maybe, but there was. You know, I mean the early line was a bit like it was a record we all love, which is Herbie's record was Speak Like a Child. Yeah, it was a fantastic record. But that lovely sound, you know, with the front line.

Geoff: 24:13

Yeah, with the alto flute and the bass trombone.

Stan: 24:16

Yeah but John's writing was fabulous, it was because it wasn't a sextet like. It, wasn't like an Art Blakey one, not that there's anything wrong with that. That's great as well. The horns move kind of written voice together.

Geoff: 24:26

It's kind of a classical thing, isn't it? The whole approach comes more from classical music. Well, it was different.

Stan: 24:31

Yeah, John was very broad, but the trombone would be written with the bass and the piano would be playing a line. So piano didn't just sit and play chords, you know, but lots of stuff where I'd be playing one line with Kenny's trombone would be with that John, there'd be three or four different things going on, lots of linear playing, some things using odd meters. John used to like writing things that threw a spanner in the works, but not to be clever or to be nasty, but I think he quite liked being naughty. He always had a thing about if there was a rotten piano, he'd start pedaling the lad pedals and he'd start playing.

Stan: 25:04

"'if you playing, if you go down in the woods today, you're in for it, and that's not nodding his head like you know you're like he's not being sort of playful and naughty you know, part of his character and, um, he's throwing an odd bar somewhere like trip up, you know, yeah, but the thing about it was it made you stop doing what all your pre-prescribed thing, which is kind of it you're at your comfort zone, yeah and you suddenly find yourself doing something different and you might play a note that you didn't like or something, because you've tripped them and you go. Oh, I'm sorry, John, I played it wrong, he'd go.

Stan: 25:32

No, no, you meant to play that.

Stan: 25:33

He'd say no, that's great, you know, and he loved things going a little bit pear-shaped here and there. I don't mean he's hunting disaster, but he liked that thing being on the edge. You know, very exciting. John's sextet for me was like the whole world changed and the same with Ken, you know, in the different same thing and those melodies and the right, I mean the whole thing, and because it never leaves you ever, you just remember that forever and it's where I started. One of the interesting thing was so I kind of missed out playing on standards and stuff, although I've been on the boats and playing tunes and I loved all of them. I've got a collection of records and all that stuff. I never got to play it and it was very hard, a bit like Ken used to talk about. He never got to work with all those people. Why did he end up going to the free things with John Stevens?

Geoff: 26:21

Presumably, that's a choice that Kenny would have made and, John, they would have made deliberately not to play standards by composing their own music Ken I'm talking about in particular found it hard.

Stan: 26:30

He's on groupings and notes and stuff it wasn't bebop, it didn't sit in, it wasn't bebop.

Stan: 26:33

Yeah, oh he's got terrible time, but of course he actually came in at the most incredible time. It was all like there's groups, god knows what, going, sevens, and I, but I didn't understand the mechanics of it, you know. But moving into Ken's music and John's music, I understood their music. That's why I probably got on so well with them. I'd learnt how to play their music and interpret their music, as John would say. John once said to me. He said you're a really great interpreter. Give me something to play and I'll interpret what you've written on the paper, and very quick, because in those days you had to work fast. There's no time to get things done

Geoff: 27:08

That Flutterby.

Geoff: 27:09

Butterfly album is one of my favourite albums.

Stan: 27:11

That's a lovely record.

Stan: 27:12

Well it was, ke he have had a tour? So do you fancy doing a little tour in Europe for a month and we could probably be going here. But it wasn't that long before the tour should have started. It was quite late on. So Dave Holland was always going to be on. It know, Dave's very well known anyway, you know, because of his connections.

Stan: 27:29

Jay was was making quite a name. There should have been another horn player and same with the drum chair, and I know that he actually they did try. I talked about trying to get Roy Haynes or Elvin Jones, but it was. It's Billy Elgar who played it. Great, you know, because Billy, Ken had met him in Germany. He'd just moved there from the States and he liked him and took a chance on him out of kindness in a way. I think Ken was like. He asked me to play in his band, thank you, but of course, business wise it was not a good move. So a lot of the gigs went out the window. I mean, I didn't understand this or know anything about this at the time. I wasn't involved in setting any of it up, but when we came to do it a lot of the gigs went. I know everybody talking. I was just saying that one's gone, that one's gone. The promoters pulled out because they wanted whoever this big name was. That should have been whoever it was.

Stan: 28:18

Let's say Younger Breck or yeah, yeah, it wouldn't have been Michael Brecker, but someone like that, some big name, and the drummer would have been imagine if, imagine if it had been Elvin or Roy Haynes. The whole world changes. It's the world of business. Dave Holland, because of his American passport, could get this special ticket that you can buy in Europe. You couldn't get it if you were English and it was a special ticket, a rail ticket that was valid for a month and you got it stamped on the day you started and it was first class anywhere in Europe for one month. So it was like for American tourists, really, wow. So he bought five of these tickets for us.

Stan: 28:51

So I turned up there and a whole pile of tunes arrived and we started off. We went, did the rehearsals, went on the road and then we got to Italy and that guy, Bonandrini, with Soul Note label, used to make record bands that passed through and he just paid you cash. It's the old-fashioned way, like Blue Note. They're like the original, old record labels that used to just pay you and that was it. You never did the label, the sleeve, nothing, you just goodbye and that was it, it was ours.

Stan: 29:18

We all went into the studio. It was all done in a day, I think I don't know if we did or two in Milan, and it was all crammed in tiny little place. It was supposed to be an ECM record but when everything went wrong with whoever these people are that should have been in the band, he pulled out of it. He didn't want to record it. So I ended up playing on this record. It was fantastic. You know I love playing those tunes, fantastic tunes. They're all great. All the tunes on there are great, you know. So lucky me, you know. But I learned a little bit. You start to understand how the business works, that it's not just about playing. You know bums on seats, but in the middle of all that, great things do get done and made. You know, yeah.

Geoff: 30:01

So then of course you went on to an album that's come up a lot when I've been talking to people is the music from Large and Small Ensembles.

Stan: 30:04

Oh yeah, the Big Band, one band, one yeah which is a favourite album of so many people. Yeah, that's another one, isn't?

Geoff: 30:10

it. It's a classic. What's your memories?

Stan: 30:12

of that. So that was the same thing. It was part of a tour, so we played the music in, which was great. That was done at the old CTS Wembley Manfred De Pied, Eric, all in the semicircle, very little screening, so we could play live. We played the pad, basically the suite which had been written for that tour, which is a fabulous suite. It's amazing, yeah, it's a really beautiful one. And then the other odd pieces and then the small group pieces were to fill up the time to make it into an album. I think we did. There was one tune was it called Tickety Boo? Or something Very, very fast, ridiculously fast, sort of fun thing, that sort of thing that everybody had a roar up on, you know, and we did record that. But Banfield went no, no, no, no, we don't use this, we don't want. He did it because it was too much jazz, it was too much roar up.

Geoff: 30:56

And was Kenny. Did he find it easy to lead a big band? Because I know he was quite a shy fellow.

Stan: 31:01

Well, he always had a conductor. He didn't. I've never known Kelly standing in front of the band and do the carving. John Taylor used to leave the piano and conduct the opening part, that lovely chorale thing, do-da, do-da-da-da. But everything else. There was always a conductor. You know different people. He just wanted to sit in the band.

Stan: 31:20

And he would say a few things again now now again he game and he would basically lead people to get on with it. You know, sort yourselves out, but if you've got the right players in the band and people to lead things, it kind of takes care of itself. And the writing was so strong wasn't it.

Geoff: 31:33

It was just the arranging was so strong, So I asked you if you wanted to play something today, and you chose a tune, didn't you?

Stan: 31:44

Yeah, well, as you've been talking about and we talked a lot about Ken Wheeler and I've had a few health issues which have made life change a bit, so I thought I'd play Gentle Piece, which is a lovely tune of Ken's.

Geoff: 31:57

Tell us about that composition. When did you first discover that tune it?

Stan: 32:00

might have been on that big band record. I don't know if we played it before or not. It's very hard to remember. Yeah, like a lot of the music from Ken and John, things would morph into this, into that, particularly with John. You know his music all grew from. There might be a tune and then a year later you'd hear that's a bit like it's like it had grown on the end of the other one. Yeah, it was an extension of it. And he often used to think like that, that way of writing where one thing leads to another, rather than here's a new tune, here's a new tune, that one thing had grown from something else. It's a lovely way of doing things. Let's play it Gentle Piece, shall we? Yeah okay, thank you. So so ¶¶ so.

Geoff: 34:44

That was beautiful, Stan. How did it feel playing it again, because I know you haven't played for a while.

Stan: 34:48

I mean, I think, with a lot of great music. The music takes over all the other things you have to deal with in life, and I really enjoyed it.

Stan: 34:55

But just to be able to do a little thing like that, it gives us a lot of pleasure, you know, and brings back memories. Yeah, sure, and the tune like Gentle Piece, it asks different things of you and things of you. You don't have to play a lot of notes, maybe, or moves. You can adapt the way you play, which is what I've sort of been trying to do over the last year or couple of years, year and a half it's changed the way.

Stan: 35:14

If you want to do things, there's always a way. You can find ways, whatever your problems are.

Stan: 35:18

Yeah yeah, yeah you know, I always think of one of my favourite jazz musicians. It's Roland Kirk. I love early Roland Kirk. I absolutely love Roland, you know. And of course he had a stroke in the end, you know, and he could play with one, but he's still playing. You know what I mean with the most ridiculous things and he still found a way to play because he wanted to play. You know he would do it, and so it's just really nice to play that again and to talk about that record record.

Geoff: 35:44

Yeah, yeah, fabulous, okay. So to finish off, I've got some questions, if that's all right with you. Have you got a favorite?

Geoff: 35:52

album.

Stan: 35:53

I love Mel, Mel and Thad's band, which I had in 67 and this record was recorded in 66, is the one with Joe Williams and I love that record. So sheer joy, you know, going back to being a kid, a Cannonball record. I love Cannonball at the Lighthouse. You know. The original record with Victor , I love . Joe henderson, I love you know. So pick something of Joe's and John Taylor. You know the trio records he made, a wonderful. Actually one of John's ones I had I've not heard before but made don't obviously many, many years ago but got released is the one he made with Norma in Guild, in the Guildhall. It's fantastic and because I knew them both and travel them a bit, and a few times we did gigs together with them and the memory of those two, that was a fantastic pairing. Those two it's almost impossible to do because as soon as you think of anything, oh yeah, but what about?

Stan: 36:38

that, oh no, I mustn't forget that one. Yeah.

Geoff: 36:41

And so it goes on. Yeah, you've mentioned loads of them anyway already. What about a favourite musician, alive or dead, that you would like to have played with?

Stan: 36:50

Oh crikey, that is hard, isn't it?

Geoff: 36:56

you've played with so many people. I just love the fact that you've played with Jimi Hendrix yeah, it's true I mean, it's just so diverse. I know it's so daft, isn't it?

Stan: 37:07

I mean, I'm a massive Herbie Hancock fan, I'd have to have done it once. Well, I did because I was a studio player. I played on the record with Joni Mitchell. You know, Both Sides Now.

Geoff: 37:15

I played on that was a special record, wasn't it?

Stan: 37:18

Sometimes I'm Happy. The one where he plays piano, solo I'm only just playing the written part, but I'm so thrilled that I'm on it because Herbie's in it.

Geoff: 37:27

That's a magical record, that it really is. That's Vince Mendoza, isn't it? It is I mean you've probably talked about this before, but a highlight of your career.

Stan: 37:36

Well, there's a slightly. Well there may be, but I'm trying to get it put out. But there are issues to do with who owns it and stuff is. I did with John Taylor. We did a broadcast with the Radio Bremen Symphony Orchestra of all of John's music, all these music that he orchestrated for the symphony orchestra, and John did all the writing and it's just myself and John now.

Stan: 37:58

I played soprano and a bit of flute on it and John plays the piano and we went to uh Bremen and re called it with the orchestra there. It was for broadcast and it was. We had five days in the studio so it was like rehearse record one or two and then on the last day they did a mix and everything. I mean I love that record but it's not a record. It's not anything. It's a broadcast with a few people I've played it to. But for it not to exist somewhere for people to hear John's writing, because the writing is absolutely fabulous and John plays fantastic on it and it's a great tragedy that it doesn't get heard. And for me it was the most incredible week. I'd learned so much from him and admired his music. That was really the high point to be asked by him to come play and do that broadcast. So I hope he sees the light of day.

Geoff: 38:46

Yeah, I hope so too.

Stan: 38:54

Yeah, I'd love to hear that. What was the last concert you attended? Oh, last something I went to. Yeah, well, I just went down to Watermill, my local jazz club, to the Sullivan Fortner Trio. I went to hear that American Fabulous. Yeah, he's great. I think he's from New Orleans. His light touch at the piano, Herbie, touch at the piano, John Taylor, touch, Victor Feldman at the piano, touch, Nicky Iles touch. They've all got this thing about sound. Well, he's got it. When he puts his hands on a piano, a lot of it will crash around and do all sorts of stuff For me.

Stan: 39:21

I mean, it's different for different people and it's like oh yeah, that's it Fresh and organic. Yeah, I've really enjoyed that. I thought that was a lovely concert.

Geoff: 39:30

What would you say is your musical weakness?

Stan: 39:33

One thing I wish I'd have known much earlier. Well, like an awful lot of things I came to sort of try to learn about let's call it the standard repertoire, not so much learning language, because I didn't do that. I didn't do any transcribing, which maybe I regret. But when I was late 30s, coming out of 40, I went and got lessons and I went to see Geoff Simkins wonderful player, and he's a fantastic teacher.

Geoff: 39:58

Quite late to be taking lessons, isn't it? So how was that for you?

Stan: 40:01

Well, I've always enjoyed it, but I've done it with lots of things. People think you said I started. I've asked Phil Lee, he was fabulous as well. Phil really helped me, incredibly, and Phil was teaching me, you know. And he said you know, you create a line, then you've got to motivate the line. How do you make the line move? You know, make a line move? Well, you play the jazz quaver. You know, this is in simplistic terms. Yeah.

Stan: 40:23

You know, and you know your harmonies, your information. You know your harmonies, your information, as you're moving to point to point. There was a whole set of things that he came up with that made so much sense that nobody had ever talked about to me.

Geoff: 40:34

I love that phrase. Motivate the line. That's a great phrase, isn't?

Stan: 40:38

it. It is, yeah, how do you make it move? Because a lot of people don't care, but it's important how you make that line move.

Geoff: 40:43

And then make it move. Did that change after you had those lessons? Did that change the way you approached things then?

Stan: 40:48

Yeah, I started to listen to things in a different way. I'd never been that interested before, like Warne Marsh and people like that. It became a big craze. I know he did. But I became very interested in listening to the way they played.

Stan: 40:59

This is all the Tristano, which of course Mark Copeland knew about that. I remember playing with Mark and once we played a standard and he said do you know so-and-so? I said oh, yeah, so I'm not sure the change is so-and-so. He said, okay, e minor On a bit of paper. E minor, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing B minor. So it's just, it's the barest bones, you know. But that's all you needed because whatever you played, he wasn't going to play those root tone centre. Yeah, he would follow you around. So whatever you played, he was playing with what you played. If you play that, I'm going to put green in with that, if you play that, I'm going to put a blue in there. So all the chords were like colours. So he was painting pictures and you couldn't play a wrong note. It didn't exist.

Stan: 41:41

There's a lovely recording with Tim Hagens trumpet player that he made a quartet, one with Bill and Gary Peacock. I've heard that as well. Yeah, and there's one where they play On Green Dolphin Street. Yeah, it's fantastic. The solos are fabulous on it. It's all linear, playing Tim Hagans' solo very much in that way of playing. So I got very interested in that. You know, moved away from all the kind of. When I was younger I was thinking like everybody else, people telling me.. Do you ever get nervous on stage.

Stan: 42:15

Yeah, I used to be terrified all my life. I was very as a personality. My upbringing was quite nervous. I was very shy, very retired. I've always been very tall and big. I felt awkward as a kid. I felt like I didn't fit in anywhere really although it's not true, because people were lovely to me. So it's not that any of it's necessarily true, but it's what you feel like isn't actually what's reality and I've done the whole bit. I went through really heavy counselling when my marriage went and I changed so many things. You start to look at yourself and hold on a minute. At one point there was a while when beta blockers had applied and all the guys from orchestras, orchestral players they were all because you know the Purr, the Sitton orchestra, and nobody knew. They didn't tell anybody about that. A lot of them were starting to use them.

Geoff: 43:01

Just to calm them down. Calm you down, take that adrenaline it's an adrenaline.

Stan: 43:06

You're completely crushed by the. You know, my fingers were turned to bananas so I couldn't do anything, you know. Yeah, yeah, to see the doctor and he put me a small amount and I, honestly, I only ever took them when I had a big gig to do, concert to do. I thought I was going to be in danger of going. I thought I'd try it out and I did for a while and they worked Right and it was the first time I'd ever learned what it was to not be shaking when I went on the stage. My nerves were frozen. Wow, because you lose some of the adrenaline excitement. That's the rush, that's the price you pay. Yeah, but you function. That's the difference. Is you function, you know, I mean trying to play the flute. When you're terrified, I can't tell you I'm picking it up.

Stan: 43:43

I'm like this shaking, you're trying to well, that's bad for stuff. I think you can't live like this, playing that. This isn't a way to make music. And, of course, I'm so envious of other people, my life great players but they're very different in personalities driven. Yeah, yeah, they don't have any fear. They're not looking at you, they just go out the front and see.

Geoff: 44:00

Yeah at the front. Yeah, great bang, especially for young, young musicians as well. You, you have to have the confidence just to get up there and actually improvise to start with, don't you?

Stan: 44:11

yeah, it's a big. It's a big deal. Somebody said the way this voice would put it was it's a very naked experience. It's like u n n undresses public public, isn't it? You know, because you let people see you. If you're playing, yeah, if you're playing for real, yeah, just playing what's comes out of you, and well, you know you're giving it out. You don't know whether anybody's bearing.

Geoff: 44:29

All right, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, what's your favorite sandwich?

Stan: 44:34

oh a sandwich. Oh, I said that he's a good one, isn't it favourite sandwich? Oh a sandwich. Oh, it's a good one isn't it?

Geoff: 44:40

You weren't expecting that, were you?

Stan: 44:43

I've had a few over the years. They change from time to time. I tell you what this is nuts. I had one the other day because a really nice cheese and big slices of onion through it. I used to put that in a roll and it's a simple, very onion through it. He used to put that in a roll. Yeah, and that simple, very plain thing, you know, with some salt on it. You know what about a favorite movie? Oh, I do like films. A musical film, oh, The Producers great, I absolutely love that film. Yeah, for the very first time I ever saw it. And the idea with the first producer, the original yeah, Zero Mostel. Yeah, Gene g Wilder yeah, and that's Springtime for Hitler, isn't it? Yeah, I absolutely, I absolutely love that film. I can't say every time I see it I just fall about laughing. You know what about a favourite venue? I used to like the old, original Vortex because I liked the sound in there.

Geoff: 45:26

That was the one in Newington Newington Stoke N ewington? ? Yeah, yeah, it was the upstairs. Yeah, that was great.

Stan: 45:30

Terrible dodgy old room in the sound in there was great. It was an old building that above a bookshop, wasn't?

Geoff: 45:37

it.

Stan: 45:38

Yeah, and I loved the whole thing about it. I loved Dave Mossman. I used to really like Dave.. Got on so well with him. Yeah, I loved the vibe in there. I loved the people, yeah, and the gigs were great fun. It was a great venue.

Geoff: 45:49

I had some great times there. Yeah, what about travelling, Mark? Have you got a favourite place in the world, a city or a country?

Stan: 45:57

I love going to Italy, particularly before things went wrong health-wise and stuff. I've had good times there. Germany I've been a lot. Of course I've always had some good cities there. But Italy's such a lovely place. I love the food and the people are nice, so finally have you got a favourite chord. Favourite chord what? C, c, major, c, major, c, major, no, no, no, not that one, anything but that, no, not that. You know, every other film you're. Oh, no, it's that chord again, you know, oh, I don't know.

Geoff: 46:27

That's a very funny one, isn't it? Yeah?

Stan: 46:29

I really like chords with big extended open tops. It's a thing I love from Mike Gibbs. You know he knew about when he's writing. Yeah. He could put three notes together and you'd have this huge, because your ear would fill in all those.

Geoff: 46:40

So when you're arranging, yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. So it might be like a C7.

Stan: 46:45

Very open voices, C7 and up with an A triad over the top of it or something else. Yeah, just, I love that stretch your ear being stretched, and I do love listening to harmony. I mean, like a lot of us, I've been through a period of sort of fanatical about Bill Evans, you know, and he used to write down all these things tings, all these tunes that's the ones you played. In actual fact, they don't work very well with quartets and quintets. There's too much information in a way, and that's the other thing. It can stop you improvising, because you're just playing. You're playing on those chord sequences rather than find your own way through it.

Stan: 47:18

Yeah and not have to designate all the chords in that way. It's just I don't like the word slash chords but it's poly chords. Yeah, John used those in a fantastic way. Some of those tune, like Windfall, it's full of them. It's fantastic and I was around when he wrote that. You know when they were coming out. So I do like that kind of harmony and that does connect a little bit with you know some of the classical music. I mean through Mike Gibbs really I've got very Messiaen music and but also, you know, Bartók and the Ravel's and all the rest of them some fantastic writers.

Geoff: 47:50

Have you put some of that into your big band, which I'm a particular fan of the tunes on there?

Stan: 47:53

I did try and do because at that time, as I was doing a lot of study, I was with a guy called Jeffery Wilson, who also was very important to me studying in composition composition, composition.

Stan: 48:03

I thought I was going to be going there and doing orchestration or just writing for big bands or orchestra, and it turned into something else. He's a lovely guy, he's a fantastic teacher spoke to him recently and he was very interesting because he studied with Messian as well. Yes, he had some lessons with him. He said the thing is, you have to write true to your heart, he said, and he told me a lovely story about with messing with one of the other students who, as you do, go to him with you. You know, it's your lesson on Thursday and you turn up with this piece, and so what? And Mr messian would go and say what do you bring to that? Oh, I've written this, written this new piece, you know, blah, blah. And they give it to him to play.

Stan: 48:37

And he looked at it and he looked it through and he played on the piano and said, yeah, she's very good, excellent, you know. He said, but it's not you. . to please messiaen, you're writing these styles. You know, don't copy my music my is quite diatonic. Loves a needle it doesn't matter what it is.

Stan: 48:55

It's just a language, isn't it? And what you choose has got to be the one that you'd like. I mean, Ken, we know, pared his down. You know he used to write quite complex chords with things. You know, bunches of grapes we used to call them, didn't, you know, be a bunch of grapes hanging off the top of the chord, because nobody could ever, you'd never get that far.

Stan: 49:10

You know, by the time you worked it out it's gone, you know, and Duncan used to say, oh well, they only play off of the big letters. You know, it's lovely, Duncan, but because he worked so much abroad, he realised the difficulties of getting your music played. So, and I know I worked with a lot of the people that he worked with in that period and of course, a lot of the Europeans that were into sort of freeish jazz. They weren't into changes at all. You know Ken does the harmony. So I know what happens you turn up and the rehearsal's at two o'clock and the concert's at seven. You know, somewhere in Germany Everybody brings a piece to play. In this group, Ken's put his piece in and everybody's oh, it's a wonderful piece, but you can see they're all puzzled and worrying. You know it's complicating and it would always go to the back of the book. Maybe we do this as an encore.

Geoff: 49:55

Yeah, yeah, we do it as the encore, but it runs out of time?

Stan: 49:57

There is no encore.

Geoff: 49:58

It doesn't get played. It doesn't get played.

Stan: 49:59

Not because they don't like it, but it's too hard.

Announcement: 50:02

Yeah.

Stan: 50:03

So Ken, I think, simplified his palette. So if you talk about the artist's palette, which you have on your arm you have all these colours, how can I cut it down? So there's a a lot of these tunes like the ones we play, like minor chords, minor, it doesn't matter if it's minor, 11th, minor, 7th, whatever it's. Basically it's a minor chord. He paired it down to make it and then it reaches so many people, which he has done, and makes it accessible did you find yourself doing that as well, then tried to yeah, because I think you learn the lesson.

Stan: 50:37

You know you start limiting what you write. You know I'm a writer, I need to write this, and people write like millions of notes and all that. And I'm thinking, well, can you any way you can make it easy? Do you really need all that? Yes, I have to have this you know and that's you know world. When you get weeks, people pay you to have a week's rehearsal for one piece or something on something. But the world isn't like that.

Geoff: 51:01

More on my experience but if you don't get the message through with a simplest, amount.

Stan: 51:05

Writing loads is great because if you've got loads of stuff, you can always clean out, get rid of it. Not having very much is difficult because you haven't got enough, but a lot of people miss out that step. The last one is around what can I get rid of that? Got all this actually. I don't really need that, or maybe that's actually a piece of another piece. I'll put that outside, I'll save it. That might be the start of another piece. I don't need that there and pare it right there. What actually do you need? What's essential, you know, yeah, and then get it down to something meaningful. Where's the meaningful bit?

Geoff: 51:31

you know, and where's the melody?

Stan: 51:33

you, know where's the melody, where's everything you know? You can blind people with science, with chord sequences and people just sitting there like that because it doesn't mean anything, it's just millions of chords Well, there we go, I think, before my laptop gives up the ghost.

Geoff: 51:47

This is on 4%. I think we should say thank you very much, Stan. Thank you, Geoff, it's been amazing. Yeah, it's been great. Really appreciate you talking to me and this is such a great life, you know, and so many things that you've done.

Stan: 51:59

I've been lucky. I've been very lucky, incredibly lucky.

Geoff: 52:03

Yeah, there's a lot of luck involved and thank you for the playing as well. It's just amazing incredible good right see you soon.

Announcement: 52:12

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