Geoff: 0:01

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here. Today I'm in South London, I'm in Honor Oak Park, just got off a train and I'm going to see a very old friend of mine, Simon Wallace, who's a fantastic piano player, accompanist, arranger, educator. I'm looking forward to seeing him and catching up and seeing what he has to say about many things. Here we go.

Announcement: 0:44

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

Geoff: 0:53

Simon, how are you today? You all right,

Simon: 0:54

Very well, seems like only last night.

Geoff: 0:56

Simon's a part of my songwriting club, which we love, don't we? We're having a good time. Yeah, it was a good one last night, wasn't it

Simon: 1:02

was. It was great, really good.

Geoff: 1:04

It was been running a songwriting club uh, every side of every week. Um, you weren't there from the beginning, were you?

Simon: 1:10

No, I came in about 18 months ago yeah,

Geoff: 1:14

Which is still a long time.

Geoff: 1:15

We're up to week 96 now. We meet usually every three weeks now and write a song on a given title, and I host a Zoom meeting. And it's brilliant, isn't it?

Simon: 1:23

But I I'd never written lyrics before

Geoff: 1:25

Because you're so used to working with Fran, weren't you? You were co-writer with Fran Landesman for years.

Simon: 1:29

Yeah, and before that I had a songwriting partner for about 10 years.

Geoff: 1:34

You'd never written any lyrics before that.

Simon: 1:36

Well, I worked with a guy called Simon Brint who was the sort of main music person for all the Comic Strip and the Comedy Store back in the late 70s. That all started. I moved to London in 1978. And my first gig was at the club called the Blitz Club in Covent Garden, which was the whole New Romantic thing, and we were on three nights a week and Boy George was the hat check girl at the time. He just worked in the cloak rooms.

Geoff: 2:02

So were you in full romantic gear baggy, trousers and makeup and was that you?

Simon: 2:06

No, I was in uh, Marks and Spencer's polyester trousers and uh, because I wasn't really interested in any of that. I just wanted to play jazz. I studied music university and I left in summer of 1978

Geoff: 2:20

So presumably you studied classical music.

Geoff: 2:22

though didn't, you know?

Geoff: 2:23

Yeah, there wouldn't have been any jazz courses back then

Geoff: 2:26

would there

Simon: 2:26

There

Simon: 2:26

weren't. No, well, there was the Leeds College of Music, but it didn't do a degree, it just did a diploma which my parents wouldn't have approved of.

Geoff: 2:36

Where did you get the taste for jazz?

Geoff: 2:38

then A teacher at school. When I was 11, in my first year in secondary school there was a music teacher who played jazz piano and you know from what I remember it was, he was amazing, but probably on some spectrum or other he was a very strange person and I just latched on to. I heard him play this music and I just like bugged him after every music lesson. I'd hang around at the end of every lesson and just make him tell me things, wow, and then go home. My dad had just bought a tape recorder and so I used to tape all the jazz programs that were on BBC.

Geoff: 3:14

I used to go to lots of classical concerts. My parents were into classical music. It didn't excite me in particular. And then Georgie Fame came out with Bonnie and Clyde and so I went to Smith's to buy it because I liked it so much. I heard it on the radio and then it just sort of didn't really think much about music until I was about 11, 12, I suddenly stumbled across this weird music. Yeah, I mean what I've said this before. It's a bit of a cliche, but it's true that I thought I discovered a magic window into another world, which was you kind of did really. Yeah, I mean that's true that I thought I'd discovered a magic window into another world which was Well, you kind of did really.

Geoff: 3:48

Yeah, I mean, everyone's got their own relationship with jazz, don't they?

Simon: 3:52

Yeah, and it was a window into black American culture, in particular in New York. And I didn't. I'm from South Wales and I was obsessed with going to New York. You know, all I wanted to do was to be in New York and I didn't make it to New York till I was 22,.

Geoff: 4:13

I think anyone who's into jazz is obsessed with New York, aren't they? Yeah?

Simon: 4:17

Because it's the kind of Mecca.

Geoff: 4:18

It's got such a reputation.

Simon: 4:20

Well, I mean, I remember my first night in New York. We went to a piano bar called Bradley's. I remember sitting there thinking this fantasy I had about it being a window into a magic world was actually true.

Simon: 4:36

And I think it was.

Geoff: 4:37

You stepped through the doors of Bradley's and you were in another world. Yeah, yeah, what happened then? You got into writing for TV and that kind of stuff as well, did you?

Simon: 4:45

I got into that through meeting Simon Brint. I met Simon at the Blitz Club and he was working at not the Comedy Store, the Comic Strip. When it first started he was like the musical director and the drummer was a guy called Roland Riveron who went on and had an alternative career. But when I met Roland he was 17 and he'd just left school and all he wanted to do was play drums, like Billy Higgins. And it came about through a bass player called Erica Howard. I'd been at Oxford doing music and Erica had gone to Oxford at the same time as me 1975, and I'd met her at the Oxford Poly Big Band.

Geoff: 5:27

Did you study it in Oxford? Did you go there in university? What were you studying in Oxford

Simon: 5:30

Music?

Simon: 5:32

And I thought well, if I apply to Oxford doing music, I obviously won't get in and I can go to Sheffield, which is my second choice, but I can take a year off. It just seemed like a really good excuse to take a year off and then play music. And it all went wrong because I got into Oxford doing music, which was never the plan well,

Geoff: 5:49

Surely in Oxford you did, you learn about um arranging and orchestration and all those things?

Simon: 5:54

No, you didn't I learned how to write palestrina counterpoint. Ah, okay, and fugues. I can write you a fugue, if you all right. I've been waiting for someone to ask me to do either of those two things for the last 50 years, it's all over.

Simon: 6:09

Yeah, it was 1975, so it's coming up to 50 years, yeah, yeah. But when I got there I was really excited because I thought, well, Oxford, there'll be loads of jazz. And you know, because there wasn't a lot of jazz in Newport and Cardiff, you, because there wasn't a lot of jazz in Newport and Cardiff, you really had to kind of look for it. So I did all the bookings for the second term. Oh right, and so the first term I was there. We used to have one guest, one sort of concert a year, and then it was once a week in the pub. Yeah, and the house band when I went there was the Avon City's jazz band and the first concert was George Chisholm. And then the second term, I took over and the first concert was the Stan Tracy Quartet with Art Theman and Bryan Spring and Dave Green, and the house band turned into the Pat Crumley's Edge, if you recall. So Pat at that time was a semi-power musician

Geoff: 7:00

Terrific yeah.

Geoff: 7:01

Great saxophone player.

Geoff: 7:02

Speaking of paying for guests, I remember speaking to Bob . To Bob, who was a great american singer, songwriter. Um, check him out if you don't. You don't know him, but he passed away a few years ago. But we had some great times with Bob, didn't we?

Geoff: 7:13

yeah but I remember him telling me that, uh, because he played with Charlie Parker, you know well, did he tell you this story? Yeah, this is the one where, where he was in a house trio and they all clubbed together and paid money for Charlie Parker to come and play when he was in New York and they were all nervous because they were young and Charlie Parker was an incredible hero. So they saved up this money to give to Charlie Parker, and Charlie Parker shows up at five in the morning, you know, off his head, and plays. You know, plays one tune with them or something.

Geoff: 7:43

I think that's what they used to do in those days, those soloists. They used to get paid just to come and make little guests. And of course, Bob was on the Miles album, wasn't he? Yeah, he was on the album, Sorcerer.

Simon: 7:53

On Sorcerer. That's right. Yeah, what had happened is that Miles Davis used to stay with a friend of Bob's when he was in San Francisco, I think, and she played in Bob's album. And then he went to see Bob playing in a club and they got Bob in to write Blue Xmas because Miles had to do a Christmas song for the CBS Christmas record. So that's how Bob got involved.

Geoff: 8:23

Had some really great memories of hanging out with Bob, you know, especially in New York, you know, when I used to go there a lot with Jamie Cullum.

Simon: 8:31

I think I was there when you met.

Geoff: 8:33

Yeah, I think he was. Yeah, Joe's Pub or something like that. Yeah.

Simon: 8:36

I was doing Joe's Pub with Fran Landesman, Bob and Jackie Cain and you were at the Algonquin, weren't you? Very possibly, yeah, with Jamie Cullum, and you all came down, yeah yeah. And I think that was the first night that Jamie and you had met Bob.

Geoff: 8:52

That's very possible yeah, yeah, Bob always used to cruise into town in his Beamer, didn't he in his BMW? Yeah, I'll never forget that. Yeah.

Geoff: 9:01

What a lovely man.

Simon: 9:02

Then I started going back to New York with Barb Jungr and I'd always hook up with Bob somewhere along the line.

Geoff: 9:11

Yeah, we did every time. Every time we went there, we called him up and he'd always come down. You know what amazing energy that guy had.

Simon: 9:17

Yeah, extraordinary.

Geoff: 9:18

He came. I remember we did a tour, a UK tour. He came over and sung with Trudy as well and he stayed at our house for, you know, for the time he was here he'd be up playing the piano. Seven in the morning, you know we get back at two. You know, after a late gig he'd be up playing the piano. Yeah, and I remember my Ruby um him, I've singing the tune Ruby, to Ruby.

Geoff: 9:46

you know, first thing in the morning, you know, and getting he has his coffee amazing yeah everyone should check out his early, his early albums where he sings Yardbird Suite and there's yeah, those bebop things.

Geoff: 9:54

You know it's brilliant.

Geoff: 9:55

Yeah, so are you aware of my apps?

Simon: 10:04

I I am aware of your apps. Yeah, jo are jolly good they are too.

Geoff: 10:06

Thank you very much. I asked you to pick a tune to play on because we were talking about Barry Harris, so you chose Autumn Leaves, right? I mean, Autumn Leaves is one of the first standards that everyone should learn. Can you talk a little bit about Barry Harris? You studied with him a little bit, didn't you?

Simon: 10:28

Yeah, way back, I think it was 1981, he used to run these workshops which he did all his life. I mean, Barry Harris was a Detroit piano player who was obsessed with teaching from a very young age and he started off teaching people in Detroit, including a lot of the people involved with Motown and the Funk Brothers. I think he taught James Jameson, you know, and he was quite an odd person. He then landed probably the second biggest gig in the world, the jazz gig in the world at the time, which was the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, and he got the gig and he got fitted for the band suit and, you know, did all that and he lasted about 10 days and handed his notice in. He said nothing for me to do. Extraordinary, really.

Simon: 11:13

And that was a very, very highly paid gig apart from everything else.

Simon: 11:17

But you know, musically extraordinary

Geoff: 11:19

, Very undefined hundefined, and I guess to do something like that I don't think.

Simon: 11:23

I'd ever quit a band. That's Barry. Yeah, so he was, that's the Sidewinder, isn't it?

Geoff: 11:31

Yeah, yeah, and he was. That's the.

Simon: 11:32

Sidewinder, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, and he played that brilliantly.

Geoff: 11:36

I mean, that's one of the great sort of yeah, but that's more about pop music, really isn't it? It is yeah, that is yeah.

Simon: 11:42

He just wanted to explore this idea of teaching harmony the way that he saw it, and he wasn't part of any university or many faculty, he just did it on his own, just plowed his own furrough. So when I arrived in New York, I went along to one of these workshops and they were these long, rambling, three-hour workshops. It used to cost $8 or something and he had this theory of harmony which was to get you away from thinking in two-five-ones. Right okay.

Simon: 12:15

So it kind of went against the grain of the way that jazz was being taught, because this is right at the time when jazz courses were first coming together. This is back in 1981. There were two teachers in New York that everybody deferred to who? Was the other one, Hal Galper. Right, that everybody deferred to. Who was the other one, Hal Galper Right. And the difference between Barry Harris and Hal Galper was that Barry Harris was like $8 for three hours and Hal Galper was, I think, $50 for an hour in those days, right.

Geoff: 12:42

How did their two methods differ?

Geoff: 12:45

I don't think Hal Galper had a method. I had one lesson with Hal Galper because I didn't have the money and it was extraordinary. I mean, I think Hal Galper was a really brilliant teacher. There's a couple of videos of him on YouTube, just a handful, but he's still alive and he's still, you know, ranting on social media. It's absolute gold. I love Hal Galper's approach. I love his piano playing as well. I mean, he's an extraordinary pianist. Barry Harris had a. I love his piano playing as well. He's an extraordinary pianist Barry Harris had. I love Barry Harris' piano playing. Barry Harris was a bebop piano player through and through. He played with Coleman Hawkins and Parker incredible, yeah. And he really understood Monk's music. He studied, spent a lot of time with Monk.

Geoff: 13:29

Did you start

Geoff: 13:30

putting some of the ideas that Barry Harris were teaching? Were you starting putting some of the ideas for the Barry Harris were teaching? Were you starting using some of those? Oh, straight away.

Simon: 13:36

Yeah, you were, yeah what it is is is a, a method of thinking about harmony where you don't know what you're doing, right, uh, rather than doing something where you do know what you're doing. And that, that very first trip to New York, the most memorable thing that that I saw was a gig in a loft and it was two pianos, Barry Harris and Tommy Flanagan, and bass and drums and and it was the most incredible to and fro I've never seen, seen At at the time, I had never seen anything as spontaneous. Wow, you know that that that, Tommy omm tommy Tommy would play something and Barry would go, hmm, play something back, and Tommy would go ooh, what about that? But it was back and forth the whole time. Amazing, absolutely brilliant. And what Barry's theory was there for fore, was to enable that to happen. It was to enable you to surprise yourself mid-phrase by getting rid of licks and getting rid of 2-5-1s and replacing it with this theory that , I can give you a pre-see precis of it, if you wouldn't mind, just to.

Simon: 14:42

So if you've got 12 notes in a scale, how do you divide up those 12 notes? Well, one way is to go whole-tone scale, whole tone scale. So Barry's theory is you've got the father scale and the mother scale. There were elements of religion comes in as well, you know, and then you know. So the father and the mother scale come together and if you combine those two scales you then get three diminished scales. So that's two notes from the first whole tone scale, two notes from the second whole tone scale's two notes from the first whole tone scale, two notes from the second whole tone scale, two notes from the first one, two notes from the second one. So you've got three diminished scales and two whole tone scales. So the diminished scale, the diminished chord, becomes the key to everything. So a diminished chord is flat fives, two flat fives. What I'd been learning at Oxford was, some cadence, just regular cadences yeah.

Simon: 15:51

So two-five-one cadences, interrupted cadences, and because the cadence is a tritone resolving. So with that you've got the. So that tritone resolving, you've got the same thing with a diminished chord. So what Barry Harris' theory was that a four note diminished chord would resolve to a four note sixth chord, so that D diminished will resolve to C6. But equally, it will resolve in exactly the same way to E flat. It will resolve in exactly the same way to F sharp, and in the same way to A.

Geoff: 16:36

So that's like a pathway to loads of different doors, I suppose isn't it.

Simon: 16:40

And a sixth chord is the same thing as a minor seventh chord, same notes. So immediately you play one diminished chord and it will resolve with perfect resolution to eight other keys, those four major keys and the minor keys. So once you get your head around that it increases the number of possibilities.

Geoff: 17:10

Let's think of a practical approach. Say we're going to play Autumn Leaves In in a minute, um the start of autumn Autumn leaves Leaves goes a bar of c minor seven and bar of f7 F7 and resolves to does it.

Simon: 17:21

It does does it is, is that?

Geoff: 17:24

what it is. Okay again. So a two, five, one in in b flat, yeah. So how are you going to use? How are you going to use the Barry Harris method? That's my question.

Simon: 17:38

So is that a C minor 7 chord or is it an E flat 6 chord? Same notes? It's both. Yeah, it depends on how you voice it. So what chord? Let's say it's an E flat 6 chord. What chord leads to that? It'll be a D diminished chord. Yeah, so D diminished chord, B, D. Obviously, diminished chords don't invert. They stay the same if you put them in different versions. So when you get that first chord, put them in different versions. So when you get that first chord you go straight to the diminished chord and then the theory is you can borrow notes from that diminished chord.

Simon: 18:36

So what I'm doing there is playing a C minor chord but I'm also putting in notes from the associated diminished chord. So I'm borrowing notes from the diminished chord and you get patterns like yeah, and his whole approach was about taking a chord and going, E flat 6, C minor 7, E flat 6. Suppose I borrow from, I'll borrow a B, I'm going to borrow an A flat as well, and he'd always be looking down his hands going. I haven't heard that before. And of course, once you combine that with the obvious thing that if you put a diminished chord over it becomes a flat 9.

Geoff: 19:26

So you lower any of the notes of the diminished chord and it becomes a dominant 7th chord, exactly, or you raise any note and it becomes a dominant seventh chord, exactly, yeah, yeah, or you, or you raise any note and it becomes a minor sixth chord, yeah, yeah um, getting terribly nerdy here, aren't we god, I hope everyone's still.

Simon: 19:42

I'm turned off by now, which which brings us around to Thelonious Monk and you think about Round Midnight. You know lots and lots of half diminished chords in in Monk's music and Monk never called it a half diminished chord in Monk's music and Monk never called it a half diminished chord. He always called , He he would would have called that an E minor, 6 chord over C, right, so he he thinks of his half diminished chords as being 6 chords. Yeah, so in the Barry Harris, yeah, that gives you that resolution. So the C half diminished chord, your go-to chord, is an A flat diminished chord. So it's all things like that.

Geoff: 20:32

Sorry, that's the sound of my head exploding,

Simon: 20:33

but it completely blew my mind, because what he explained to me was everything that I'd learnt at Oxford about Chopin, but it made much more sense. Of course, that was the basis of Barry's musical thinking was Chopin Is that right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that was the basis of of great American songbook harmony.

Geoff: 20:57

because if if that's why I love Chopin. I wondered that.

Simon: 21:01

Well, if you think about beautiful melodies that you hear in Chopin's music and the harmony, you know my take on on on not just jazz, but take on on on not just jazz, but but on on on black American music in general is there was there was a sort of a divide between people who grew up in houses with pianos and people who didn't, and the divide was was very much middle class versus working class and, of course, the, the music of.

Geoff: 21:26

I think that's still true today, isn't it?

Simon: 21:28

oh, yeah, yeah, I think it was particularly true the beginning of the 20th century. You know, the working class black music was guitar-based, was blues, and the middle class black music was piano-based. Piano in 1900 was the same price as a family saloon car is today. So having a piano, it was a status symbol, but it was also. it meant that you could entertain. It meant that you were the centre of a community.

Geoff: 21:53

Because they didn't have Netflix in those days, did they?

Simon: 21:56

Apparently not no, and the internet was in its infancy, the most common place to have a good piano would be the pastor. So the church became a centre of obviously all sorts of things, but music in particular, and so you find loads and loads of great jazz musicians were sons and daughters of clergymen, or at least people who were church people, and what was in the piano bench was Chopin. So if you learned the piano in 1910, 1920, 1930, the first thing you'd learn would be Chopin and Clementi and you know all that repetois, Same as now, really.

Geoff: 22:43

So let's get back to Autumn Leaves. We digress a little bit.

Simon: 22:48

It's not really digressing, because Autumn Leaves isn't an American song, it's a French song which is a whole other thing, Pour les mots.

Geoff: 22:58

Yeah, yeah, exactly so what we're going to do. I'm going to mute the piano, so you're just going to hear the bass, drum. Yeah, exactly so what we're going to do. I'm going to mute the piano, so you're just going to hear the bass and the drums. No, not your piano. We're going to mute the piano.

Simon: 23:07

It's Graham Harvey isn't it Graham Harvey? Yeah, you don't want to mute Graham. We don't want him. He's a proper piano player.

Geoff: 23:12

So you're going to hear the bass and the drums. You're going to play this. I think I'm going to have to try and get as many sixths and diminished things as I can.

Simon: 23:32

Yeah, okay, we'll try and keep up. All right, okay. So here we go. There's an eight bar introduction, which is G minor six. Ah, g minor six, aren't we F sharp diminished.

Geoff: 23:40

Yeah, you play whichever one you like, right, right, ok. And then we're playing Autumn Leaves, which is in the key of B flat. So your first chord will be C minor 7, F7 to B flat. But you don't care about that stuff, do you?

Simon: 23:55

Oh, God, I'm already. I'm looking at the keyboard and I don't understand any of it.

Geoff: 24:00

Just hit a few notes and then you'll surprise yourself no-transcript. I admit that. That was great yeah.

Simon: 26:48

That sounds great. I mean they're bass and drums.

Geoff: 26:52

It's real guys, you know. It's us. With all four apps now there's 500 tunes to choose from, so the catalogue is becoming bigger and bigger.

Simon: 27:01

So you actually played that in real time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 27:05

So that's every standard we've played, usually two choruses of every standard For three and four we recorded 200 tunes, so there's 100 on each. That's what I say to my Lewis, who's studying at the moment. I say learn the first 150 from volume one. I mean mean that includes all the obvious. you know the, All The Things You Are, the Stella By Star light, the blues is, and all these you know Autumn Leaves is obviously on one.

Simon: 27:32

You know, I mean I, I I kind of believe that that thing of learning standards is is as relevant as it ever was. I mean, it's an extraordinary body of work.

Geoff: 27:50

Right. So to finish off, I've got a few questions which I'm asking everyone in the podcast. I hope that's okay. Starting with, do you have a favourite album?

Simon: 27:57

Bill Evans, Alone,

Geoff: 27:59

Good choice. What is it about Bill Evans that you think is special? T

Simon: 28:04

The way he plays the piano. Oh yeah, no, I mean I love Bill Evans, his whole conception of music, yeah, and that, that album, I bought it, I think, as soon as it came out here when I was about 13. Extraordinary, I mean, and it's just, yeah, I keep going back to it amazing.

Geoff: 28:23

Is there a favourite musician, alive or dead? You, I mean, and it's just yeah, I keep going back to it. Amazing Is there a favourite musician alive?

Simon: 28:30

or dead. You'd love to play with Ed Thigpen oh interesting, you know. Or Billy Higgins, you know that era of drumming, New York drumming, yeah, straight ahead. There's just something of that lightness of touch that you get with those guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 28:44

Has there been a highlight of your career or is there a memorable geek moment that you've had?

Simon: 28:49

There's been a few kind of quite surreal ones. I wrote a symphony for the King of Thailand's 60th birthday. Okay, it was broadcast on all four Thai TV channels simultaneously live, so I had 40 minutes. Were you there conducting it too? No, no, I was there. The actual concert was a nightmare, so I managed to get out of it by directing the camera crews.

Geoff: 29:20

Telling them which instrument was the soloist.

Simon: 29:22

Yeah, so I had four separate Thai camera crews in the van outside the venue. I'd had a girlfriend who was a TV producer before that, so I'd seen her do it in New York. How hard can it be? How hard can it be? How hard can it be directing live TV. Anyone

Simon: 29:42

can do that.

Geoff: 29:44

What was the last concert you went to?

Simon: 29:47

I think last Thursday I saw Evan Iverson do a solo thing down at the 606 Club, which was he's the piano player from The Bad Plus, from the Bad Plus, yeah, yeah. Who left a few years ago.

Geoff: 30:02

The Bad Plus does that still exist.

Simon: 30:04

It does, but they got another piano player in and then he left and then they got a guitarist and a saxophone player.

Geoff: 30:11

It's not quite the same is it.

Simon: 30:13

I know I listened to their latest album and I was going through every track trying to find the piano bits.

Geoff: 30:17

But there was no piano on there. So the Bad Plus was a kind of power piano trio. Really wasn't it a kind of rocky? It really wasn't it A kind of rocky? Yeah, well, it was. It wasn't really jazz was it?

Simon: 30:25

No, not at all, but it was very interesting to take that line up and it was not unlike the Bill Evans trio the last Bill Evans trio where every instrument had a very clear role, and Bad Plus took that a little bit further. So it wasn't a piano trio, it was a three-piece band with piano, bass and drums. Um, interesting, yeah and anyway he was over here doing a solo solo piano. So the first, first night of a of his first solo piano tour so that was that was interesting.

Geoff: 31:03

What would you say was your musical weakness?

Simon: 31:05

An inability to practice as much as I should.

Geoff: 31:09

Is that to do with motivation, do you think?

Simon: 31:13

I don't know. No, I want to do it.

Geoff: 31:16

Well, if you want, why don't you do it? Then Just get on with it, mate.

Simon: 31:20

Yeah, I know, I've got all the instruction books over there, Beethoven, Bach, they're all there. All I've got to do is put them on the piano and play them. What's the problem? Eh, the older I get, the more I enjoy the journey of trying to survive. You know, I always think I'm slightly out of my depth, but I think that's a good thing.

Geoff: 31:48

I think it's good to be out of your depth. I like working with musicians that I'm not really fit to play with. Hopefully you know you'd be the whole thing about jazz musicians that we're supportive of each other, aren't we? We mostly tolerate. You know the different, different abilities and different levels. You know do you think so?

Simon: 31:56

no, no no, it's, it's extremely competitive. Okay, and why not? Really yeah. But I think it's supportive in a human way, but not in a Really. No, I think people get on the bandstand to cut each other, to roast each other, yeah.

Geoff: 32:18

Okay, great. Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Simon: 32:23

I work very hard not to

Geoff: 32:26

Do you remember a time when you did, for example?

Simon: 32:29

Yeah, oh yeah, try not to entertain the idea because I don't think it helps. It's good to be a bit, you know, on your toes, but I don't think getting nervous helps. So it's something I've made a concerted effort not to do. Peter Ind said something again way back in the 80s and he said you know, being nervous is a luxury you can't afford. Oh interesting.

Geoff: 32:57

I think, there's a lot of truth in that Peter Ind was the bass player. He played with Lee Konitz, didn't he?

Simon: 33:02

Yeah, played with Charlie Parker.

Geoff: 33:05

And he also run that jazz club, the Bass Clef, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, In Hoxton, which was amazing when back in the 90s, wasn't it?

Simon: 33:13

Yeah.

Geoff: 33:16

What's your favourite sandwich?

Simon: 33:18

Well, it used to be a Reuben, but I've been veggie for many years now, so Vegetables then, then I'll be Vegetables.

Geoff: 33:32

What about?

Geoff: 33:34

a favourite movie

Simon: 33:35

Favourite movie. I do like Taxi Driver. You're looking at me, you're looking at me. I don't like to watch it too often. It's pretty depressing, but great score. Bernard d Herman's Herrmann's last score fantastic, but the movie as well.

Geoff: 33:53

I saw it when it came out what about a favourite venue, a concert hall or a particular venue you like?

Simon: 34:02

Hackney Empire. I once did a jazz and poetry you like? Hackney Empire. I once did a jazz and poetry thing at the Hackney Empire with a stand-up comedian who had taken to writing poetry and the audience wanted him to do stand-up but he insisted on just doing his poetry with free jazz and they hated the poetry so much that they cheered the free jazz and booed the poetry. And we got booed. Not, you didn't get booed off stage because you refused to leave the stage, but it was a great experience to be sitting on stage playing free jazz. Hearing two and a half thousand people booing you at the Hackney Empire was I thought I was very, very, very pleased for having had that experience

Geoff: 34:43

What about a favorite country or city that you like to go to or play?

Simon: 34:47

I'm going to Amsterdam on Thursday, which is somewhere I haven't been for a long time.

Geoff: 34:50

Great okay.

Geoff: 34:51

What are you doing in Amsterdam?

Simon: 34:53

It's my wedding anniversary.

Geoff: 34:55

Are you going with?

Geoff: 34:56

Sarah.

Simon: 34:56

No, I'm going on my own. It's our 25th wedding anniversary, so we're going to Amsterdam. Fantastic, but I haven't been there since the 80s, but I always used to enjoy Amsterdam it's a lovely time of years ago, isn't it?

Geoff: 35:09

we're in the spring and it's just. It'll be gorgeous.

Simon: 35:11

Oh it always rains in Amsterdam when you least expect it. From what I remember, yeah, New York is one of my, still one of my favourite cities.

Geoff: 35:19

but and one last question what's your favourite chord?

Simon: 35:24

Ah, the Messiaen, chord, ah, ooh.

Geoff: 35:32

Double diminished. Okay, can you tell us what the notes are?

Simon: 35:40

It's like a diminished chord with another diminished chord, a tone higher.

Geoff: 35:43

Ooh, that's tasty, isn't it?

Simon: 35:44

Alice and Strayhorn were heavily into it. They used to apparently go to each other's apartments and go Ooh, Messiaen used this a lot Fabulous yeah.

Geoff: 35:55

Well, simon, thank you very much for your time. It's been great. There's loads of information there. People can pause it and listen to the technical stuff. I hope it didn't get too geeky for people, but um

Simon: 36:05

And great to hear your new app.

Simon: 36:09

I think it sounds fantastic, thank you I wasn't when I was being roasted. Back then it felt like having a bass and drums play down your cans. Not, not an app. Extraordinary, I

Geoff: 36:19

All right.

Geoff: 36:19

Thanks a lot. Search for Quartet on the App Store or find out more at quartetappdotcom.