Geoff: 0:05

I 'm in Henley-on-Thames, which is a beautiful part of the world. I'm going to see a lovely man, Mr Art Themen, we're going to have a chat all about saxophones, about quotes and solos. A little bit about free-jazz and whatever comes up. So, here we go.

Announcement: 0:36

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

Geoff: 0:45

So thanks for inviting me today in your lovely home.

Art: 0:48

Thanks for uh thinking of me, Geoff. I hope it's gonna be cut alright for you.

Geoff: 0:52

Can we just start talking about how you got into jazz? What was your first influence that got you thinking and loving jazz music?

Art: 0:58

Yeah, I think probably it may come as a surprise. Actually, given my age, it may not come as a surprise, but I was probably what I think is rather pejoratively described as a moldy fig because it was the trad scene, the UK, in the mid-50s, I suppose. But before that I did have an instrument and uh got off to a rather bad start because I'd shown some kind of aptitude with tin whistles given to me by kind uncles. We bought a clarinet. You know, no tutor, mouthpiece on upside down, tutor book didn't have, didn't show you the it was page three was missing. So I got very disillusioned. You could all you can get is squeaks with your teeth on top of the reed.

Geoff: 1:36

Happens very quickly when you're a child though, doesn't it?

Art: 1:38

Yeah, you can easily get to solution. So I think if there's a lesson for anybody with children thinking about jazz, get yourself a inst a proper instrument and a teacher. Yeah, so four years elapsed, and then at that stage it was the three B's, Barber, Ball and Bilk, who influenced me. So I started playing , slavishly copying mainly Chris Barber's band. I think there was a tune called Bobby Shafto, played by Monty Sunshine. I think it was the first solo I learned by ear, including the mistake. That's the, more of that later.

Geoff: 2:16

Is there such thing as a wrong note in jazz, though, is there? One that hasn't been resolved yet, surely.

Art: 2:22

So after the sort of trad people, I I think the scales fell from my eyes when I heard the New Orleans guys. Now I'm not sure if you want to hear my trad bit, but I suppose we're the word. I think the first real influence was Johnny Dodds, who um I'm laughing now, largely because um I'm switching forwards to contemporary times where Denny Eilert wants to form a trad band with me on clarinet, and he's nicknamed me Johnny Doddery. But no, but um Johnny Dodds was was uh yeah one of my first idols. He was yeah, very New Orleans, wobbly tone, virtually no technique, but the sound, you know. So Burgundy Street Blues was uh George Lewis was was was the first one, and then followed on to people like Edmund Hall. I heard Louis Armstrong, I am that old, in 1956 when he came to the UK.

Geoff: 3:12

You heard Louis Armstrong play live?

Art: 3:13

Yeah, yeah, with the All-Stars.

Geoff: 3:15

Wow.

Art: 3:16

My my memory, as you would subsequently discover, is not very good at my age, but I can remember all the members of his band, you know.

Geoff: 3:23

Where did you see him play?

Art: 3:24

Um it was in Manchester, my hometown. Right. Uh Bellevue. So Edmund Hall on clarinet, Billy Kyle, Trummy Young on trombone, Arvell Shaw on bass. So that's it. That's the best you'll get out of my out of my memory for the next few minutes.

Geoff: 3:37

That's great.

Art: 3:38

But um that was the beginning of the they ended the the Musicians' Union ban on those damn Yankees coming over and marrying our women and stealing our gigs, sort of thing. So Louis was the first band, and I think Stan Kenton was the next. I heard Stan Kenton, and then the next one was Sidney Bechet. So I heard Beshet and Armstrong in 1956. Wow. So yeah.

Geoff: 4:00

They must have made a huge impression on you?

Art: 4:03

Yeah, Armstrong, particularly, actually, you know, as he's still he's still right up there. Also, Bechet was so dominant, you know, six-piece band, and he was just Bechet, you know, a bit like Coltrane just playing all the solos intro, Coltrane solo outro.

Geoff: 4:18

So when you saw Louis Armstrong, I mean this is playing acoustically, though. Was there any amplification in those things?

Art: 4:23

Difficult to remember because it was a it was a huge venue. You know, it was the main, you know, you might think that um the Halle Orchestra would have you know allowed them to play the devil's music, but they didn't, so it was a just a big hall, five miles from the centre of Manchester. I can't remember whether it was amplified, but I suspect, as you suggest, not.

Geoff: 4:43

That's amazing. I mean, especially for instruments like a double bass and so on, in a big hall like that.

Art: 4:47

Made a lasting impression. Um the clarinet actually didn't last, largely because it's a very tricky instrument. Anyone who plays a clarinet has got my book. Press a button at the back and it goes up an octave and a half or something. So it's like playing two instruments for a start. And the keywork is all different. The joke is the standard joke is made of five bits, mouthpiece, barrel, upper section, lower section, bell, designed by five different blokes who never met. You know, but so what changed my life was listening to it was the Johnny Dankworth Band. Before he became John Dankworth, the local Pally. They had a band within a band, and um Danny Moss was the featured tenor player, and it was a revolving bandstand, and he came round um in his white tuxedo and his wonderful sort of curated beard. And I was with my cousin by by marriage, my Irish cousin, a year older, she was probably 16 or 17, and Danny winked at her, and I thought, that's it for the clarinet. So I bought a saxophone fairly soon after that. That's where I learned my primitive reading was uh in dance bands, learning that to get anywhere, particularly with a saxophone, you you've got to learn to read. I suppose after that, when I went to college, I was still playing mainstream, I suppose. I could I could get round Sweet Georgia Brown, but that was quite late, you know, Sweet Georgia Brown at 18 is pretty late compared with you know the likes of Skid, I think, who started when he was six and was playing Coltrain by the time he was 18. But what changed my life at Cambridge was Lionel Grigson, who I think he subsequently was professor at the Guildhall or the Royal Academy, slightly bristly character.

Geoff: 6:23

He wrote those satanic changes books, didn't he? That's right. Yeah, they were the very early Real Books.

Art: 6:28

With Charlie Parker on the front page, and he was turning to the to the bass player, and he said, You're playing the wrong changes, you know. You haven't read Lionel Grigson's book. It wasn't you, Geoff. You you always play the right changes.

Geoff: 6:41

Thank you very much. But it but I remember those books, they were quite long, long and narrow with lots of little boxes full of chord shapes, weren't they?

Art: 6:48

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I've still I've still got one. It's got a red cover. But we you know, when Lionel arrived, so I would be 18 or 90, he almost sprang from the womb as Torres Silver. He had it all and influenced us all. So we suddenly became from a sort of mainstream well Bill Davidson sort of band to Bebop. This sounds immodest actually, but in those days there was a lot of interest in jazz in the universities, and we used to sweep the board because there were very good people around. Colin Perbert was was was there, and Dick Heckstall- Smith was there as well.

Geoff: 7:23

So you came down to Cambridge. I know you were studying uh medicine, weren't you? Yeah. But you were playing all through that time as well, were you?

Art: 7:30

Yeah, you know, I was a relatively rich student because I was playing gigs three or four nights a week. I got a third in my first year, so I I got banned from playing the saxophone. Because they thought it was interrupting your study. That's right. Humphrey Littleton at Eton, I his school report was too much trumpet. Well, I was I was banned, but I thought sod that I'm not going to take any notice. I used to climb through the window after midnight after my gigs.

Geoff: 7:51

And then when you came to London, did you find yourself as part of the session scene as well?

Art: 7:55

Not the session scene. No, thanks to Dick Heckstall- Smith, who was two or three years ahead of me at Cambridge, he was by then blue saxophonist. So by then he was um with Alexis Korners band. And Alexis, he sort of changed personnel rather like he changed his shirts, actually. But I think that there was a mass exodus of Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker and Graham Bond to form, I think, The Graham Bond organization, which was the precursor of Cream. So there were three gaps, and Dick got me into that band. And the drummer replacing Ginger with Phil Seaman, a kind of doyen of British drummers. Jazz drummer, okay. He did everything else. He played sessions, he was the only drummer who could play um the Bernstein. West Side Story. West Side Story, yeah, he was the only drummer. He got sacked from that, you know, from you doing a gong in the wrong place. And they looked around for a drummer the following day and they couldn't find him. He got reinstated. So the jazz drummer, blues saxophonist, Alex, who I don't mean to be, he played with a capoe. That's a bit of a cop-out, but nevertheless, he was a you know, he was a really good blues player. So it was a sort of mélange of Charlie Mingus meets T-bone Walker. You know, it was jazz, blues. So that launched me into the sort of pro scene actually in London. And that, as I say, lasted a year, because I think we all got the bullet at one stage. And I was picked up by Long John Baldry's band. So don't tell anybody, I was one of Long John Baldry's hoochie coochie men. But the rhythm section were Humphrey Lyttleton's rhythm section, really full-on jazz rhythm section, and all sorts of people like Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger were sort of, Rod Stewart was the second singer.

Geoff: 9:34

So you were well ensconced in the medical world by this stage, were you? And so you were trying to balance the two things? Is that is that how it worked?

Art: 9:40

I think at that stage I was more or less qualified. Yeah. You do a house job for a year in medicine and surgery, and then if you're going into surgery, you do junior surgical jobs in various specialties. Then eventually you become a senior registrar in that specialty.

Geoff: 9:53

Which takes a long time, wasn't it?

Art: 9:54

It took about ten years.

Geoff: 9:56

Did you ever find it difficult to balance the two?

Art: 9:58

Short answer, no. Yeah, but people were always very understanding. The very first job, which was really quite demanding because you're on alternate nights, um, I was with a rugby player who played for England. And he would always play on Saturday afternoon, and I always play, I would always play on Saturday evening. We'd just swap, that's the way it worked. So it's quite flexible. Yeah. And even later on, you know, when I got my consultant job in in Reading, the guys were very, very understanding. At that stage, by then I was with Stan Tracy, and we did we did a five-week tour of South America. And I paid them back, you know, they were on one night in three then, there were three of us. For the next five weeks, I was uh two on two nights in three. So you pay them back, but it didn't it didn't clash.

Geoff: 10:39

But you didn't feel in your head that it was one was conflicted with another.

Art: 10:42

No, I didn't, but I do realize it was a compromise, and you know, there was no way I was going to become a composer or an arranger or a multi-instrumentalist or a session musician who could read you know, sight read. Yeah, they they coexisted. And there it wasn't a choice when I was 18 or it sounds a bit schmaltzy, really. My father was a doctor, and it wasn't the the thought of you know finding the cure for AIDS or anything like that. It was just I knew that medicine was going to be an interesting job. And I was hooked on jazz. They grew together.

Geoff: 11:20

So there's a beautiful tenor saxophone sitting next to us. Tell us about this.

Art: 11:24

This is almost an embarrassment of riches. I live in Henley on Thames and there was a music shop. It's now it's now closed down. But on my birthday, I think two years ago, Roger Bacock he was called, he said, Hello Art, I've got Ronnie's saxophone and I'm just about to retire.

Geoff: 11:39

Ronnie Scott's tenor saxphones.

Art: 11:40

Yeah. I said, I know that because I remember you had Ronnie's and Tubby Hayes' in a glass case saying, not for sale. How did he get those? When Ronnie died, I don't know about the about Tubby's, but when Ronnie died, I think that he died rather suddenly, and the whole world, you know, the Michael Breckers and all the big guys were aware of it. But the family, I think I don't know whether they were too distraught or that they didn't take the opportunity of getting a huge amount of money for it. And it was eventually sold at auction in London, you know, one of the big auction houses. And Roger bought it. I don't know how much he paid for it.

Geoff: 12:14

Right.

Art: 12:14

So it was it was sitting in a glass case. Anyway, he said, I'm about to retire and I'm ringing round and I want it to go to a good home. And I said, How many people have you wrong round? And he said, Well, you're close and you're the first. I said, I'll have it, quick as a flash. Now, it's priceless. It is priceless. To me, anyway. Ronnie was my hero. Ronnie was my saxphone hero in in the UK. And despite that, Roger, God bless him, um, he must have been a hard-nosed businessman because on his wall was a sign saying, Warning, prices may vary according to the attitude of the customer. And he sold it to me for the going rate. For the, you know, the average price for this is a Selmer's Super Balanced Action. He sold it to me for the average price of a Selmer, you know, despite its provenance. And there's another, I think, unproven and probably not true anecdote about it is that Ronnie was very kind to Hank Mobley, another of my heroes, when Hank was at the end of his life and in a bit of a state, and he gave Hank work. And it was said that Hank came over with two tenor saxophones and gave Ronnie this. Now, you know, I

Geoff: 13:17

So that was that was Hank's.

Art: 13:19

It is it is it is conceivable, but I'd like to do that yesterday. I'd like to believe it, but I can't. I've looked at I've looked at the picture on uh what Soul Station, you know, and it's you know there are no identifying marks, unfortunately. But it's a nice, it's a lovely eye. Yeah, or just is it a good one though, is it? Yeah, it's it it is. Yeah, I don't I don't play it all the time. I got it out especially because I knew you were going to ask me to play a little bit. I just got it out again yesterday, and it it is, it's a dream.

Geoff: 13:46

It's not the one that you take on gigs then?

Art: 13:48

I do take it on some gigs, yeah. It's gotta be it's gotta be used. You can't. Of course it does. It's been it's fed up the big in a glass case for 15 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 13:55

So you say Ronnie was was a hero. Did you play alongside Ronnie at all?

Art: 13:59

Towards the end of his life, I did a few deps for him, which was you know quite an honour. But I I would go to the club and listen to him, and I know it's not a contest, but he was he was my favourite by a country mile, actually.

Geoff: 14:10

And what about Tubby? Did you did you?

Art: 14:11

I love yeah, I love Tubby. It was the medical bit, I'm afraid. I worked at St. Mary's Hospital and Tubby came in with heart problems. I just said hello, that was all. But I I did know him. And one of the saddest things that I remember at the club shortly before he died, it was his big band and Stan Robinson, who is a fellow Mancunian. Stan was playing Tubby's parts in the big band in Ronnie's, and Tubby was sitting there watching, and it was one of the saddest things I've seen.

Geoff: 14:36

So, how long have you been retired from?

Art: 14:38

It's actually nearly 20 years now, 2007.

Geoff: 14:41

Right. And has your relationship with music changed since then?

Art: 14:44

Doing a few more gigs, actually, I suppose. Yeah, I can concentrate on it a bit more and practice a bit more. And you know, I I like the variation, that's the thing. I'm yeah, yeah, I'm not a band leader or a very reluctant occasional band leader. Yeah, but I like the variation.

Geoff: 14:59

Do you practice a lot?

Art: 15:00

I try and practice an hour a day.

Geoff: 15:02

Do you what do you practice? Technical things or tunes or what?

Art: 15:05

Tunes, technical things. Um incidentally, if anyone's listening, Geoff Gascoyne is a hero because he has this wonderful play-along thing which I , I recommend to all of you. I've only just started it because he only just downloaded it for me, but but um it is ten times better than any other product of a similar nature on the market. And I'm, you know, Geoff is not prodding me to say this, but it is absolutely wonderful. Because you know, both Geoff and I, when we were learning, um, unfortunately, because I'm a lot older than Geoff, um, that these things weren't available, so I had to do you know, do it from scratch as it was.

Geoff: 15:39

So you started before the Jamey Aebersold, you know. I remember using them so much, that was a big thing for me. That was which is kind of why I wanted to create these apps, you know, because this is the it is absolutely wonderful. I mean, what I tend to do, if I'm a bit bored or something and I can't think of what to practice, I'll just pick something at random. Yeah, so I mean, obviously you you can use it to to learn tunes, you know, or practice tunes that you're gonna play at a gig or something, but it's also a great way of just passing the time, you know.

Art: 16:06

It's like I I've heard people sort of diss play-alongs, and I'd for me it was the only thing I could do because I okay, I was quite busy. It wasn't 9 to 5, it was kind of 7:30 a.m. till 6.30 p.m. sometimes. And I come home a bit physically tired, but I plug myself into an Aebersold and you know, I'd play for an hour. Uh you know, I think play-alongs are a very good way of concentrating the mind.

Geoff: 16:29

I totally agree. So I asked you to pick a tune to play today.

Art: 16:40

Okay, well, my favourite of all the tenor players, I would say that Dex was the most influential.

Geoff: 16:45

Okay.

Art: 16:46

So uh I loved his contrafact on It Could Happen to You.

Geoff: 16:49

So we're gonna play It Could Happen to You

Art: 16:50

Is that, Is that okay?

Geoff: 16:51

Yeah. So what you're gonna hear is an eight-bar introduction, yeah, and then there'll be two choruses. The first chorus will be in two, and the second chorus will be, the bass will go into four. Um

Art: 17:01

I'm just making sure this is working. Yeah, close enough for jazz.

Geoff: 18:59

That was awesome. I love your quotes in there. Well, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of humour in jazz.

Art: 19:04

Humour, I think it's it's critical actually. I think jazz can be a bit too po-faced. Well, there are some masters at that at it, like uh Jim.

Geoff: 19:13

Jim. Yeah. I was gonna say, I I was speaking to him a couple of weeks ago and he said exactly the same thing.

Art: 19:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think the Miles did a lot of harm by turning his back on the audience and being, you know.

Geoff: 19:24

Takes the entertainment out of it, doesn't it?

Art: 19:26

It is entertainment. You know, you don't have to wear a fancy waistcoat and a bowler hat, but sorry, Acker. Yeah, it it brings the audience in, but it's it's also part of what you've taken in over the years. We're tunesmiths, and why why not use a little bit of the tune that you've heard?

Geoff: 19:42

So I'm gonna ask you some questions if that's alright. The same questions to everybody. Starting off with what's your favourite album?

Art: 19:48

It is Dexter Gordon, actually. It's Go. Um, Bebop, piano, bass drums, saxophone. I never actually met him, but I I heard him a few times. And it he was the bridge. I know I know that Parker reinvented jazz, but the older saxophonists they they didn't do what Dexter did. The other older tenor players, Dexter just, he assimilated what had gone before and he assimilated Parker and then handed the keys of the kingdom on to Rollins, who Rollins was another great favourite. You know, he looks the part as well. It's the package, you know, it's this the long, tall Dexter package. He's the archite I'm you I'm overusing that word, archetypal sort of jazz musician. Right. I'm but I did meet Rollins. Rollins is you know, Rollins was lovely. As I say, I heard heard Coltrane very early on, and I didn't, I didn't, it didn't actually grab me. You know, I didn't quite understand it. Maybe if I hadn't been so old, I would have pr prosen, chosen someone a little bit more modern. But yeah, with with George Lewis in mind and Chris Potter at the other end, you've got to you've got to be somewhere, and it's I think it's Dexter, just slightly towards the the beginning.

Geoff: 20:51

Excellent, excellent. Um, is there a favourite musician, alive or dead, that you would have liked to have played with?

Art: 20:58

I think that's got to be Rollins, actually. I'm sorry to be a bit boring and tenor saxophone orientated. There's a there's a sort of I don't mean it's an immodest Rollins anecdote, but he played with Stan at uh Stan Tracy a lot, that's who I was with for nearly 20 years. So Rollins admired Stan. Don't do you not know how good this guy is? I think was was Stan's the quote about Stan. And uh I met Rollins in Bombay with Stan's quartet. And then I think two years or three years later, I went to hear him at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. And as Art out had his dressing room door, he opened the door and he actually said, Hello Art. Now that's not a mere measure of how famous I am or anything like that. It's a measure of how he sort of seemed to have this approach to life in general and picked up on people who were important in his life, like Stan, and then projected it onto his one of his side men is here, Art. I'd you know, nearly , heart nearly stopped.

Geoff: 21:55

Wow, that's a big career moment, isn't it, when someone like that remembers your name. So my next question is what would you say was the highlight of your career?

Art: 22:03

Oh, it's yeah, that's very tricky, isn't it? We did the Chicago Jazz Festival , quite a few. With Stan? Yeah, yeah, with Stan. Dare I mention Hyde Park with Jack Bruce? It was sort of

Geoff: 22:13

Absolutely. Drop as many names as you want. That is what we want.

Art: 22:16

Yeah, Jack Bruce, he was very, very kind to me. I only did, I don't know, about 10 gigs, I think. Right. One of the things I remember about it, Ginger was in it, of course. It it was it was really sort of powerful music. It was it was one step further that than than the uh Alexis Korner Blues Band. It elevated a little bit and sort of uh left the ground.

Geoff: 22:37

Very rocky, I guess, right?

Art: 22:39

Yeah, very rocky. I think it was a little bit free form, but then I dabbled a little bit in free form with with one of Stan's many bands.

Geoff: 22:46

What you'll find as you go through Quartet, there's two tracks which are free improvisation.

Art: 22:51

You've covered the whole thing.

Geoff: 22:53

Yeah, so this was my idea for Quartet three and four. I wanted to try out something because obviously it's all on a click, but yeah, what you will hear is us improvising, and Steve Fishwick is on trumpet. Oh, right, okay. So there's four there's there's two tracks where we just play one sort of loosely minor and one's loosely major. See, I want you to see what you think. It's uh yeah, okay.

Art: 23:11

It's uh an experiment. Yeah, no, I love Steve. He's he's in one of the bands that I think he's playing.

Geoff: 23:16

Yeah, I've got a lot of time for free improvisation, I must I must say, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I often think about jazz audiences in in general, to be honest. I don't know if you think about this, but what are they hearing? What is it they're latching on to? Because we can hear form and we can hear changes, right? But non-musicians can't. What do you think? What do you think it is that they responding to?

Art: 23:34

Sort of tonal variation. The saxophone does everything from the breathy to very piercing. It there must be something arresting that draws people in. I I can't intellectualise it. That's that's one of the problems. You know, you it's it's entertainment, and I think that it is accessible entertainment. Yeah, but it's not as accessible as unfortunately rock music. So there's the you know, hence the the rock musician playing three chords to a thousand people and we playing the thousand chords to three thirty people.

Geoff: 24:00

That's a good joke, yeah. Following on from the same question, do you have a favourite recorded moment of yourself? Something that you you've recorded that you're most proud of?

Art: 24:08

Now, this sounds falsely modest, and I don't mean it. I can't listen to anything I play. I'd there nothing at all. Yeah, well, hardly at all. There are one or one or two of the quite a few recordings that I've done that are still in their cellophane cellophane packages. If pressed, I would probably say when yeah, after Stan died and after Ronnie died, I had a quartet with John Critch and we did a Cedar Walton tune. Um the name escapes me there, yeah.

Geoff: 24:42

I'll look that up when I get home. Okay. My next question is what was the last concert you attended?

Art: 24:47

Oh, that's a good one. Um yesterday I went to hear Adrian Cox, who is a clarinet player. You know, cut him in half. You would see rather like a stick of Blackpool rock, you wouldn't see Blackpool, you'd see New Orleans.

Geoff: 25:00

Right.

Art: 25:00

And it was with a trio, it was locally, you know, just up the up in the Chilterns. And he's tremendous. Again, I said about Dexter being the full package. He's the full package, emotion, ability to communicate with the audience, variability. You might think just New Orleans, oh blamey, you've just New Orleans. It was wonderful. Entertaining. Yeah, entertaining, yeah. So that was that was yesterday. Fantastic. He he sang as well. He had the audience spellbound just with a piano accompaniment singing, Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen that. You know, and it's this is not I mean, we are ostensibly modern jazz musicians, but you know, that's what I heard yesterday.

Geoff: 25:38

Fabulous, yeah. What would you say was your musical weakness?

Art: 25:42

Never having been to music school. I know it makes a big difference, and mine was a compromise. I said earlier that I was never going to be able to compose. I can read a bit, but I'm

Geoff: 25:52

So you've never composed any music? No. You're not alone. I mean that's um

Art: 25:55

But I, I did actually I tried when I was starting off in medicine, you could do the first three years, which is without patients, and then you could you could do the first three years in two years, and then I applied to do the third year doing music. I know it wouldn't have been jazz because it would have been Bach and nothing wrong with Bach, but it would have been classical music. But nevertheless, it I would have been able to read and transpose better and understand harmony. But they said, Art, you got the third in your first year, okay. You upped it, you're up, you got a second in your second year, but you're not clever enough to do it. I had to do the three years, and I I regret that, but it's it was absolutely right. And I ended up as an orthopedic surgeon and not a brain surgeon.

Geoff: 26:34

Well, it's not brain surgery, is it? That's the joke. Yeah. It's never too late. It's never too late. It's never too late.

Art: 26:40

You're absolutely right. Yeah.

Geoff: 26:41

Um, do you ever get nervous on stage?

Art: 26:44

Not particularly. Fairfield Hall with Stan years ago, and I felt a little bit like, what are we gonna play? This is typical of the man, he said, no idea. And I think at that stage, what the hell? So not particularly.

Geoff: 26:57

That comes from the freeness, I suppose you were able to create something from nothing, aren't you?

Art: 27:02

Yeah, well, he we at that stage it was still fairly standard, you know, Monk particularly, but um I think he had the right approach. He was nerveless. And I wouldn't say I was nervous, but no, I don't break out into a sweat. Same with surgery, you know, you everyone thinks that surgeons have a sort of attractive nurse mopping their brow during difficulty. Not at all. It's

Geoff: 27:22

Being a surgeon, is is that nerve-wracking at all?

Art: 27:25

No, not at all. No. No.

Geoff: 27:26

So what you're you're talking about with a knife and you're you've got people under you.

Art: 27:30

No, not at all. No, it's it's very cut and dried.

Geoff: 27:33

Literally cut. Oh, sorry, sorry. That's a good point.

Art: 27:36

I think I think probably, you know, the sort of the sharp end of surgery. As I've said earlier, it's you know,

Geoff: 27:41

Kick me out. Sorry, it keeps getting worse and worse.

Art: 27:43

You set them up and ask them. Um the sharp end of surgery, you know, heart surgery and and you know, I suppose I suppose it is a bit banging in the hip.

Geoff: 27:53

What's the most hairy surgery you've ever performed, then?

Art: 27:55

Um, probably doing general surgery, because you've got to do a little bit of everything. And uh okay. I was at a uh peripheral London hospital doing general surgery, and I was standing on. I've I've mentioned earlier people standing on for you know the senior registrar who was senior to me, and I was only a junior general surgical registrar. Um he asked me on cover for him, and the emergency came in, and it was a knife wound, it was a crime of passion, and it was a lady who'd stabbed her unfaithful husband and gone through the abdomen and through the diaphragm and through the liver and up into the heart, and it had sliced the what's called the pericardium, which is the the covering of the heart, so the heart was sort of beating away. And I'd never seen that before. So I rang up the boss, and the boss happened to be the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and I said, You're Theman here, and he said, Who are you? And I said, well, I'm the registrar, I'm standing on for Mr. Such and Such. Why? You know, and he sort of it was choleric. You could I did over the phone, the phone would have melted, Salvador Dali-like. Anyway, he said, you know, I said, No, leave the pericordium, boy! And I sort of left the pericordium so that yeah, the patient survived actually, but that was the hair, that was the hairiest moment.

Geoff: 29:15

Right. That was. God, you get your hands inside someone else, can't you? Yeah. So were you, were you ever squeamish or anything? I don't suppose it's for the.

Art: 29:22

Yeah, a bit squeamish. I don't like insects, and you have to do zoology. So the worst bit, I think the worst bit of everything was dissecting a cockroach. It sort of cured me a little bit, but not much.

Geoff: 29:34

Right, I've got a few more questions. Okay. What's your favourite sandwich?

Art: 29:38

Uh, I'm put in mind of the lovely Don Weller. You know, he was a man of few words, but if there was a silence in a conversation, he'd make conversation by saying, I had a cheese sandwich once. No, I'm afraid. So that's what that's what comes to mind. But I've probably no, I think I'll go for when when Elizabeth was crowned queen, the coronation, the coronation. Chicken, I think, was

Geoff: 30:01

I love Coronation Chicken too, yeah.

Art: 30:03

Yeah, so there we are.

Geoff: 30:07

Don Weller was the one who, when you went to China

Art: 30:07

Yeah, that's right. You tell the story. No, go on. No, you tell the story. Well, okay, we're we're in China with Stan's octet, actually. And uh it was decided to go and see uh see the Great Wall of China. I think forget we're in Peking or something. So we're all assembled, you know, seven of the eight were assembled, and Don was still in bed. So we decided so you know, Don, come on, the the transport's ready. You know, we're gonna come, we're gonna see the we're gonna see the Great Wall. He says, I've got a wall of my own at home. I love that. And he didn't go. He didn't go. No, he didn't go. I've got a wall of my own at home.

Geoff: 30:46

I mean, fair enough, you know. I went to to Tokyo actually a couple of years ago with a band, and and uh Robin Aspland was in the band. Yeah. And uh we were only there for like four days. He didn't come out of his hotel room. I don't think he he even changed time zones, he just stayed up all night and slept all day, you know.

Art: 31:03

Yeah, yeah. I've heard that happen.

Geoff: 31:06

Right. What's your favourite movie?

Art: 31:08

Actually, I've just seen the play, which has been it's it's been backwards and forwards, it's such a successful play. But it's got to be Mel Brooks, The Producers. It's gotta be. Yeah, because you know okay, that's fresh in my mind because there's a there's a there's a sort of adaptation in the in the West End right now, but you can't beat Zero Mostel and I can't remember the the the other guy, but yeah, it's yeah.

Geoff: 31:32

I mean the new the new version, do they still have Springtime for Hitler?

Art: 31:35

Oh yeah, yeah. I read the crit before before I went, and he said it was almost almost too much, yeah. That sort of um sort of gay aspect as well. Yeah, yeah. Um but it was it was it was very good production, but the the the the the film I know it's totally outrageous and you probably

Geoff: 31:52

No, it's a classic.

Art: 31:53

Yeah, but it is a classic.

Geoff: 31:54

Um is there a favourite venue you like to play in?

Art: 31:58

I suppose because I've done it most of my life, but less so now because they're less interested in jazz. Is I play at the Bull's Head, Barnes, which is uh yeah, we did we did a gig recently three weeks ago, and uh you know I I did it probably once a month for I don't know 40-50 years. It's it's less frequent now, but you know it's

Geoff: 32:23

But it was a lovely crowd when we played, didn't we? Was it a Saturday night we played?

Art: 32:27

It was a Friday night. Friday night, yeah. Yeah, it was because your name was up in the in the coming off the piano. Yeah, yeah. But it was a great rhythm section, Sebastian de Krom and uh um Liam Dunachie on piano. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I like this, I love The Six. Yeah, I'm there on Sunday.

Geoff: 32:42

Lovely. Do you have a favourite place in the world, a favourite country, or a favourite city?

Art: 32:47

I'm a bit of a francophile. It's almost a cliche to say I love I love the south, I love the mountains. Um France is, you know, it's got the food and it's got it's got the sea and it's got the mountains, and it's big and it's got the French people. Yeah, I'd say Nice, actually, and Nice is a good stuff. Nice, yeah, very nice.

Geoff: 33:07

So I've got one last question, um, and it is what's your favourite chord?

Art: 33:12

Right. I I don't have perfect pitch. I you know, I I think I think that the people who do have perfect pitch sometimes say it's not a good thing to have. But if I'm listening to something, I don't know I won't know what key it's in. So I'll put it in C. I'll put it in C on the saxophone, actually.

Geoff: 33:29

Yeah.

Art: 33:29

So I think I'm probably saying B major seventh, B flat major seventh in concert. But I think you know what I mean is C major seventh on the saxophone.

Geoff: 33:40

Yeah.

Art: 33:40

Because if I hear something, because I'm not a complete musician, I would put it into C on the saxophone.

Geoff: 33:46

Okay. Yeah, I do a similar thing actually. When I listen into the, I don't have perfect pitch either, but I'll listen to a thing and then and I can hear where it's going, one, four, three, six, yeah, yeah, that's right. One or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would do the same thing. So I'll imagine one is C, so four is four is F.

Art: 34:01

Yeah.

Geoff: 34:01

Three is three is E minor, two, you know, A minor.

Art: 34:03

Yeah, that's a good good question. You know, I I hope I'd answer that correctly.

Geoff: 34:06

No, no, it's a lovely, lovely thing, yeah. Do you ever use licks or anything like that when you play?

Art: 34:11

I suppose so. I think we all do. I think we yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. You you do because it's it's like a quote. Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, I don't yeah, I wouldn't diss anybody who plays in moderate everything in moderation. Yeah, you know, you mustn't repeat yourself. I'm I did a gig at Birmingham Festival, and I remember playing a tune, and then the second tune, I ended up playing the same tune. You know, that was years ago, and I thought, Christ, I'm you know, I'm I'm getting the big A, you know, alzheimer's. Um, I haven't done it since. But you know, you mustn't repeat yourself, consciously. It's gotta be, you've got to change.

Geoff: 34:45

You've got to keep fresh, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. And also, but by playing new tunes, it makes you play different things that you've not played before, doesn't it? Yeah. Uh and now you've got 600 tunes on your Quartet apps.

Art: 34:55

I'm most grateful for that. And you know, if anybody's listening, you but you buy this buy this set of tunes, everybody. Buy it, yeah. Yes, yes, yeah.

Geoff: 35:03

Art, thank you so much for your time. It's been great.

Art: 35:06

No, thank you for making it just as easy. I was I was at a bit of I you've asked me if I was worried. I was a bit worried about this because I'm less articulate than I used to be now.

Geoff: 35:16

You'd be surprised. No, you'd be it's been amazing, actually. It'd been really great. I hope my questions have been okay.

Art: 35:22

Your questions are perfect, yeah.

Geoff: 35:23

Yes. It's been a joy, absolute joy, yeah.

Art: 35:25

I think we should have some tea and cake now. I think tea and cake, yes.

Geoff: 35:28

Yeah, we got some homemade cake. All right. Thanks again.

Art: 35:30

Yeah. Okay, thank you, Geoff.

Announcement: 35:33

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