Geoff: 0:01

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here. Today I'm in South London, in Greenwich, home of the Mean Time, and I'm going to see a very old friend, Mr Mark Lockheart, who's a terrific tenor saxophone player, I've known for a very long time. We're gonna have a little chat about the origination of Loose Tubes, playing in small and large ensembles, composition, all sorts of tasty stuff. So here we go.

Announcement: 0:47

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Announcement: 0:55

Taking your jazz play along to another level,

Geoff: 0:57

Mark Lockheart, hello, hello. Thanks for having me around

Mark: 1:00

Nice to see you Geoff

Geoff: 1:01

In your lovely loft. Yeah, it's great how musicians have a little nook. This is where all the creative stuff goes on.

Mark: 1:06

Yeah, it's kind of my happy place where I come up with ideas and got all my CDs there. I've got a load of vinyl downstairs in another room.

Geoff: 1:14

So can we start talking a bit about your background? How did you get started? What turned you on to jazz in the first place?

Mark: 1:22

It was my dad

Mark: 1:22

who turned me on to jazz.

Mark: 1:23

He had a record collection and I can remember when I was 12 or 13 waking up to the sound of my dad's record s.

Geoff: 1:31

Was he a musician?

Geoff: 1:32

No, he wasn't, but he'd always loved jazz and he wanted to be a drummer when he was a kid, but he never did it, so he was always playing records what sort of records are you talking

Geoff: 1:42

about? When I was 10. We lived in America and so my dad always wanted to learn the sax. He worked for IBM, so we all went as a family to upstate New York and my dad bought a sax. He bought an alto and started having lessons. He must have been 38 or something, 39, maybe 40. So I kind of thought, oh, this is cool, and so I started to learn the same instrument. So my first teacher was a American wind band guy and he joined a record club while we were out there. So every couple of weeks he got these records coming through the I love that idea of a record club.

Geoff: 2:18

I know record yeah, it was brilliant. So I can vividly remember these records coming and they were Wes Montgomery records, they were Wes Montgomery records, they were Paul Desmond records with Don Sebesky, you know late 60s things, you know and they were the first jazz records that I heard. Were these records from this American record club. Right. And something happened. Something happened and I just fell in love with the sound of these records. Did you start taking lessons? I had my first saxophone lessons when I was 11 with this American guy and then we came back to England. after a year of being in the States. My dad continued to play and I played, got more and more into it and I was in a band with my dad.

Geoff: 3:00

How cool was that.

Mark: 3:01

With this guy who was into Jerry Mulligan, who wanted to arrange all the kind of sextet things. This guy had a band with my dad on tenor, me on alto, and that was it. That was my start and that's the only thing I ever wanted to do, was to be a jazz musician.

Geoff: 3:18

And then did you study it? Did you go to college to study jazz?

Mark: 3:21

Yeah, so I played a lot of gigs before I went to college, you know kind of function gigs and things like that, all on the south coast because I grew up in Portsmouth. Then I went and studied Trinity College in London, classical sax because I wanted to be in London

Geoff: 3:37

presumably because it wasn't a jazz course, right

Mark: 3:39

There was only one, and that was in Leeds, Leeds yeah, and I didn't want to go to Leeds.

Mark: 3:43

I knew, I knew that I wanted to be in London, yeah, uh, so I did classical sax and it was kind of okay. It was a bit weird, the repertoire. You know, there isn't a lot of classical sax repertoire, that's. that's really interesting actually. And then I met key people. I met John Parcelli, I met Django Bates. We didn't have a bass player to play within someone. Simon Purcell was there in a couple of years above me.

Mark: 4:08

He said oh, there's a guy who works on the Northern Line who's a great bass player. It was Nick Hudson.

Geoff: 4:13

I knew you were going to say Nick, yeah. So Nick came. He works on the Northern Line. I know.

Mark: 4:19

So Nick came over to Trinity and we played. We got this band together. Me, Simon Cool, I got a drummer called Alan Rushton, who's still around. I think. so. I was playing with Simon and Mick really early on. Right, And then I met John and we hooked up and then I met Steve Berry. This was all before Loose Tubes.

Geoff: 4:40

So I was going to say so. This obviously led on to the formation of Loose Tubes.

Mark: 4:43

Yeah.

Geoff: 4:44

All these guys right, so this would have been like 80s, was it yeah?

Mark: 4:47

early 80s, Right? I can't quite remember. I mean I left college in 83. And so Loose Tubes must have been 84. Right. Or something like that.

Geoff: 5:05

So for people who don't know Loose Tubes was, it was like a collective, really, wasn't it? Everyone was writing for it and everyone, like a big band really, wasn't it?

Mark: 5:09

It was a big band set up by Graham Collier right as a rehearsal band and we started off by playing Graham's music and then Django and Steve Berry brought some pieces in and they were very different from Graham's music. Yeah so, and it was obvious, the band preferred that music. So Graham gradually got kind of ousted out, you know, right right, and then the band was taken over as a cooperative, but the main writers were Django, Steve Berry, Eddie Parker, Chris Batchelor really. I never wrote for it. I really regret not writing. Right.

Mark: 5:43

I was always a bit intimidated, I think. Right.

Mark: 5:46

The level of the writing you know,

Geoff: 5:47

But you must have learned.

Geoff: 5:49

from being in that band right, you learn a lot of skills that you could use yourself right,

Mark: 5:53

I learned an awful lot, and soon after Loose Tubes started I started my own band, you know. So it was filtering in, but I never quite had the confidence to write anything for it, because the first piece Django brought was just. I remember it vividly. It was so incredible, it was so formed and different from everything else.

Mark: 6:14

It was his sound world that he had.

Geoff: 6:19

Did you have?

Geoff: 6:19

lessons in composition or in arranging or anything like that.

Mark: 6:20

No, I'm completely self-taught really. I mean, I've studied a lot of scores and listened a lot. I think it's listening with me that you know I've never had jazz lessons. With hindsight, I'm quite glad I didn't go through jazz education actually. Yeah, because I think I've got an angle on it, because I've had to find it out like the arranging thing.

Mark: 6:39

I mean, a lot of my writing comes out of improvising, you know finding it out and then realizing what the chord is, kind of thing after after I've done it, you know,

Geoff: 6:50

Because sometimes you can have rules, can't you?

Geoff: 6:51

and then you just don't. You don't want to break the rules

Mark: 6:53

Exactly, and I think that can sometimes stifle creativity a little bit. You know, and for me the inspiration you think of the Beatles or Radiohead. You know they write intuitively, they don't sit down with rules.

Mark: 7:04

You know, and that's why the music's so good yeah, yeah,

Geoff: 7:06

I guess that's what Loose tubes was about, right it was. I remember seeing Loose Tubes in the 80s at Ronnie's. I remember I'd never seen anything like it it was. It certainly wasn't swing jazz. It wasn't what I, what I knew to be as jazz, you know.

Geoff: 7:18

It was so something, something completely different

Mark: 7:21

yeah, that's interesting because I think at that time the 80s in London was really interesting. There was a lot of South African music. You know, doodoo put people like that were all living in London because of apartheid. There was all that going on and we were all really influenced by that right and there seemed to be a lot of reggae.

Mark: 7:37

I remember doing horn sections with Chris reggae, horn section right and the trombonist in the band John Harborne, you know we'd go off and do reggae horn section right, and the trombonist in the band, John Harborne, you know, we'd go off and do reggae gigs, yeah, so there was awful lot of influences that were influencing the jazz at that time, you know.

Geoff: 7:51

Yeah, I remember there wasn't too much swing, actual swing

Mark: 7:54

there wasn't.

Mark: 7:55

It was. It was kind of grooves or loose things. There were a couple of swing things, but they were kind of pastiche actually. Yeah, it's quite interesting. I mean we used to listen to American jazz on the bus. That was what we were all into yeah Ellington, yeah Jarrett. I mean I remember there were a couple of pivotal albums that came out that we were all obsessed by, and that was 80, 81. With Dewey Redman and Brecker and quite a free album actually, isn't it that one?

Mark: 8:21

yeah, it's quite uh, and I mean you know unusual Pat record but we all love that record right My Song, Keith Jarrett, all that band, we were obsessed with that record you know, there were kind of certain records like that yeah, Still Life

Mark: 8:36

Talking actually a bit later on, yes really important

Geoff: 8:40

Because then of course in the 90s I remember there was a bit of resurgence to um swinging, wasn't there? I remember Winton and Branford and all that sort of very heavy kind of macho swinging thing, Josh Redman and those kind of people came along. Did that have any influence on you at all?

Mark: 8:58

Yeah, I mean, I've always listened to swing music. You know, Paul Desmond was a really early influence actually. I just love the clarity of what he did.

Geoff: 9:06

Well, the clarity is the thing that, as you're learning as an improviser, is. You want to try and absorb that information, don't you? Yeah, did you do transcribing?

Mark: 9:16

I've never been a massive transcriber. I've done a bit of it. I transcribed quite a lot of Wayne, Joe Henderson, Stan Getz, Stan, I transcribed quite a lot of Wayne Joe Henderson, Stan Getz, Stan Getz. My dad had one of the Stan Getz Plays which is an early 50s record, and I remember when I first heard him play Stella by Starlight I wasn't aware that of where the improvising started and where he'd finished playing the head, because it was so beautifully embellished from the beginning and so personalised.

Mark: 9:46

Yeah, and that was a massive thing for me. I thought, oh, I love that way of playing.

Mark: 9:50

I want to play like that.

Mark: 9:51

Yeah yeah.

Mark: 9:52

And I still, I mean whenever I listen to Getz, it kind of blows me away really. So, yeah, all these influences, I mean transcription is an interesting one because it's obviously important, but I think my transcription was done by playing along to records In my front room at home with my mum cooking when I was a kid. I must have driven her bonkers Because there were a few things I literally played along to hundreds of times. Wow, there was a Phil Woods record because I played alto in those days, right and copying some of the things you heard, yeah trying to copy Phil Woods and there's loads of it.

Mark: 10:26

I couldn't get near, yeah, because there's quite a lot of language in it. Some of it I got, but I picked up on the feel and the sound and all these things that you pick up subconsciously by listening. So in a way that was my transcription, more than sitting down and writing out loads of stuff.

Geoff: 10:45

Where did the composition start? What were your early throws into composition?

Mark: 10:49

So I started writing for this band I mentioned with Simon Purcell at Trinity. I wrote a few tunes for that. Those were my first tunes, but it didn't really take off until Perfect Houseplants, really in the 90s right,

Geoff: 11:05

Which was a quartet you led

Mark: 11:07

Is co-led Huw Warren.

Mark: 11:08

Yeah yeah, and Dudley and Dudley Phillips and the three of us wrote yeah, and Martin France was on drums yeah that was really important from a writing point of view and also it was kind of my first statement as a as an artist outside of yeah outside of Loose Tubes and we were lucky to have a deal with Limb Records. who paid for the records and gave us an advance? I mean amazing, isn't it? Yeah, you think about it now and I'm really proud of those records still. I mean they sound slightly kind of wacky, but some great writing and playing on them so that was important.

Geoff: 11:42

And then, much later, you progressed to a big band, didn't you? I know that record that you put out The Days on Earth album.

Mark: 11:47

You, that's with an orchestra. That's a lot later. That was only about six years ago the biggest project you've done before yeah, that was the biggest thing that I've.

Mark: 11:59

I've undertaken

Geoff: 12:00

Did you write everything an an orchestrate it yourself?

Mark: 12:02

yeah, and it was the first thing that I've undertaken. Did you write everything for it and orchestrate it yourself? Yeah, and it was the first time I'd written for strings, so I had to learn how to do that, but it was brilliant and we booked I booked British Grove and did it there. So, wow, what a thrill. Eh, the sound is great.

Geoff: 12:15

How many strings did you have?

Mark: 12:17

We had probably about 20 strings. It was quite a healthy amount, but my first album under my own name was partly orchestral. It wasn't as big, it was 12 people a 12-piece band with people like Roland Sutherland, Henry Lowther's on it, Houseplant's rhythm section. So that was important, that record. It was my first debut album under my own name and it was a 12-piece band, which was a bit silly, commercially.

Geoff: 12:45

In terms of a writer, though, expanding it from a quartet to 12 is a massive thing, isn't it?

Mark: 12:49

Yeah, and I learnt a lot actually with that band and we had French horn in it, we had, you know, Jim Rattigan was in it and trumpets woodwind , woodwind, and it's something I've always really been interested in orchestration.

Geoff: 13:06

So you've had a bit of experience playing in the sort of contemporary classical world as well. You worked with Mark- Anthony Turnage a bit, didn't you?

Mark: 13:11

Yeah, and I'm quite glad that I was classically trained in a way, in some ways in terms of slotting into things, I met Mark in Tunbridge Wells because I lived in Tunbridge Wells for a bit and we got to know each other and we taught music and we had brilliant. He's got some brilliant stories about meeting.

Mark: 13:27

Leonard Bernstein. So he said one day yeah, I'm writing this piece, do you want to play in it? I think it was called About Water and it had John Patitucci was playing in it and, Gwilym, he'd written a sax concerto for Joe Lovano and Joe Lovano couldn't do it, so he asked me to do it which is very nice how much improvising was in that there was a bit actually in the Joe Lovano thing there was quite a bit did his writing give space for improvising or was it a lot through composed?

Mark: 13:56

yeah, I mean, most of it's written, but there is an element, a healthy element, of improvising. And then I was lucky enough to work with him three or four times more. We did his op, we wrote an opera for The Opera House and he scored it for two sopranos, wow. So there was me and Martin Robertson getting roasted in the pit, god, and Pete Erskine was playing drums. You know, it was a nice experience, amazing, you know. And again, I was influenced by his, uh, orchestration. You know, I remember sitting in the pit at The Opera House making a note of all the bits that I really wanted to check out on the score.

Mark: 14:34

Yeah, yeah which I did. Later on, he sent me the score and I was yeah, that's how you write, like that, you know?

Geoff: 14:40

yeah, just the voicings and things.

Mark: 14:42

Voicings.

Geoff: 14:42

Combining instruments and things like that.

Mark: 14:44

Yeah, voicings and ranges of things. The sweet spot of an instrument which I'm still learning a lot about.

Geoff: 14:52

Yeah, I did a similar thing actually when I started writing. I've written quite a few things for string quartets.

Mark: 14:58

Have you.

Geoff: 15:04

Yeah, and I studied a brilliant album by Elvis Costello.

Geoff: 15:05

He made an album with, with the Brodsky Quartet, quartet which I don't know, it's just genius, right, it's called the Juliet Letters, so it's all um through composed, uh, string quartet and voice, oh right, and some of the sound that comes from the string quartet is just, yeah, it sounds like an orchestra. It's incredible, double stops, all sorts of different flavours that strings can make. I did exactly the same thing. I went through and listened to it. Oh, that bit. How did he do that? I got the score. Extracting those little elements from a score is really important, isn't it?

Mark: 15:34

Yeah, I mean with Houseplants, actually the kind of crossover thing started because we worked with an early music group called The Orlando Consort so we all wrote for that. You know that was interesting. Even though it was voices it was still really good training, you know, for me, using modal, old modal, plain chant and trying to make it into a jazz thing, you know.

Mark: 16:02

So all these experiences have been massive learning curves for me

Geoff: 16:13

Can we talk a little bit about standards, about jazz standards, and what part that's played on your development

Mark: 16:18

Ever since I could remember I played standards.

Mark: 16:21

Interesting enough, I've never recorded standards yet, but I do intend to do the record at some point. I've never recorded standards on. I've done lots of records of my own. But and why is that? I think it's partly because I haven't felt like I've got much to offer in that. Because there's so many great versions of things you know. I mean, if I think of a tune like Green Dolphin Street, there's Rollins, there's you. Because there's so many great versions of things you know. I mean, if I think of a tune like Green Dolphin Street, there's Rollins, there's, you know, there's loads of versions there's all these versions that immediately, unless I've got a real angle on it, right.

Mark: 16:52

but for me I mean just leaving aside. I haven't recorded anything yet of my own playing standards Until today. Until today, it's always been my point of reference with everything in terms of me practising improvising. So I sit up here and I play standards for hours.

Geoff: 17:11

That's so interesting, but you don't record them.

Mark: 17:14

I don't really know what I do. I just make another version of something without having a concept.

Mark: 17:20

It's a bit like that, that's kind of what's stopping me.

Mark: 17:23

Yeah, but occasionally I just I think, and Libby, my wife says why don't you make a standard record? Occasionally I think, oh I, I can hear something, maybe I should

Geoff: 17:32

You know what you should do?

Geoff: 17:33

You should do like the Lee Konitz thing and write some contra facts. Want some? Yeah, maybe tunes on on on standard changes.

Mark: 17:40

But I probably wouldn't want to do that because I love the original tune. So there's that, right, but as a vehicle for practicing the way I improvise yeah, standards, a quarter it. Yeah.

Mark: 17:54

And what I try and do, what I set out to do when I put play around a sequence, is I just want to play. When I put play around a sequence, is I just want to play, like me, you know. Yeah, I want to leave all the things that I've got behind, all the influences, because if I'm not careful, there's so many versions that I know intimately, it almost feels disrespectful to me to try and copy that, which is probably you wouldn't consciously be copying it though, would you? I don't know.

Geoff: 18:21

Let's find out, shall we? Well, I mean, would you I don't know let's find out, shall we?

Mark: 18:23

Well, I mean, you know, I don't know.

Mark: 18:28

It's a complicated relationship with standards.

Geoff: 18:30

It is.

Geoff: 18:31

It's so interesting,

Mark: 18:32

yeah, but when, like we did a gig the other day and I loved playing the standards we played, you know. And people say oh, you sound great on standards, you know. Yeah. I probably should just get over it and go in and record something with some nice musicians and bring something out.

Geoff: 18:46

you know Well, the whole thing about bringing something out nowadays is you could have a Band camp page and you could record something here and put it out, couldn't you? I?

Mark: 18:56

know it's totally.

Geoff: 18:58

You know, the whole concept of putting something out has kind of lost its meaning in some respects, don't you think?

Mark: 19:05

yeah, I do. I think it's the industry's just like completely in a different place now and I don't I kind of worry about it really how people are going to make creative music you know, do you make actual physical CDs anymore? I yeah, and I'm about to do a new album and I'm going to do vinyl as well. But it's a big financial risk it is. Yeah, I mean I've already spent, you know, about three or four thousand quid on this record, and it's only a trio, so I don't know.

Geoff: 19:39

It becomes a passion project, doesn't it?

Mark: 19:40

It becomes a vanity project, or a passion project, but that's what we do.

Mark: 19:46

That's what we do. And often there's a kind of, not a reward, but you get back your investment in a way from something, either gigs, or some award, or something, or a situation you know, a situation that you wouldn't have got in without it.

Geoff: 20:06

Yeah.

Mark: 20:07

So I've always seen it like long-term, you know, investing in your own music and not expecting anything.

Geoff: 20:15

But you're a sideman as well. You do some other people's projects and do sessions and things like that.

Mark: 20:20

Yeah yeah, I do lots of different things. I mean I do less sideman thing now.

Geoff: 20:26

I noticed you've got keyed a gold disc from Radiohead.

Mark: 20:29

They gave us that soon after it came out.

Geoff: 20:31

So three hundred thousand copies, yeah.

Mark: 20:33

Yeah, I think it's a lot more now it's a nice.

Geoff: 20:35

What did you do with them?

Mark: 20:37

They just phoned up and they wanted some improvised horns on The National Anthem, which is one of the tracks on it. They were about eight of us and we went to their studio in Abingdon, nothing was written, it was just improvised it was improvised, yeah, well they. They had a kind of line and Thom York wanted a kind of um, a Mingusy kind of feel right, kind of wild Mingusy feels on a loose big band or something yeah, yeah, and so we just played.

Mark: 21:02

They really liked the way it turned out and, um, we ended up doing gigs with them. We went to New York, Paris, and we played on one tune. Wow, you went all the way to New York just to play on one tune. To play on one tune and do Saturday Night. Live. Wow, what a thrill it was. Yeah, I mean it was slightly frustrating that we were only on one tune. Yeah, yeah, but no, it was great. It was a kind of bit of a career highlight, that. Yeah that yeah right.

Geoff: 21:27

So I asked you to pick a standard to play today. Yeah, because we're here to talk a little bit about my apps as well, which, um, I think you're aware of those Geoff. Yeah, well, I've made some I've never heard of your apps, shut up, I've made these apps.

Geoff: 21:43

Actually, actually, we just just recorded volume five a couple of weeks ago. As we speak, which is in August 2025, we have four volumes and I asked you to pick a standard. I know you love standards. We've just been speaking about that, yeah, um, what did you pick?

Mark: 22:01

I picked. It Could Happen To You. That is one that I don't have that many reference points other than Chet Baker. I like the harmony and the way the tune kind of cadences. There seems to be lots of opportunities to cadence and resolve. Just the way it's put together kind of intrigues me and it also never gets any easier. There's something about it that is always a challenge. The cadencing's kind of two bars. Interestingly enough, I can't think of that many versions off hand. I'm sure there are by saxophone players, but it's a great tune. Yeah, it's a great tune.

Geoff: 22:40

So that's what I've chosen fantastic, here we go, here we go, here we go. Thank you, uh, that's great. Is there some things that you could demonstrate about the way some of the great sax players have influenced?

Mark: 24:42

you. There's certainly things I've absorbed about certain players. Right, a lot of it is articulation and feel. Ok, you know, if you've got a good feel, people are going to want to work with you.

Mark: 24:48

Absorbed about certain players, you know a lot of it is is articulation and feel. Okay, you know, if you've got a good feel, people are going to want to work with you. And and the thing that attracted me to Joe Henderson was the feel kind of articulation. And there's a blues on page one. There's loads in it, so much in it. I transcribed it and there's so much in it and it's um, you know he does the phrases like that kind of energy that he gets in a few notes. The point about him is to me he sounds like he's learnt bebop but he's then gone and deconstructed it in his own way. Right, He'll come out with his own language. Almost there's so much bebop. It's kind of disguised because he's deconstructed it all.

Geoff: 25:29

You hear that with any, any of the masters, don't you they, you do their own thing, you know.

Mark: 25:34

Yeah, but there's one bit on on that page, one album on the blues Homestretch. Yeah, it's called Homestretch, it's in C.

Geoff: 25:43

I did it, did it. Yeah.

Mark: 25:51

Something like that, and there's pentatonic-y things in it and all kinds of things. But there's one bit where he just plays the diminished scale and he starts it and teases it and then plays the whole, just the whole diminished scale. But it sounds so fantastic because it's so beautifully articulated. So he goes and then he does the whole thing and it's just great, you know, amazing. I remember thinking that's really cool.

Geoff: 26:20

So what about some of the other masters, like Sonny Rollins, for example? What have you got from Sonny, in particular?

Mark: 26:25

I think the kind of boldness of Sonny Rollins, the kind of experimentation of him, is so amazing. I was listening to that Sonny Meets Hawk album the other day. His playing is so weird on it. But I think with him it's all about rhythm and manipulating shapes, you know, and motific things. You know so forcey things maybe, I don't know.

Mark: 26:57

To me he uses a lot of those things triads maybe, and triads, and of course he plays licks, but there is kind of own licks, you know

Geoff: 27:02

And there are other saxophone players that have inspired you and influenced you.

Geoff: 27:06

Do you think?

Mark: 27:06

Oh, so many people. I mean Brecker.

Mark: 27:09

I never tried to sound like Brecker, but I love Michael Brecker you know, from a sound point of view,

Geoff: 27:16

We're going back to the 80/81 album he's on now.

Mark: 27:18

Yeah, I mean, that's one of my favourite saxophone solos of all time, on Every Day I Thank You. Yeah, it's ridiculous, saxophone playing yeah, right up there there, I think with Coltrane, you know. I mean Coltrane was, is a massive influence on me, sound wise.

Mark: 27:37

I remember when I started out on tenor because I started on alto when I changed to tenor my sound was kind of weedy and closed at the top of the register. So it was a bit like this. That's exaggeration. It was a bit kind of weedy and closed at the top of the register, so it was a bit like this. That's exaggeration. It was a bit kind of and I just remember playing along to ballads, a couple of days of just playing along to those tunes and something happened in my throat embouchure. All of a sudden I could play a little bit like the upper range of John Coltrane. So instead of it was like that open thing. Yeah, the lesson for me, the really important lesson, was I didn't really know what I was doing. I was just imitating the sound, adjusting your breath control, yeah, and throat and the muscles and relaxing, but no one could teach me how to do that.

Mark: 28:40

The only way I could do that was to imitate. Listening yeah, listening and copy it. I say that to students. If you want to discover something like that, imitation is the best way.

Geoff: 28:57

Right. So to finish off, I've got a few questions for you.

Mark: 29:00

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 29:01

First question is what's your favourite album?

Mark: 29:04

I did a thing recently for Jazzwise, where they they said you know what's your most, the album that influenced you most, and I chose Atlantis from Wayne Shorter, because that was a pivotal album for writing for me and playing, but particularly writing when I heard that in the 80s.

Geoff: 29:21

Now, that was a very, quite electronic thing. That's 80s, lots of synths. Yeah, it's a very dense harmony. Yeah, a really weird.

Geoff: 29:29

That's the one with.

Geoff: 29:29

Endangered Species and the Three Marias on it. Yeah, yeah, those great, great tracks.

Mark: 29:34

I mean it's not the best album, but something resonated. You know I mean Kind of Blue. I'm scared to listen to Kind of Blue because it's such a masterpiece. It's a bit of a cliche for everyone to say that. But everyone does say that yeah. But then you know there's individualism with Gill Evans. That, I think, is right up there you know, which is a strange album with lots of crazy edits, and so there's so many, so many records it's a hard one, isn't? It Steely Dan you know, Aja.

Geoff: 30:03

I think is an incredible album.

Mark: 30:04

I think there's some incredible album. I think there's some Stevie Wonder records, that October Road by James Taylor. You know, there's just so many.

Geoff: 30:13

Is there a favourite musician, alive or dead, that you would like to have played with or play with?

Mark: 30:20

Yeah, Paul Simon.

Mark: 30:22

OK, I'd love to play with Paul Simon, yeah.

Mark: 30:26

That would be my dream gig, amazing.

Geoff: 30:28

Which period of Paul Simon are you particularly drawn to?

Mark: 30:33

I think, Still Crazy After All These Years, and then, right up to Graceland, even the later records there's something interesting, the one that Brian Eno produced.

Geoff: 30:45

There's always something interesting in his music you may have already said this, but what would you consider the highlight of your career so far?

Mark: 30:53

I don't know. There's things that I'm most proud of. I think Days on Earth, the orchestral record. I can listen to that without any cringing. Really Well, there's a bit of cringing, but that was such a big part of working towards something and I invested so much in my creativity and things into that. In terms of gigs, so many highlights with Loose Tubes and Polar Bear.

Geoff: 31:18

I mean, when you get to our age, we're kind of lucky that we're still doing it really.

Mark: 31:23

You wake up and think, oh, this is good. I'm still in the game.

Geoff: 31:26

Yeah, what was the last concert you attended?

Mark: 31:30

I think it might have been the Vortex. Liam play Liam Noble. Oh God, I can't remember. I'd have to look in my diary. It's a bit of a busman's holiday, isn't it going?

Geoff: 31:41

to gigs sometimes that's fine. The Vortex is a good one. Oh no, it was the 606.

Mark: 31:47

I went to see Trish Clowe playing with Nikki Iles. That was about two weeks ago.

Geoff: 31:53

Excellent. Oh yeah, what would

Geoff: 31:57

you say, was your musical weakness

Mark: 31:58

My ears. I always want my ears to be better than they are. When I listen to someone like Keith Jarrett, I just realise that the connection is really fast between what he hears and what comes out on the instrument.

Geoff: 32:11

I mean, he just has an endless flow of creativity, doesn't he? And not everyone has that. You know it's a hard thing to attain.

Mark: 32:24

But I think it's the brain connection, brain-ear connection, that it's not rapid with me, which it's not always a good thing to. You know, people with perfect pitch they struggle, don't they?

Geoff: 32:30

yeah, it's not. Sometimes perfect pitch could be a bit of a curse, can't it? You know, it's all right.

Mark: 32:35

It's great that you can hear everything, but yeah, and the older I get, the more I realize that you know the things you can't do are as important as the things you can do. In terms of what you do with music theologianious Monk, for instance. You know there's loads of things he couldn't do, but what he did do with what he could do was amazing. I've kind of learned that that's worth doing.

Geoff: 32:57

Do you ever get nervous on stage??

Mark: 32:59

Yeah, I do. Yeah, Well, I'm out of my comfort zone. I did a prom on Friday with an orchestra and I had to really concentrate and I was reading and I was nervous, yeah.

Geoff: 33:12

It was all right in the end. Did that affect your performance? Do you think your nerves, or did it heighten your attention?

Mark: 33:19

I think it does affect my performance sometimes if I'm not careful, but I've got better at coping with nerves.

Mark: 33:30

I sometimes have memory.

Mark: 33:31

AWOL wall moments, but let me all do yeah when you're doing things without music.

Geoff: 33:33

Yeah, but clearly that was all written, right?

Mark: 33:36

it was all written. It was more about following the conductor and playing in the right place and playing in the orchestra and all that. So yeah, I still get nervous, but not very much now.

Geoff: 33:49

What's your favorite sandwich?

Mark: 33:51

Favorite sandwich's cheese and pickle great. I think cheese and pickles can't beat cheese and pickle um, what about a favorite movie?

Geoff: 34:02

What?

Geoff: 34:04

about a favourite movie.

Mark: 34:04

Favourite movie, it would probably be a Coen Brothers film.

Geoff: 34:08

Okay, one of those Black comedy. You like all that sort of Fargo and all that stuff, oh yeah.

Mark: 34:14

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, yeah, love all that.

Geoff: 34:17

Favourite venue to play in.

Mark: 34:18

I like the QEH. I like that kind of size theatre. It's nice.

Geoff: 34:24

I'd go for the QEH Therese Theatre. It's nice, I'd go for the QEH. So your prom was at the Albert Hall, was it? Prom was at the Albert Hall.

Mark: 34:29

yeah, that's a great place to play, isn't it? Yeah, it is amazing, yeah.

Geoff: 34:33

What about favourite country? Do you travel a lot? Do you go to many places?

Mark: 34:37

I go to Ireland quite a lot Interesting Because of my wife. I like going there. I love Italy. I've been to Italy recently doing gigs. That's always lovely going there. I love travelling and I've got a real fondness for America because of that year that I had as a kid there and I'm quite defensive with America. You know people start slagging it off and saying everyone's a moron. You know it's a wonderful, wonderful country.

Geoff: 35:05

Did you see much of America, moron? You know it's like it's a wonderful, wonderful country.

Mark: 35:07

Did you see much of america? Have you been across across it? I've never been to the West. I've done quite a lot of things on the east coast in midwest Chicago.

Mark: 35:13

I know very well

Geoff: 35:14

America's amazing, though, isn't it. It's like five countries in one, though, isn't it?

Mark: 35:17

yeah, depending on where you go, it's an amazing place and, you know, the home of our music.

Geoff: 35:24

So one last question what's your favorite chord?

Mark: 35:28

As soon as I left college I was in this band with Steve Berry, with John Paracelli and Steve and a drummer, and he used to write really complicated chords to me like.

Mark: 35:38

I remember E over F was one of his things no E slash F, and I still don't quite know what to do on that. But he, he would have to come over and write the scales in of the chords. All right for me and John. You know, I didn't know what I was doing, maybe John knew a bit better than I did, but so but anyway, favorite chord. I don't think you can beat a minor 11, really.

Geoff: 35:59

Yeah yeah, I think that's probably it. Yeah, that's a good answer. It's so rich. Have you played Kenny Wheeler's music much a bit? Yeah, right, okay, because he seems to have his own specific sort of language, doesn't he?

Geoff: 36:13

lots of raised 11ths and things

Mark: 36:16

yeah, I love that music but I think it's got a lot of challenges. To be free on it very few people aren't. I think a lot people can get in it. You get in a kind of hamster wheel of just playing related scales. I mean, he doesn't. He seems to just sound amazing on it all. But I love his music. Yeah, I was lucky to work with him once. I only did one record with him and that was towards the end of his life and that was like a dream come true. You know, to do something with Kenny. But yeah, I love his music.

Mark: 36:49

It's very specific the harmony

Geoff: 36:51

You like that when you write your own music? How specific are you with your, with your chord choices?

Mark: 36:57

I try not to be, because I it, for me, writing is all about counterpoint. It's all about the top and the bottom, bass treble, and then I like to think what the chord is. So I don't worry often, I don't worry about what kind of chord it is until I have the, the root and the top, and when I'm writing I don't even know what it is, until I work it out later. Oh it's, it's so. You're guided by the melody, guided by the melody and the root, and I try and teach that. I mean, it's just my personal method. I try and teach that at the Guildhall when I go and do my composition class, because they tend to clog things up very quickly with loads of rich harmony.

Mark: 37:44

And the problem with that is you've kind of you can neglect the shape of the melody. So when I was writing that orchestral music that was really important to me. You know, I didn't get too bogged down in the harmony until I knew exactly what the top and the bottom were doing.

Geoff: 37:58

And then fill all the stuff out.

Mark: 38:00

Yeah, exactly.

Geoff: 38:01

Great Well, Mark, thank you so much for having me round and for doing that. That was a great fun. It's been a pleasure.

Mark: 38:07

Geoff, yeah, I really enjoyed it and the app's brilliant and thank you. Good luck with it and it's. It's been lovely to chat yeah, and catch up yeah, it's been wonderful right.

Geoff: 38:17

Well, I'll see you very soon yeah, bye for now bye bye, bye, bye, bye bye

Announcement: 38:23

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