Geoff: 0:00

Hello, podcats. Geoff Gascoyne here. Hope you're well. Today I'm on my way to Bedford to speak to Charlie Wood. Charlie Wood is a fantastic singer, piano player, organist, songwriter, composer. And he uh he's from Memphis, Tennessee. And uh he's the real deal. He's terrific and amazing. I've known him for quite a while. And we're gonna have a lovely chat about whatever comes up. So here we go.

Announcement: 0:57

Taking your jazz play along to another level.

Geoff: 1:01

Charlie Wood, hello!

Charlie: 1:02

Hello, hello. What's going on, Geoff?

Geoff: 1:04

We're podcasting.

Charlie: 1:05

It may be my first.

Geoff: 1:06

Is it really?

Charlie: 1:07

It is. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm sure that something that I've uttered has been broadcast in that in that format. This is the first time I've knowingly sat down to do.

Geoff: 1:15

So did you always sing, or did you just start playing? Because you play Hammond organ and piano, but did you sing?

Charlie: 1:21

Yeah, I always sang, yeah. My whole family sang and played various musical instruments. My older sister is quite a fine classical pianist. And my younger brother was, played everything. A bit of piano, but uh guitar primarily, but also clarinet, and he sang and wrote. Both my parents are big music fans. My my mom uh played piano. Um I don't I haven't heard her play lately, but she played and studied piano as a as a kid herself. My dad played the drums, not professionally, but he you know was interested in

Geoff: 1:50

So you had it, music around the house?

Charlie: 1:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's a big uh jazz fan and record collector.

Geoff: 1:56

You grew up in Memphis?

Charlie: 1:58

Yeah.

Geoff: 1:58

Such history in that town.

Charlie: 2:00

Yeah, incredible. I think a lot of it's still there. It certainly was still there when I was growing up. I mean, the the people that I grew up playing with and learning from, learning on the bandstand, were just amazing. None of it was received information, you know. I'm in that generation, as I guess you are. Most of what I learned, I learned quote unquote on my own. Not on my own. I had a lot of really good teachers, but I didn't learn it in a university music programme. I went to to uni and studied music. I was an English major, but I studied music. But uh the guys I was playing with, the older guys that I was listening to and learning from, absolutely none of them had been to school. And now, of course, basically everyone that I play with has uh

Geoff: 2:42

I think probably a lot of that is to do with in those days there was no formal jazz education.

Charlie: 2:47

It just didn't exist, yeah. At least in the United States it didn't. My parents took me to Indiana to meet with David Baker, who sat down and met with us for half an hour.

Geoff: 2:54

He's a legend. David Baker, wow.

Charlie: 2:56

Going to that program, which I probably should have done, you know. But uh I went to New Orleans because I wanted to go to New Orleans. A different kind of education.

Geoff: 3:04

I had a great David Baker book when I was studying jazz. This the small one, and in the back of it it had all the Roman numerals of the chord changes.

Charlie: 3:11

Oh, yeah. I mean that was a normal thing when I was growing up to write charts in Roman numerals. So that the chart was in every key, and you could just ask people.

Geoff: 3:18

So a blues would be one, four, five or one, four, two, five, one, and so on.

Charlie: 3:22

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: 3:23

Yeah.

Charlie: 3:23

And then for some reason in Nashville they use Arabic numerals rather than the Roman numerals. Same system, but they use Arabic numerals for uh degrees.

Geoff: 3:33

So growing up in in Memphis, where were you in 1977 when Elvis Presley died?

Charlie: 3:37

I think I was in I was a kid in school, I remember it very well. And Elvis was, you know, around. He he uh I mean I never personally saw him. He came to my parents' high school and played a concert, played a you know, at the SACOP, played like a lock-in concert for the kids. There was a uh men's clothing store called Lansky's that he would frequent occasionally, buy somebody a suit. You know, he was very extravagant with his money. Yeah. Um but he was around. He was it wouldn't have been extraordinary for Elvis Presley to be at the place that you went into, whatever, restaurant or that's crazy. Certainly on Beale Street. Yeah, weird to think about, as famous as he was.

Geoff: 4:13

So when did you discover jazz then? When when did you start listening to jazz?

Charlie: 4:18

I always listen to it because my dad is a big jazz fan and he always he would have it on in the car or play records at home, all that Charlie Parker stuff. I mean, I d I know all of those heads and solos backwards because I, you know, was listening to them when I was seven or eight, because my dad would play them all the time. I don't think of that, and this is a really common thing in Memphis, too. I don't think of that to the exclusion of, say, Johnny Cash or B. B. King. You know, I think of all of those as just belonging to the subset, music, you know, that that I knew. And also a lot of classical music because we were taking classical piano lessons. So I didn't I I I kind of got a very broad exposure to music growing up in Memphis and also growing up in the in the household that I did, because my parents love music. And uh they would take us to um this club called Blues Alley where t Phineas Newborn used to play kind of off and on, depending on his uh health.

Geoff: 5:14

He was the guy that played the sort of vast things unison two hands.

Charlie: 5:18

Yeah, and he would play things running in opposite directions, and then he would play the that retrograde in in both hands. You know, sort of a almost a mathematical uh genius. Um I had a piano teacher, very important piano teacher with me when I was at the University of Memphis called Bob Marback, and he was kind of Phineas's not quite caretaker, but he helped him out a lot and would go places with him and look after him. So Phineas is from Memphis. Yeah, yeah. He and his family were from eastern Arkansas, but I may have that wrong. Phineas and and his brother Calvin. Calvin played in my band. Calvin was a guitar player in my organ trio for a long time. He he survived his brother by, by many years. Um and then Phineas Sr., their father was a musician as well.

Geoff: 5:59

So you moved to New Orleans. How old were you when you moved there?

Charlie: 6:02

17. I went there to go to uni. I went to Tulane University to study English and French and uh kind of informally, furtively, music.

Geoff: 6:12

Um the English presumably is giving you a good command of because I know you write great songs and great lyrics and

Charlie: 6:19

I mean I think I'm I'm reasonably fluent.

Geoff: 6:22

All the people I have email conversations with, yours are the most entertaining. You use words like audacious.

Charlie: 6:28

Oh, absolutely.

Geoff: 6:29

Um and uh there's always a little quirk in your emails, which is great.

Charlie: 6:34

And they're and they're beautifully punctuated. Paragraphs are all indented. Um, well thank you. Yeah, I like language. And I I I care about language, but not, I hope, in a snotty way. I just enjoy it. I like language. Uh and I think of the differences in different ways of expressing yourself, like different, you know, flavours, different spices in a in a dish or something. There it's nice to to have a lot at your disposal, you know.

Geoff: 7:03

Yeah, I wish I I had the same command of the language as you did.

Charlie: 7:07

Well, I wish you did too. I mean, that's it's dreadful. Um I think you've got certainly got the command I do.

Geoff: 7:13

How long have you been in the UK then? When did you when did you move here?

Charlie: 7:15

Uh going on 20 years. I moved here in in 2009, and then I got indefinite leave in 2010. I'm an economic migrant.

Geoff: 7:24

Why did you come here in the first place?

Charlie: 7:25

I came here because I was playing here all the time. The the whole regional and national touring thing in the United States is very hard. If you've got a record label behind you who are willing to do that just as a way of exposing you, then great. But nobody can really do it for a living anymore because of the distances and the pay scale hasn't increased since you know 1961, and uh the petrol has gone up, you know, sort of tenfold since then. It's just no longer, it's not possible. You can't do it to make a living. So I didn't do that at all in the US, but I was getting regional stuff here. I had a nice little thing in Spain with a promoter uh down there. Guys I still work with actually uh would would play a couple times a year in London and and occasionally elsewhere in the UK. The label I was on Go Jazz was was distributed out of Germany, so they would organize tours outcome to Germany. So I was I was in Europe a lot. I had a I had a residency on Beale Street that I was playing seven nights a week, literally, all the time. So

Geoff: 8:22

But you got your Go Jazz deal while you were doing that, did you that was part of that?

Charlie: 8:27

Ben and Georgie, actually. Ben Sidran and Georgie Fame, they were the the while the brains. So how long were you with Go Jazz for? I did two records. The first record that I ever had distributed in the UK was on was on Go Jazz, Southbound. Um and then I did another one after that, and then started sort of trying to put my own records out with varying degrees of success. Uh and then did a couple of records on a UK, on a sorry, US company called Archer Records, a Memphis-based company. And then that that was the last US recording I did before I came over here. Um but Ben is probably responsible for my marriage indirectly because it was that it was the Southbound record that had this Lucky Charm song on it, and Jacqui recorded that.

Geoff: 9:16

Jacqui Dankworth.

Charlie: 9:17

And then yeah, sorry, my my uh missus, Jacqui Dankworth, vocal UK vocalist extraordinaire. And then a mutual friend, uh Chris Wells, drummer, told me, hey, uh Jacqui's cut your song. You know. The first time we met was at a gig I was doing with Chris at Pizza Express, Dean Street. Right. But it was because of her having recorded that song, it was because of that record having been distributed here. So thanks, Ben. I've told him in person. So you met Jacqui and um you started working together? Yeah, no, I mean not immediately. I met her when I was still living in the States, but I mean I uh knew her and you know, we sort of exchanged mutual admiration for one of those uh music, and um that was that. But then a few years later I started thinking seriously about moving to the UK or or at least trying to. Nothing was gonna happen for me if I stayed in Memphis. I mean, lots of nice musical things, but but nothing commercial, you know. There was there's no real industry there. Of course, now there's no real industry anywhere. But at that time, you know, there was there was a lot more going on here. I still in London's the musical center of the you know solar system. And that's the everything's happening here. Everybody comes through here, even if they're not based here, yeah, they're gonna be here, you know, at one time or another. So it's the best place to be, I think, yeah if you're a professional musician.

Geoff: 10:42

So where did standards, jazz standards, fit into your musical development?

Charlie: 10:47

Well, I played for 15 years, 16 years, a residency on Beale Street that was three one-hour sets every night, seven nights a week. I'd start at six and go to ten, two half hour breaks, or seven to eleven. So I had to come up with 180 minutes of music every night, seven nights a week.

Geoff: 11:10

With a trio or something?

Charlie: 11:11

It was half and half. It was sort of depending. Typically solo through the week in the trio on the weekends, but it depended. And sometimes we would do a double. If it was busy, you know, if it was whatever, the 4th of July or Christmas time or something, then you'd have an early gig and a late gig. So then you would have, you know, six hours of music to do with. Um and you'd try not to repeat yourself. I would try not to repeat myself because it got very boring. And you had time and you know, the opportunity to experiment, especially with an organ trio, because you don't really need to rehearse with an organ trio, because as long as as long as I know the song, then the song can get played. The drummer can just listen up. And the soloist, whether it's a guitarist or in my case, it was it was more often a sax player because I didn't really need another.

Geoff: 11:58

And you were playing bass pedals?

Charlie: 11:59

Yeah, because I was playing pedals and I would play um two-handed voicings, or I would comp behind myself. Yeah, yeah. It's a totally different style.

Geoff: 12:06

It's a huge sound, organ, isn't it?

Charlie: 12:08

Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't really work very well with guitar because it interferes.

Geoff: 12:13

But that's the classic sound, though, isn't it? The organ trio with a guitar.

Charlie: 12:16

With a guitar, yeah, but that's like left-hand bass and comping chords with the right hand on the same on the lower manual, which is the bass sound, only just higher up. So that's fine. If you're up here and it makes a nice mellow, kind of like a Fender Rhodes sort of register. Um if you're playing pedal bass, then you want to be able to comp with your left hand. So if you comped on a, if you had the the drawbar setting to play bass and you tried comping, it would just be muddy. Sound awful. Yeah. So you're you're up an octave and you're it's much brighter. And then if you hit stabs and things or do two-hand voicings with your right hand, it's really quite high and it interferes with the guitar. So you have to just play basically with your right hand in your pocket until it's time for you to take a solo if you're playing pedal bass. So it doesn't really work with guitar. And also, if you're playing if I'm playing two-handed voicings and playing, you know, upper extensions and songs and stuff, you don't really want another chordal instrument.

Geoff: 13:14

It's a great, it's a fantastic instrument.

Charlie: 13:15

It's amazing.

Geoff: 13:16

It really is, yeah. But it's especially in your hands, you know.

Charlie: 13:18

Well, that's very kind of a but I mean I play almost exclusively piano now. For one thing, organ trio is not typically a vocal format. You know, people don't expect you to sing and they don't really know what to do with it. They want it to be instrumental jazz, typically, like soul jazz.

Geoff: 13:38

But there's there's a lot of organ trios about, isn't there?

Charlie: 13:41

Absolutely.

Geoff: 13:42

Everyone seems to be doing it.

Charlie: 13:43

Yeah, all run by guitar players.

Geoff: 13:44

The reason I know that is because I'm a bass player and I don't know.

Charlie: 13:47

Yeah, they put you out of yeah, yeah, exactly. It's just um guitar players gonna hit you for it. Somebody was saying, saying, Oh yeah, guitar players, yeah, they love organ trios because organs are loud, so guitar players get to play loud with organ trios.

Geoff: 13:59

Possibly true.

Charlie: 13:59

It tells them to turn down.

Geoff: 14:01

Yeah, and it's cheaper, there's one less person to pay.

Charlie: 14:03

Exactly. It's trio, yeah. I think I'm gonna start a guitar trio led by my organ.

Geoff: 14:10

So you were playing as many standards as you could, possibly. So you were just constantly learning new standards.

Charlie: 14:16

Constantly learning new standards, absolutely, and constantly trying to find maybe an obscure because I'm singing them. So trying to find, you know, I raided all the early Nat King Cole Capitol stuff, you know, and I would play, oh, you know, all those Beautiful Moons Ago, or uh What'll I Do or stuff like that. That people are familiar with, but it doesn't necessarily get played that often. When you're singing, I think if a song has a good lyric, you're likely to do it. And and so you end up with maybe a set of standards that aren't The Standards. But you still had to know because people would come and sit in, you know. So you still had to know how to play whatever uh Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise or or uh you know, all the stuff that people would Never Be Another You. You had to, even if you, but of course I was to me, Never Be Another You was a Chet Baker stuff. I learned all of that stuff, you know, um, to be able to do it. So it was it was very need-based. It wasn't like uh I learned them as songs, you know, instead of as like interesting sets of changes to to solo over. Uh probably to my detriment as a player, but but like I learned a lot about uh songs and songwriting from studying and concerned. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And simplicity and being concise. And now that I'm nearly 60, I'm I'm starting to apply those lessons instead of just uh appreciating them.

Geoff: 15:48

I asked you to sing a song today, sing something for us, or do some improvising on it. Have you picked a tune?

Charlie: 15:55

No.

Geoff: 15:56

You haven't?

Charlie: 15:57

What should I do?

Geoff: 15:58

You know so many tunes, Bye Bye Blackbird. What about that?

Charlie: 16:01

Sure. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.

Geoff: 16:03

Okay. I was listening to your um your beautiful Lush Life album on the way up here. Wow. Which is that's just you playing piano and singing.

Charlie: 16:11

Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 16:12

What a great album. I mean God, I mean it's so free. There's there's there's a version of All The Things You Are on there, which is was that all just improvised, or did you write any of those?

Charlie: 16:20

Yeah, no.

Geoff: 16:21

It's just improvised.

Charlie: 16:22

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Geoff: 16:23

It's just a lesson in improvising incredible, incredible. But we're not gonna do that one. I just picked Bye Bye Blackbird. Uh, there's gonna be two choruses. There's an eight-bar introduction in the key of F.

Charlie: 16:37

The key of love.

Geoff: 16:38

Is that the key of love?

Charlie: 16:39

Yeah, that's how I've heard it described.

Geoff: 18:33

Yay. Yeah.

Charlie: 18:35

Well,

Geoff: 18:36

I love that, Woobooooblllleee tricky the tricky bit.

Charlie: 18:40

That's the coffee singer.

Geoff: 18:41

Yeah, it's a funny thing, scat, isn't it? It's a funny It's a funny thing.

Charlie: 18:45

I've heard a lot of people, a lot of singers who love to do it and don't do it very well. Um, and so maybe that's that's part of why people don't like it. And also then people like words, you know, they miss them. Um uh because they can get melodic improvisation from from the other instruments. Um so they want us to sing words. Um but in the early, early days, people used to improvise lyrics as well as melody, you know, and they're still, I guess, I mean rap.

Geoff: 19:14

I mean it's freestyling and rap is a great example of that, isn't it?

Charlie: 19:18

So if you can, if you could, I don't know, man. I haven't I haven't ever seriously applied myself to that. I love coming up with spontaneous lyrics, alternate lyrics to start along with.

Geoff: 19:28

I'm sure you could do that, right?

Charlie: 19:29

You know, my wife doesn't like when I do it, but I don't know. Um but but uh but if you could combine that with melodic improvisation, then that would that would be probably approaching the the initial kind of spirit of of scat, you know.

Geoff: 19:43

Something that uh Emma Smith and Anita Wardell both did on this podcast was take some random words and use those as the basic. Have you ever tried that before?

Charlie: 19:52

Wow, no.

Geoff: 19:54

Yeah, it's a great it's a really great thing to do, just a piece of text. And then you improvise on a tune. Using a random book, just far up. Do you want to go there? Can you fancy go there?

Charlie: 20:07

Yeah.

Geoff: 20:07

I'm sure you'd be great at that.

Charlie: 20:08

Really?

Geoff: 20:09

Just grab a book. Anything.

Charlie: 20:11

Not the same word over and over again, but like

Geoff: 20:13

You're just reading down the text, but you're singing it, right? Over a changes.

Charlie: 20:17

Okay.

Geoff: 20:18

Charlie is now walking into the other room.

Charlie: 20:20

Ah, but what book is the thing?

Geoff: 20:22

Anyone, it doesn't matter. Timothy Snyder on Freedom. Okay, right. Oh, this is gonna be great.

Charlie: 20:29

Really? I mean, is it work better with fiction or non-fiction?

Geoff: 20:33

I don't I don't think it matters.

Charlie: 20:35

Or it could just be like the back of the corn flakes? It could be anything.

Geoff: 20:38

It could be anything, yeah. It could be anything.

Charlie: 20:40

Oh wow, how about this? Okay, here we go. Yep.

Geoff: 20:43

You ready?

Charlie: 20:43

Because I haven't read this yet. I've only just my parents gave me it.

Geoff: 20:46

It kind of doesn't matter.

Charlie: 20:47

This is far out. Is it gonna be the same tune?

Geoff: 20:49

Same tune.

Charlie: 20:50

The title of this section of the book is Living Harmonies.

Geoff: 20:53

Okay, great. Wow.

Charlie: 21:07

In the struggle between you and the world, says Kafka. Take the side of the world. Freedom is not negative, nor a matter of breaking what is all around us. Freedom is not us against the world, but us within the world. Knowing it and changing it. Freedom involves turning restraints into possibilities, a habit that can save our species. Our kind of life arose within a set of restraints that began with fusion inside stars confined by gravity. Photons bounce around the sun's core for a long time before finding their way to the solar surface. Whence they scatter into the universe at the speed of light from the perspective of the sun, Earth is a tiny dot, 93 million miles away. A tiny portion of the energy that's radiated by the sun reaches our planet. Bringing heat and light, it is enough for us. If you are reading by sunlight, the photons that allow you to distinguish the letters from the page took eight minutes to reach you, but they arose in the sun's core thousands of years ago. Far out.

Geoff: 22:46

That's great, right?

Charlie: 22:47

Man, that's the craziest thing I've ever done. What the hell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really like that exercise. It's like vocal ease, but with somebody else's

Geoff: 22:57

And what's great about that is that you're adjusting, you've obviously got the changes, but you're adjusting because you're looking at the words, and presumably as you're reading, you're looking ahead where the syntax of the sentences

Charlie: 23:08

Yeah, yeah. And that and you have a you have a kind of the phrase will have a rhythm to it that you can either go with or work against, you know, um reviolate. But wow, yeah. Amazing, man.

Geoff: 23:19

Yeah. I know you compose a lot. You write you you have written a lot.

Charlie: 23:22

I mean, I think I've written some I've written loads and loads of songs. I I love writing songs, and that's I guess the main thing that I think that I do, you know, is write songs. Although it's not the thing that I spend the most time doing, unfortunately, uh, which of course is answering emails. Um, but I I mean I I write pretty quickly when I write songs, and I don't I like songs because it's a small format. And I've done some stuff, I've been lucky, you know, mainly with with Jacqui, but but in in a few other contexts to write a fair amount of big band stuff and big band with strings and some some uh string quartet stuff, which I find incredibly enjoyable and rewarding and really uh challenging, but in a fun way.

Geoff: 24:08

Is that your London By Night arrangement, incidentally, on the Jacqui's album? Oh, yeah.

Charlie: 24:12

Yeah, those are all mine. Yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 24:14

It's killing. Um I was listening to that another one on the way up, actually, the the start of that album. That's Jacqui's album from last year.

Charlie: 24:21

Yeah, yeah, from the end of last year. Yeah, it's a great record.

Geoff: 24:24

Just a quick sort of nerdy uh uh arranger's question. Do you tend to through compose or do you use as much repeats in in your arrangements? For that particular arrangement, it seemed it's very organic. It starts with the strings and the big band doesn't come in till the end. Yeah. What's your what's your process in in arranging?

Charlie: 24:42

I mean I'll tell you something, uh a really good piece of advice that I got was from John Dankworth because he very kindly was taught and very, you know, was kind enough to sort of humour me and chat to me about arranging very late in his life and very early in my attempt to arrange things, but I was writing some stuff for I guess it would have been the small big band at the Wavendon Christmas shows, and asking him about the difference between, say, writing for reeds and writing for brass, the difference between how you wrote differently for different instruments. And he said, you know, I wouldn't worry about any of that. Don't think about that at all. Just write the notes that you want to hear. You know, just write the notes that you want to get played, and then the orchestration will take care of itself from that. But don't think, oh, I must write something for for the saxophones. What what sort of saxophonish thing will I write?

Geoff: 25:33

No, it's just music, isn't it?

Charlie: 25:34

It has to be the just write what you want to hear and then orchestrate it the way that it that it will reveal itself to you that it needs to be orchestrated.

Geoff: 25:42

Did he teach you anything about balancing instruments or about voicings or anything like that?

Charlie: 25:46

I didn't really have a chance. I didn't know John well, and I uh he was quite frail. He had time for everybody, you know, he just would would talk to you. I had no business wasting his time, you know, his precious time at his age and in his condition. But he's perfectly happy to talk with me.

Geoff: 26:02

Here there's a well, there must be a huge library of his of his work, written written work, right? That you could have access to, right??

Charlie: 26:10

You could kill yourself by jumping off of it. It's unbelievable. Yeah, massive. Almost all of which is handwritten manuscript. Some of it done by copyists who were usually very good, you know, professional copyists.

Geoff: 26:25

Presumably trying to transcribe his possibly not very clear handwriting. I know I work with Michel Legrand quite a lot, and I saw some of his, he was the same, like one of those old school arrangers that would write directly onto score paper.

Charlie: 26:39

Transposed?

Geoff: 26:39

Transposed. These people work fast, you know.

Charlie: 26:44

I don't think it would have logistically been possible to do as much music as they did if they had had to sit around, you know, worrying about the margins on the where have I set the vertical margin on the trombone three? Is that gonna have enough space for this repeat bar? You know, bigger fish to fry, man.

Geoff: 27:01

Absolutely. Right, to finish off the podcast, I always ask everyone the same questions. So I have some questions for you, right? First question is what's your favorite album?

Charlie: 27:13

Such a hard question. Um,

Geoff: 27:16

Is there an album that had particular impact on you as a musician?

Charlie: 27:22

My sister had the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz, and the cover of it scared the sh** out of me. So that had a huge impact on me. It was uh

Geoff: 27:31

Yeah, that lion costume was just very strange.

Charlie: 27:34

Really terrifying. Dorothy was the whole thing was terrifying. Um macabre, it was like animated. It was one of those things for kids that's supposed to be jolly and charming, and it's actually terrifying. Album that had a man God uh I Love the Life I Live by Mose Allison is an album that is incredibly atmospheric. And people, you know, jazz musicians are are quite divided on Mose Allison and his place in the because I think that people who love Mose Allison, as I do, often think that he sort of belongs in the jazz pantheon with, as I don't. I just think he's a great songwriter and a great blues songwriter, more than jazz, and by his own admission, uh by his own description, a blues musician, uh not a jazz musician. I don't think that, you know, Mose Allison and Duke Ellington, you know, are in the same business. And I don't think of them as being equivalent, you know. But that record, you know, his writing combined with the way he plays standards so reserved, you know, like reserved beyond the capacity. Can I remember I've never heard anybody sing like that. He just did so much with so little effort. You know, he he it's just an absolute master class in avoiding wasted motion, you know. It's just like utterly concise and totally relaxed. It's something I still aspire to, but I haven't got, you know, haven't achieved. Um

Geoff: 29:13

You a fan of um Bob Dorough and um Dave Frishberg?

Charlie: 29:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoff: 29:18

Um I put those three in a kind of similar kind of bracket.

Charlie: 29:21

Really witty, you know, really like very, very unafraid to, that's what makes them so hip, is they're unafraid to be unhip, you know. That's what makes them so cool. They're not like constraining themselves. They'll just he'll he'll Mose Allison will just write a song about you know uh numbers on paper or whatever. He'll make it it's like haiku.

Geoff: 29:44

Yeah.

Charlie: 29:44

It's so constrained, it's so small, you know. And so uh I was introduced to this music in my teenage years and I knew I liked it, but I didn't really understand that much about uh the discipline of constraint and of constraints of limiting yourself.

Geoff: 30:01

But I guess that's in that's part of the songwriting process. You learn as a songwriter, don't you?

Charlie: 30:05

I think so.

Geoff: 30:05

o To be concise with phrases and lyrics and things like that.

Charlie: 30:09

And a song is so great because it's so small. It's very specific and it shouldn't have very many words.

Geoff: 30:17

I was I was listening with my daughter the other day to some Beatles, which I hadn't heard for ages, and just wondering at the

Charlie: 30:23

Unbelievable songwriting. The quality of the writing. And it's we're fit on, you know, a cocktail napkin. It's this they're no worse, it's very, very brief.

Geoff: 30:38

You try and do something like that, it's so write something that simple.

Charlie: 30:41

Simple and easy. It's so hard.

Geoff: 30:43

It's so hard. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Uh second question: Is there a favorite musician alive or dead you would like to play with?

Charlie: 30:52

Woo, yeah, lots. These are hard, man. Um

Geoff: 30:55

Gets harder.

Charlie: 30:56

Musician really? I thought it was gonna be like apples or oranges or something. Um probably some of the early jazz guys or the early blues guys. I would love to have a go, although I wouldn't be qualified to do it. I'd love to try to play behind Louis Armstrong. That would be a real test, a real eye-opener.

Geoff: 31:18

Is there a highlight of your career that you could uh mention?

Charlie: 31:21

It's coming.

Geoff: 31:23

So far?

Charlie: 31:25

Yeah, um, I mean, I love doing shows. I like shows. And so like the bigger and higher pressure shows, if they go well, usually come across as highlights. So like some of the stuff that I've done playing behind Jacqui for the larger ensemble. So like the thing we did at Cadogan Hall, and we've done stuff, you know, with uh with with uh bigger orchestras.

Geoff: 31:52

I was on that, wasn't I?

Charlie: 31:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: 31:54

That was a string orchestra, wasn't it?

Charlie: 31:57

Yeah, that was that was small, big band, and string section. That was the first. That was the first time after I'd done all that arranging.

Geoff: 32:03

Yeah.

Charlie: 32:03

Um, and we had a proper conductor, we had Mike Dixon conducting.

Geoff: 32:06

And you were nervous, right?

Charlie: 32:08

I was man, I was so nervous and so just absolutely fried from trying to go on the.

Geoff: 32:12

That's the thing, isn't it? When you first present your arrangements to

Charlie: 32:15

You just don't know, does it work? You know?

Geoff: 32:16

I know, I know.

Charlie: 32:17

It's like I've built this rocket ship. Okay, well, is it gonna go? Well, yes, I think it will, yes. Okay. Well, we're gonna try it at seven o'clock tonight. You ready? You know, it's terrifying. Uh, but it's so exhilarating if it sounds good.

Geoff: 32:30

Once it comes together with it.

Charlie: 32:31

Some of the stuff is like, yeah, hey, you know, that actually sounds good.

Geoff: 32:35

And that gives you confidence, right?

Charlie: 32:36

Yeah, I wrote that, you know. Hey, this is okay. That's amazing. That's really exhilarating in a musical sense.

Geoff: 32:44

It is, isn't it?

Charlie: 32:45

And Jacqui, uh obviously sailing over that stuff and through it, makes it. Jacqui's such a great incredible singer, isn't she? She really is. Powerhouse, man.

Geoff: 32:54

Amazing.

Charlie: 32:54

Um that's probably that's probably the highlight right there so far.

Geoff: 32:59

What was the last concert you attended? Um not Cleo's thing a couple of weeks ago?

Charlie: 33:06

Oh, of course. Yes, that will be it. Yeah, yeah. Although I played some on that, but I heard other. Yeah, that would

Geoff: 33:11

Does that count?

Charlie: 33:12

Sure, that would have been it, yeah. Because um,

Geoff: 33:16

I was there too, yeah.

Charlie: 33:17

There was some great people.

Geoff: 33:19

It was a memorial for Cleo Lane, wasn't it?

Charlie: 33:21

Yeah.

Geoff: 33:22

What a great concert that was. And Jacqui sang, and you played, and little,

Charlie: 33:26

yeah, a little bit. And um, yeah, I got to play. What was it? I'm in a room with with um with Dave Gordon and James Pearson and uh Zoe Rahman and Robin Aspin and God knows who else. What other piano players are there? I'm playing One Note Samba off the page. Why can't we? Okay, all right, okay. Yeah, terrify the terrifying in a different way.

Geoff: 33:55

Um it was a fantastic afternoon, though. It was an amazing tribute to Cleo. It was incredible.

Charlie: 34:02

Yeah, yeah. And I have a room full of musicians just listening to all those records that she made.

Geoff: 34:07

And for us as well, to hanging out with people we haven't seen for a long time, you know.

Charlie: 34:10

And it's community, isn't it?

Geoff: 34:12

Yeah, it's it's so lovely. It's those sorts of things, it really makes you happy, doesn't it, to be part of this great community that we do, you know. It's brilliant.

Charlie: 34:21

Yeah,

Geoff: 34:22

you know.

Charlie: 34:22

Oh, it's an honour.

Geoff: 34:23

Yeah, it was amazing. Um, what would you say is your musical weakness?

Charlie: 34:29

I have so many. I think trying too hard, trying to show off, not as a writer, but as a player, the need to relax is absolute. And you forget that, because it's a performance, because you know, I guess like the thing we were just talking about, your peers are there, you forget, you know, that in order to do the thing, correctly, adequately, you cannot be self-conscious. Yeah, you have to be engaged with the music and you have to be relaxed. You have to.

Geoff: 35:02

Absolutely.

Charlie: 35:03

So it's a really hard lesson to learn, but it's a really important one, you know. And so I think that's that's my biggest uh flaw. And the the more, obviously, the more relaxing the setting, the better I know the material, the more confident I am in the situation, the better I can hear myself, the nicer the instrument is. All of these things they relax you, they make you less self-conscious.

Geoff: 35:26

I mean, that brings us to the next question is do you get do you ever get nervous on stage?

Charlie: 35:29

I don't. I wish I did.

Geoff: 35:31

Oh, you don't? Okay.

Charlie: 35:32

I don't get nervous. What I what I get is disappointed afterwards. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing.

Geoff: 35:37

Yeah, nerves can be a hindrance sometimes, can't they?

Charlie: 35:41

Yeah, there's good good nerves and bad nerves, I guess. Some people it's really debilitating, and some people it just sharpens them right up. I find it freeing to be on stage. I I like it, but I very often wish that I could play on stage like I played at the rehearsal. Uh and it's something to do with that awareness of it being a show and wanting to kind of acquit yourself admirably.

Geoff: 36:12

Yeah. That's absolutely right, yeah. All right, so I've got a few more questions that aren't music related.

Charlie: 36:18

Okay, thank God.

Geoff: 36:19

What's your favorite sandwich?

Charlie: 36:22

Even that, man. Even that. Uh when I make a sandwich, and I can make any sandwich I want, what kind of sandwich?

Geoff: 36:31

You like cheese. Come on, you too you like you love cheese.

Charlie: 36:34

I like, I I'm sorry to say that I like a lot of protein on the sandwich. I do like, I don't like beef or I don't usually eat pork, I eat uh, you know, chicken and poultry, uh turkey and chicken, I guess. But like the greatest sandwich I've ever had, or go on. Well, you know, the sandwich, that that cotoletta, that chicken cutlet with the breading on it with all of the haven't had it in a while, but that they make at um what's the name of the place across from Ronnie's?

Geoff: 37:05

Bar Italia?

Charlie: 37:06

Bar Italia, the Bar Italia chicken sandwich. That's right up there, you know. That's very high on the sandwich. In Ulis.

Geoff: 37:13

Uh what's your favorite movie?

Charlie: 37:15

Big Lebowski. One question I can answer quickly.

Geoff: 37:21

You watch a lot of movies?

Charlie: 37:22

I live that film. I do watch a lot of movies. I love movies, and I tend to watch them repeatedly if I like them.

Geoff: 37:27

That's one that you can you can watch a lot of time. That's a cultish one over here.

Charlie: 37:31

It's a masterpiece. Yeah. It is it is uh Zen Cohen. It is uh

Geoff: 37:36

Do you aspire to being the dude?

Charlie: 37:38

I I I already am the dude. I saw an interview with Jeff Bridges where he said the whole key to that film is you have this Zen-like guy, sort of ex-hippie guy, and then you put him in these situations where he's really upset all the time and can't cope with it. And people are always telling him to calm down, you know, and he's yeah, the guy who's supposed to be calm. So so you upset, you kind of disturb his equilibrium, and that's that's the film basically. Um how he copes with that not very well. Yeah, I just think it's hilarious movie, and I just love everybody in it. I just I really enjoy watching that film.

Geoff: 38:18

Yeah, cool. Um, what's your favorite venue to play in and favorite country or city to visit?

Charlie: 38:25

I just played a gig, the first gig I played at at Peggy's Skylight in Nottingham. And I'll tell you, it was it was one of the nicest experiences I've ever had playing live. Everything about it was lovely. The people who worked there, the people who came there, the piano was lovely, you know, they fed us some lovely food. It was great. It was such a great, and they uh recorded the whole thing and sent it to us. It arrived before I got home. I didn't even know they were gonna do this. The video recorded, they auto recorded. The sound guy was great. He's the guy who sent the stuff. Everything about it was totally positive. So it's hard for me to think of a of a nicer place to play right now than Peggy's Skylight, I have to admit. And it's a lovely room and and it's a good size, about a hundred people seated, lovely stage, lovely piano. It's great. Uh, if you're in the Nottingham area, do stop in. Clubs. I like clubs as opposed to. I mean, I love playing concerts and concert halls. It's exciting.

Geoff: 39:30

Well, that's your background, isn't it? For the Beale Street.

Charlie: 39:32

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 75 people, 100 people. That's that's that's me. That's um tuned. Favorite city to visit, man. Memphis is a great city to visit. But I mean, I that's my hometown, so

Geoff: 39:45

You get back to Memphis much?

Charlie: 39:47

Not enough. Not as much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still still in Memphis. Uh I've got a sister in Michigan who comes down more than I do, although it takes her longer to get there than it does me. So I got some catching up to do. New Orleans. I love going to New Orleans. Paris is a wonderful uh city to visit. London is a great city to uh dip in and out. I mean, it's exciting and it's full of interesting stuff and interesting people, and every time you go, it's different.

Geoff: 40:20

That's a great answer, yeah. So the final question is what's your favorite chord?

Charlie: 40:26

My favorite chord is a 13 sharp 11.

Geoff: 40:30

Excellent. I think on that note we'll um we'll say goodbye. Thank you so much for today. It's been incredible.

Charlie: 40:37

Pleasure start to finish. Thank you very much.

Geoff: 40:39

My pleasure. Bye for now.

Announcement: 40:42

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