Camden Meet Up and Context

Geoff 0:02

Hello, Podcats. Geoff Gascoyne here. Hope you're well? So here we are, Episode 51. Today I'm in Camden in North London, and I'm going to see a really, really old friend of mine, and um a bit of a legend, Mr. Ben Sidran. Uh Ben Sidran is a singer, composer, piano player, um, and a very established interviewer. In the 1980s, he interviewed very eminent jazz musicians for a public service radio station, and his interviews have been transcribed into a book, which I have, which is incredible. He interviewed Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Donald Fagen, and it's thoroughly recommended. So he and his son Leo, who is another fantastic musician, have been playing at Ronnie Scott's. So I'm looking forward to seeing them both. So here we go.

Announcement 1:16

Taking your jazz play along to another level.

Geoff 1:35

Make

Life on the Road Today

Geoff 1:36

yourself at home (doorbell). So Ben Sidran, it's lovely to see you. How are you?

Ben 1:42

You too, Geoff. It's terrific to see you. It's been too long.

Geoff 1:46

It's actually been close to 30 years, I think.

Ben 1:49

Has it?

Geoff 1:50

Yeah. And I know that because the book that you signed for me, The Talking Interviews, has a date in it. He's dated in 1997.

Ben 1:56

Well, you look well.

Geoff 1:57

Thank you very much. You too. Yeah. How is life on the road?

Ben 2:00

It's the same, you know. Uh you get out there and uh you're back in the bubble and you get to play a gig and suddenly it all comes back to you. The the jazz scene seems relatively healthy. The clubs are doing well, uh, the audiences, places are full. Of course, the business is on its last legs. You know, nobody sells or buys anything, but the music is doing great.

Geoff 2:22

Fantastic. And so and any signs of slowing down? It doesn't seem to be for you.

Ben 2:26

No, I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't playing. No. Really. I am slowing down though, honestly. I don't I don't have the kind of ambitions I used to have. And I actually play more piano than I've ever played.

Geoff 2:37

Fantastic.

Ben 2:38

You know, I I I put in an hour or so a day.

Geoff 2:41

I was listening to um some of your interviews with Leo, your son, and um what was interesting about it is you were talking about not preparing for interviews.

Ben 2:49

Yes.

Geoff 2:49

Uh and I haven't prepared today.

Ben 2:52

Good. Good.

Geoff 2:53

And I just thought we'd catch up and and talk about so many things, you know. Can we start by talking about how you got started? What was your what was your childhood like and how did you get into jazz?

Ben 3:02

Well,

First Records, Sussex and LA

Ben 3:03

I grew up in a small Midwestern town. Uh there weren't uh many jazz fans, none of my friends knew jazz, but I got my first jazz record. Uh, an uncle gave it to me, it was a Horace Silver record, and I was 13, 14 years old, he was a jazz fan, and I just fell in love with the music. And I had been playing piano a little bit, fooling around, not being a student, much of anything, and I fell in love with the boogie-woogie style, which is fun to play. And uh one thing led to another. When I was in high school, I remember the experience of uh playing a dance with a with a band from the school, and when it was over, I got paid three dollars, and I was thrilled that I got three dollars to play, and that was my professional beginning. So that was it. I did not intend to become a professional musician. You know, I attended uh Sussex University here for graduate school and uh got a D Phil in uh American Studies. I was going to be a historian or something.

Geoff 4:03

You mean Sussex in the UK?

Ben 4:05

Yeah, in Brighton.

Geoff 4:06

Oh, did you?

Ben 4:06

Yeah. Yeah. I went there for uh three years.

Geoff 4:09

Wow.

Ben 4:09

67 through uh I left in 71.

Geoff 4:12

That must have been pretty wild in the 60s, right?

Ben 4:14

It was wild. It was terrific. It was really, it was really great. There was a there was a nice little musical scene there. Uh it's where I first saw, I saw Dave Holland there, I saw John Sermon, I saw Chris McGregor, I saw the British scene a little bit. Yeah. So my intention at that time was uh to become an academic. But while I was there at Sussex, my old college uh associate Steve Miller came to the UK to record at Olympic Studios. And I would go in the evening, I'd take the train up from Brighton to London and record with him, uh, write songs with him. One thing led to another. I wasn't officially part of the band, but I was in the recording scene. And uh then when he went back to the States, I was still here for a bit. And uh Glyn Johns, who was recording Steve, would call me to do sessions from time to time. So when I graduated, I didn't really have luck as an academic. I had sent out a lot of letters and didn't get much back, and so I literally decided to move to LA and get the record business. So even though I'd been playing since I was a kid, it wasn't in my purview to become a professional musician until much, much later. And I moved to LA and I got in the record business and wound up with a recording contract, and one thing led to another and off I went.

Geoff 5:33

You you preferred LA to New York?

Ben 5:35

At the time the scene was in LA. Absolutely. The recording scene in the 60s started to shift from the East Coast to the West Coast, and by the 70s, the major companies with pop music were on the West Coast. Jazz was really dead at the time. You had to be, quote, singer-songwriter to be in the game. That was what was going on in the West Coast. Yeah, so we moved there.

Geoff 5:58

Right, right. So you joined the Steve Miller band, right? And that was your way into the music business?

Ben 6:03

More or less, yeah. I mean, we were just college friends. Uh I made a couple of records with him, and uh certainly that was my way into the record business. Yeah.

Geoff 6:13

Right. And so where did the jazz creep into this?

Ben 6:16

Well, I always uh was interested in in playing jazz, never much interested in pop or rock. I found rock music really tedious. But I mean, when I was in college, I had a little jazz trio and I would be making thirty-five dollars a night. And then when I would play in Steve's band in college, I'd make fifty dollars a night. So it was obvious that the business was in pop and rock. But uh jazz has always uh been uh the passion for me. It's always what I've been interested in.

Geoff 6:44

When I hear your music, I I'm um reminded of Mose Allison and Bob Dorough. Uh you know those guys.

Ben 6:50

Of course.

Geoff 6:50

Were these contemporaries of yours? Were these people that were in the middle of the year?

Ben 6:52

They're yeah, Mose and Bob Dorough and Dave Frishberg uh were older, got to know them all, elegant guys, like them. I was always really interested in uh smart lyrics, humorous lyrics, and especially in the case of Mose, a blues mentality. And of course, later on when I met Georgie Fame, I found uh spiritual brother. I mean, because at the same time I was discovering Mose in the States, he was discovering Mose over here, Van, same thing. Right? There's quite a an interest in Moes here, and maybe more so than in the States. But I was completely a Mose Allison man. I I just loved him. And when I was in college, uh it was during the 60s and it was the anti-war period, and they were rough times really, hard to maintain academic focus. And I have to say that Mose's music really kept me on track, his lyrics and his sensibility. So I aspired toward that.

Geoff 7:52

I was quite close to Bob Dorough, actually. I got I got to know him very well. I used to go touring a lot in the um with a singer called Jamie Cullum. So we were in America a lot. And then I ended up producing one of his records in Britain as well. Yeah. I have huge love for Bob.

Ben 8:07

Yeah, what a sweet man. And the consummate hipster.

Geoff 8:10

Is that what you aspire to as well?

Ben 8:12

Oh yeah. That was the highest goal. It was the top of the of the pinnacle to be conversant with uh Lord Buckley and you know, that whole uh mentality where you were kind of a an outsider, well, then that made you an insider.

Geoff 8:26

Yeah, sure, yeah.

Ben 8:27

The whole jazz uh mystique. My favourite piano players, of course, were like Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson and everything. But the guys you're talking about, they were piano players who sang. They weren't singers, they were stylists and storytellers. And that is what I aspired to telling stories.

Geoff 8:52

So

Standards, The Fake Book and Blues

Geoff 8:53

this podcast we're talking about jazz standards. What part did jazz standards play in your development?

Ben 8:59

Well, they were everything. But uh, you know, I fell under the spell of the the bebopers, so I would know maybe the shape of a song from an original bebop melody before I knew the song.

Geoff 9:13

Before you realized it was based on Honey Suckle Rose.

Ben 9:16

Yes, exactly. But I became very much involved in the blues because that's where the money was. Uh and it was fun, and it was I'm it related to my passion for playing boogie-woogie. So I would say I still have great love and respect for the Great American Songbook. Some of those songs, I can't imagine how they were written. They're so elegant and so brilliant. And that's the other thing about them. Lyrically and narratively, the writers worked so hard on those songs. They weren't just thrown away, they were crafted.

Geoff 9:49

That's right, yeah.

Ben 9:50

But uh I still that's what I play. When I sit down at home, I go to the Fake Book. Yeah.

Geoff 9:55

Are you still practicing piano a lot?

Ben 9:57

Yeah, I don't think of it as practicing. I just play. I sit down and I play, I play standards. Yeah. And I literally just page through the Fake Book. Yeah. And I come upon something, and they go, oh, that's interesting. And suddenly I'm playing uh Laura or somebody you you know.

Geoff 10:13

It's f fabulous, isn't it? So I asked you to pick a tune to play today, right?

Ben 10:17

Oh, I'd be delighted to, but uh rather than a standard Broadway tune, I'd I always default to the blues.

Geoff 10:24

Okay, so here we go.

Four Choruses of 'Blues In F'

Geoff 10:25

We've got four choruses of 'Blues in F'. That was fantastic. How'd that feel?

Ben 11:42

Yeah, great. Yeah. Loose. Loose. Like the conversation.

Geoff 11:47

Stay loose, baby.

Ben 11:48

Somebody uh attributed it to Mose, but I don't believe he said it. But the line is I only know two songs. One is the blues, the other one isn't. And uh I I subscribe to that. You know, the blues is everything else from the standards, and it's a world unto itself, which I just love.

Geoff 12:08

That kind of reminds me of Donald Fagan in some ways, you know, the way that he puts the the blues down to the elements of what he does, but you sometimes you can't recognize it. You can't recognize it. That's right. You interviewed Donald Fagin, didn't you, for your um interview?

Ben 12:20

Uh yeah, yeah. It was uh r relatively early on. It was uh in the 80s. And uh Donald's a great jazz fan, of course, so he was happy. My son Leo actually did a classic interview with Fagan not long ago, where for some reason he caught uh Fagan on a good day, and Fagan was much looser than than we've ever heard him before.

Geoff 12:45

Maybe he's mellowed in his in his in his age.

Ben 12:48

Yeah, he has. He's really become philosophical. Who hasn't, given the nature of our our business such as it is?

Geoff 12:54

Yeah, sure, yeah.

Talking Jazz and NPR Years

Geoff 12:57

So let's just talk about your interview. So it was it was it the mid-80s that you started doing the was it public service radio?

Ben 13:04

That's right.

Geoff 13:04

Yeah. Uh so how did that come about?

Ben 13:06

National Public Radio really took off in the United States in the 80s, uh, public funded radio. And it just coincidentally at that time, you know, the jazz business had uh really taken a hit from rock and roll. The a lot of the clubs turned into pop clubs, singer, songwriter clubs, jazz musicians were kind of left in the cold. And National Public Radio had as a mandate to pick up the slack and all the arts. What wasn't being covered, they would cover. And, you know, the piano player Billy Taylor. Billy Taylor was the host of this program called Jazz Alive. And the premise was there were like 300 radio stations in the United States that were affiliated, and each one of them would, on a weekly basis, record their local jazz scenes, send the tapes into Washington, D.C., and uh the staff and Billy would choose things and put them on air. And so you could be living in Philadelphia, and suddenly the next week uh your music would be heard around the country. And in 1981, Billy left the show, and uh the producer of the show actually reached out to me to see if I would replace Billy Taylor. And I think the reasoning was that at the time to get funding for jazz at the government level, there had to be some sort of academic uh imprimature associated with it. And Billy had a PhD and I had a PhD. And I think that that made me a potential successor. So I became the host of this show. And that show went on for four or five years, and after that show, I had a different show that I did. So all through the 80s, I was doing interviews uh with jazz musicians, and nobody else was. That's the strange thing.

Geoff 14:52

Had you done any interviewing before you started that?

Ben 14:55

No, the first time I actually interviewed anybody was New Year's Eve, 1981, where they they were trying me out as a potential host, and it was New Year's Eve, and they went across the country time zone by time zone, and they had a different host in each time zone. I was in New York, Billy Taylor was in Chicago, I forget somebody else was in Denver, somebody was in LA. And as the midnight went across the country, we'd have a party, and that this was a big celebration. And it was the first time I was ever on the air. They just sort of threw me in in the pool. And on my end of it uh were the Brecker brothers, uh, live, playing live, and then we'd talk. And I had worked uh with Randy and Michael a little bit in the recording studio, and I was comfortable with them. And the first time uh the producer in the earphones threw it to me and said, Okay, interview them or talk to them, whatever it was, I just opened my mouth and started talking. And I had a good time, and they had a good time, and that was it. And that sort of became the essence of my so-called style as an interviewer, uh just chatting, you know, and not being too prepared because I found that over-rehearsing a conversation, as you know, could be death.

Geoff 16:11

Yeah.

Ben 16:12

Because you don't get the response you had planned on, and then you got to say,

Geoff 16:15

And it can go any way. I mean, it's like improvising jazz, isn't it?

Ben 16:18

It's exactly like a like a conversation. And you don't necessarily get what you want, but you might get what you need, you know. Then I just uh scrambled to preserve as much as I could. I I could see that even National Public Radio was not paying attention to jazz, and these heroes of ours were passing, and nobody was documenting them. So I just over a period of the the end of the 80s into the early 90s, doing as many interviews as I could under whatever circumstances I could and preserving them.

Geoff 16:52

And they're fantastic. I I presume they're all available to hear.

Ben 16:55

They're available. Uh you can hear them. It's called Talking Jazz. There are many platforms, right, where you can put in Ben Sidran Talking Jazz.

Geoff 17:03

Well, I I love that the the book of the transcriptions of that. Yeah. It's a Bible. It's a jazz Bible.

Ben 17:09

Yeah, and and the other thing about the jazz musician conversations is jump into them anywhere. You know, these people are so interesting, and their experiences is so unusual that wherever you go in and and uh you can read it, read for five minutes, read for an hour.

Geoff 17:27

I know, yeah. It's a lot of fun. Perfect coffee table book for a for any musician, really. I have some

Favourites, Heroes and Hard Interviews

Geoff 17:33

questions I asked all my guests, and I'm just gonna jump straight in. Question number one What's your favourite album?

Ben 17:39

Well, I love a particular Horace Silver record called Silver's Serenade. I just love it. But the Desert Island one record, of course, is Kind of Blue. But I'd like to take them both on the island.

Geoff 17:50

Because you mentioned earlier that was the first jazz you heard. Was that one of the things that you're talking about?

Ben 17:54

That wasn't the record. The first Horace record I got was a record called Six Pieces of Silver. But the one Silver Serenade had Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook on it, and that was ,my f my favourite band. And I suppose whatever you're listening to when you're 13 or 14 or 15 years old becomes your favourite music. But that's what I was listening to.

Geoff 18:13

Well, the thing about Horace Silver, his his writing is so catchy and hooky and bluesy and stuff. It's just a perfect way in for non-jazz musicians in fact.

Ben 18:22

Right. And the the the ironical thing is that when you met him and you learned he was just the opposite. You know, he wrote these songs like Juicy Lucy and Filthy McNasty, and you thought he was this kind of a ghetto kind of guy, but he's very conservative. That's right. You know, and that that was an eye-opener for me, too.

Geoff 18:41

So you interviewed him, didn't you?

Ben 18:42

Oh, of course, of course. Actually, it was of the hundreds of interviews, the it was the hardest interview because I was such a fan of his. I was tongue-tied when I was in his presence.

Geoff 18:51

Okay, so question number two: is there a musician alive or dead that you would like to play with?

Ben 18:56

Well, yes, alive or dead, dead would be Ben Webster. I would love to have been able to play a ballad with Ben Webster. What a feeling that would have been. Uh I would love to have been able to play with Philly Joe Jones. I wonder what that felt like.

Geoff 19:11

Yeah.

Ben 19:12

You know, to have that moment.

Geoff 19:13

He lived in London for a while, didn't he? Philly Joe did.

Ben 19:15

Yeah, yeah. He was an itinerant musician for a long time and the father of that feel. I I got to play with the with a bunch of top-of-the-mountain musicians, and every one of them could swing you into the expression bad health, they'll swing you into bad health. A great musician doesn't matter what instrument they play, can swing the whole band.

Geoff 19:36

Yeah, sure, yeah. Has there been any people, famous musicians that you've played with that hasn't been what you expected?

Ben 19:42

Well, I'm not sure how to answer that. I did a lot of playing with the bass player Richard Davis, and I must say, having listened to him on record for years, I mean, particularly there was a record called uh Trompeta Tocatta, I think it was a Kenny Dorham record, where it was grooved to the teeth. And uh I found out playing with Richard Davis, it was was the strangest experience. He was not grooved at all. The notes he played often seemed to be arbitrary. It was like the classic, you know, you play with the Thelonious Monk, it's like stepping into an empty elevator shaft. Playing with Richard kind of had that feeling. It was very strange.

Geoff 20:20

It's funny, isn't it, how some musicians have well, every musician has a different concept of where the time is.

Ben 20:26

Yeah.

Geoff 20:27

For example, you know.

Ben 20:28

Time and notes. And and because he was who he was, I had to assume that it was a concept. But to this day I couldn't tell you what the concept was.

Geoff 20:38

That's so interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. What about drummers? Did you you ever play with Elvin Jones?

Ben 20:43

No, I never played with Elvin. But the drummers I've worked with, I mean, Steve Gadd, his time is so extraordinary that he really makes you relax. And he plays so soft in the studio. Yeah, he forces you to really just to slow down and and and be yourself. Um what other drummers would I mention? Gosh, Tony Williams, I played with Tony, that was wild.

Geoff 21:06

I hear stories of Tony about how he would change tempos at different sections in the tune. Did you ever have that experience?

Ben 21:12

No, not that one.

Geoff 21:14

I spoke to a bass player um whose name escapes me at the moment, but he said it was it freaked him out. He said he'd get to the bridge of Seven Steps to Heaven or something, and and all of a sudden Tony would rush and it and then he would come back. You know, I mean, as a bass player, I'm not sure I'd like that very much.

Ben 21:28

Yeah, I don't know. Tony was extraordinary. I mean, I knew him when he was just coming out of Miles' band and was getting the lifetime together. And he was I I wouldn't say part of the scene. He was like off to the side. His whole concert he was a kid when he got involved with Jackie McLean and Miles. And if he did that, that makes perfect sense.

Geoff 21:51

You think that might be because it was such a high profile gig he was doing that people were scared.

Ben 21:55

People were scared. And he was ridiculous. I mean, the volume that people said. Philly played loud or Elvin played loud. Tony was like playing in a hurricane. And he loved playing groove. He loved playing rock and roll. But he was so loud, my God. He told me something once that was really great. Again, it was just the two of us playing. And we were in the studio and we just we were talking about we were going to write this song and I was doing this. And I was really frustrated. I kept saying to him, Man, my left hand is getting in the way. He said, Man, throw your left hand away. And nobody ever said that. You know, everybody would say, do this. He's right. You know, don't try to fix it. Get rid of it.

Geoff 22:34

That's great. Right. Question number three. What'd you say was the highlight of your career?

Ben 22:39

Whoa. Well, the best gig I ever played was at Carnegie Hall. It was a tribute to the singer Eddie Jefferson. It was on a bill with James Moody and Dizzy Gillespie and the Manhattan Transfer and Bobby McFerrin. And I had a little quartet with saxophonist Richie Cole. And the gig was great, Carnegie Hall, is it. But the best part were the rehearsals. The rehearsals were hysterically funny. Jon Hendricks was there, and Hendricks was singing Oopa Da. And it was a Dizzy phrase. And there was a conversation between Jon Hendricks and Dizzy for about 45 minutes on the correct way to sing Oopa Da. And Dizzy was very specific. Right. It went this way. And Jon became a clinician, you know, like grilling him on it. It was so funny and so hip. That really stands out to me, that experience. Wow, wow.

Geoff 23:36

So which year are we talking about here?

Ben 23:38

Mid-80s, probably. Yeah.

Geoff 23:40

Where were you living?

Ben 23:41

Well, I've always lived in the Midwest, you know, except for some time living in Brighton and a period living in Los Angeles. My home has been a couple hours out of Chicago in the in the Midwest.

Geoff 23:53

Could you cite a favourite moment, a recorded moment of your own?

Ben 23:57

Yeah, absolutely. There's a record called The Cat in the Hat. The rhythm section was A be La boriel, Gad. And the song is Ask Me Now.

Geoff 24:07

The a Monk tune?

Ben 24:08

Yes. And I'd written lyrics for it. And Gad came up with this concept. It was a halftime funk, like a shuffle concept. And I had this idea actually going into those sessions that I didn't follow through. And the idea was back in the 80s, I was going to make a record called Monk Funk, and I was going to do all these Monk tunes in a backbeat way. Later on, a producer named Hal Willner wound up doing something similar. But that's all I said to Gad was my idea is Monk Funk, blah, blah, blah. And he came up with this feel. If I won were going to listen to one song that I got to participate in, I think that would be my proudest.

Geoff 24:45

Actually it reminds me, in the 90s, I made an album called Pop Bop. Uh-huh. Pop pop. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Question four.

Weaknesses, Language and Stage Nerves

Geoff 24:52

What would you say was your musical weakness?

Ben 24:54

Oh, I've got so many. Uh I'm self-taught because I when I was young, I never seriously considered being a musician. So I have a lot of incorrect fingering. I get I get hung up. I can hear where I'm going, but I still uh get the what's the uh equivalent of tongue tied. Uh technique tied, you know. Technique tied up. Yeah. I I don't have the facility to chase what I can hear. And that to this day is my biggest issue. And I still try to slow down and find a way to do it, but I find that it's very difficult to take what you do in a practice session and apply it to a gig. I mean, when you're practicing, you can solve a particular problem, but when you're in the midst of a gig, it's not there for you. You know, and I think what that is, it's very important what you do when you're a young person, because that's when you develop your language. So between the ages of 13 and 21, I think that's the fertile period of developing your style. And after that, it becomes harder and harder to move your facility.

Geoff 26:02

Sure. So so how did you get your vocabulary then? Did you transcribe? Did you have a

Ben 26:06

Well no, because I I didn't know about uh transcription.

Geoff 26:09

But you have vocabulary and you and you have Bebop chops and you have Bebop language, so where did that come from?

Ben 26:14

You know, uh it was uh the way I describe it is it all came from the recordings, and it it felt to me when I was in those years, 13 to 20, 21, like I was standing on one side of a wall, and on the other side of a wall were people speaking a foreign language, and I didn't understand the words, but there was something about it that was so attractive to me that I just listened and listened and listened. Like with Horace Silver, his playing is very simple. So I thought, well, I I can do that. Well, I couldn't do that, I couldn't cop it. So it became obvious that the simplicity was an illusion that there was something going on in there that couldn't be learned in the traditional way. And so I think it was just uh imitating and trying to feel, not learn, but feel what those musicians felt like. And eventually, I mean, it's like if you were a refugee and you showed up in a foreign country and you didn't speak the language when you you were thrown into a job in in the kitchen of a restaurant, and that's you learned kitchen English, you know? I have kitchen English on the piano.

Geoff 27:27

Um okay. Question five. Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Ben 27:32

Not on stage. I get nervous sometimes about the shape of the gig, how to prepare for the gig, something like that. Once I'm up there uh with good musicians, I I feel protected. I feel so well, I would be nervous, for example, if somebody saw me in the crowd and invited me to come sit in and I didn't know the repertoire and I didn't know that that would make me nervous. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Geoff 27:56

This leads me to the question six, which we kind of touched on earlier. Have you ever been starstruck?

Ben 28:01

Well, as I said, meeting Horace uh Silver really, I'd never had that experience before. And I found talking to other giants wasn't a problem. Sonny Rollins or Miles. They were all very interesting to me, and and I was happy to be there, but I wasn't starstruck.

Geoff 28:19

I re listened to your Miles interview last week. How did you feel going into that?

Ben 28:23

Well, uh some trepidation.

Geoff 28:25

Because it sounded like he was very friendly and it was normal, you know?

Ben 28:30

Completely. That was the strangest thing. And it's why that interview has uh a long shelf life, because for some reason, I have some ideas why, but he was very relaxed with me, very open and intimate. I mean, he allowed me in. He actually talked about Kind of Blue with me, which he would never do. At one point, I I spent the afternoon at his house, and at one point he had been married, he was married at the time to the actress Cicely Tyson, and he was complaining about how long it took an actress to get dressed, and he wound up taking me up to her her closet to show me her clothes, and look at those. It was wild. It was pretty intimate, yeah. But he was uh very uh welcoming.

Geoff 29:19

Okay, some some other questions. What's your favourite sandwich?

Ben 29:23

Uh a good uh turkey and avocado sandwich on whole wheat bread will get me every time, but it has to have the right kind of mustard and maybe a little uh seasoning, some kind of an exotic, maybe uh Middle East seasoning, a little spicy.

Geoff 29:37

Sounds good. Uh do you have a favourite movie?

Ben 29:40

Well, one of my favourite movies is the movie Amadeus, because that struck me as being about a jazz musician. I thought the character of Amadeus was a classic story of a jazz musician.

Geoff 29:52

Do you have a favourite venue you like to play in?

Ben 29:54

I had a favourite venue. It closed this year. It was the Cafe Central in Madrid. I played there for 27 years. There was a period where I played for 14 nights straight at the club. As a minimum, I played seven nights. I played hundreds of nights, a couple hundred nights anyway, in this club. And nothing about it on the surface that would make you think that that would be your favourite club, especially in light of the ambience of Ronnie Scott's and the it wasn't upscale. Uh it was kind of thrown together by some aficionados. Uh, but there was just something about the room that I felt at home immediately. And the audiences, it wasn't that they were quiet necessarily or listening, but they were participating in a correct way. The spirit in the room was elevated and then the music followed.

Europe, Touring and Writing Things Down

Ben 30:49

So you seem to have an affinity with Europe.

Geoff 30:50

You work you work in Europe a lot, right?

Ben 30:52

Yeah, I feel much more I've always felt more European than American. All my sensibility well, my my father was born in Europe. My sensibility has always been to the old Western civilizations. I mean, it's the reason I I came to graduate school in England. I I always uh wanted to go to Paris and see what that was like. And I w I really did want to have a life and a career in Europe early on. And so as early as the late 70s, I started coming and playing and coming back and playing and coming back and playing. And in the United States, you know, everything is so spread out. It takes forever to go to Phoenix from Denver or uh go from Chicago to Philadelphia. But in Europe, you can just jump on a train and it's it that it has a, even though historically it's uh scattered, uh, it's got a geographical uh uh uh closeness.

Geoff 31:50

Do you have a favourite city?

Ben 31:52

Madrid. Yeah. At one time I fantasised living in Madrid, especially because I would be an alien, and I thought that would be kind of interesting, but it never came to pass.

Geoff 32:02

If you like that feeling of being an alien. Yeah.

Ben 32:05

I feel like it anyway. So why not go?

Geoff 32:08

Did you speak any Spanish?

Ben 32:10

Not not really.

Geoff 32:11

I started my touring days in the 80s and the 90s. I remember being completely freaked out. I remember the first time I went to Japan. Um no one spoke English. Right. No signs. Got lost in the middle of Tokyo. My first tour totally freaked me out. I mean, for years it affected me. I was I don't want to go to foreign countries anymore. I felt in a complete bubble, you know. I didn't like that feeling at all, you know. Yeah. Well of course it's different now, you know.

Ben 32:35

Yes, there's English everywhere. And I did try to learn Spanish for for for for several years. I studied it. And I found if I was in Spain for a few weeks and I would walk up and down the streets and stuff, I would eventually start to understand. It's like being on the other side of the wall again. Yeah, yeah.

Geoff 32:54

Window or aisle?

Ben 32:57

Aisle.

Geoff 32:57

Cats or dogs?

Ben 32:58

Dogs, absolutely.

Geoff 33:00

Do you have a dog?

Ben 33:01

Yes, I always have a dog. I've had a series of small little poodle type dogs. I love them. They're so smart and so crazy.

Geoff 33:08

Me too. I love dogs. My dogs are very old now. I have two terriers, they're 16. Oh, oh. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, two more questions. What's the most used app on your phone?

Ben 33:19

I don't do a lot of apps. I guess I maybe I check Facebook from time to time. I'm I'm I'm not on the phone a lot. Um

Geoff 33:28

You're in the real world, aren't you?

Ben 33:30

Well, I am, because I'm I'm an old guy, you know. Uh I would honestly much rather write with a pen and and a pad. Yeah. And I still write it down as opposed to, oh, I'll put it on my phone.

Geoff 33:40

Do you carry notebooks with you? Well, I did for years. Uh and I save them. And that's a wonderful thing, by the way. Sure. If you live in a world where you document your thoughts and you get to go back, it's amazing to see what you were thinking 10, 20, 30 years ago, and to get the habit of writing things down, not for any reason necessarily, but an insight as to how you got where you are. You find that you've forgotten 90% of these things. And you start to recognize who you are, where your roots are. And writing stuff down will do that. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so last question. What's your favourite chord?

Ben 34:25

Well, minor major seven. I like that with a flat five.

Geoff 34:28

That's the the international chord of mystery.

Ben 34:31

The mystery maybe, or you know, just your standard like that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, who doesn't like a sus chord? Yeah.

Geoff 34:42

So do you compose a lot?

Ben 34:44

From time to time I go through a period of uh and you know, the the way I compose is again playing standards. I'll play a standard, and the harmonic movement will strike a lyrical idea, and suddenly there's a lyric and a few chords, and I'm off and running. Favourite chord, that's such a funny question!

Geoff 35:03

And uh and it's actually it's quite a revealing question, I find.

Ben 35:07

You know it is. It reminds me of like when you consider Monk, you know, his the the openness of just two notes sometimes.

Geoff 35:19

Yeah, yeah.

Ben 35:24

Yeah, sure. Tenths, tenth, yeah, the left hand. It just it doesn't necessarily need a lot of yeah, yeah, a lot of infill.

Geoff 35:33

That

Cool Cat Blues and Saying Goodbye

Geoff 35:34

was great, Ben. So so what you're doing at the moment, you I hear you have a book coming up.

Ben 35:38

Yeah, I'm a compulsive journalist, and I have just completed what's called Cool Cat Blues: The Life and Times of Georgie Fame. Georgie, of course, is a legend, and I have to say, probably the most brilliant natural musician I I've ever met and gotten to work with. And his story, I thought from the beginning, was was kind of legendary, how he arrived at the moment when Britain was transitioning from a period of rationing and post-World War II recovery into this swinging London modernism. And there was Georgie, you know, right at that moment, singing and playing Rhythm and Blues, American Rhythm and Blues. Such a great story, and he was such a great artist. But I didn't really understand who he was until I met him. I met him in Australia in Perth. There was a jazz festival, and we were both on the festival, and I wandered into a gig he was playing with what he called the Aussie Blue Flames.

Geoff 36:46

Or Blowflies, he called them, didn't he?

Ben 36:48

Yes. Smoking band.

Geoff 36:50

Yeah.

Ben 36:50

And he was in front of him, just carrying on. I was completely knocked out. And I I had just at that time started a little record label, and we started working together.

Geoff 37:00

This was Go Jazz, right? It was Go Jazz. This is the 80s, right?

Ben 37:03

That's right. And I think the the Cool Cat Blues record might have been the first one I made for that label. And we wound up making over 60 records, and three of them were Georgie Fame records. And no musician, uh whoever they are, has a simple life or an easy life. It's not an easy way to go through the world. But I found him to be a real outlier in terms of his focus, his dedication, his talent, and his commitment to the music, despite what was going on in his life. So anyway, I started recording interviews with him. Oh, this must have been in the early 2000s. Yeah. There was one period where we uh spent a week together in Mexico, and I recorded everything. And I wound up with all these tapes, and I transcribed them. And uh I had a similar experience. You know, the record producer, Tommy LiPuma. Tommy was a good friend. And I did something similar with Tommy. I thought his story was extraordinary, and I recorded all these interviews with him, transcribed them and gave them to Tommy, and Tommy looked at the interviews and he said, That's not how I talk. I said, Tommy, that's exactly how you talk. I transcribed you. I had kind of a similar experience with Georgie. After I transcribed it and I gave it to him, he said, Well, I wouldn't say that. I said, But I wouldn't. But you did say that. No, no, this is a mistake. So I realized, you know, we can't hear, we really don't hear ourselves. No. You know that from the recording studio. Yeah. It feels one way, and then when you listen to the playback, it could be entirely different. So I pulled back and I instead of trying to write literally what Georgie and I talked about, I tried to make it a narrative and tell the story of the time and the feeling of the time in Soho in in the 60s, and then the feeling of the 70s when the record industry took over the music business, and what had started out as a labour of love turned into everything was monetised, everything was about money, and how Georgie negotiated that, because he had number one hit records before the Beatles and the Stones, and uh the choices he made were aesthetic choices often. So the the the book uh was in preparation for years. And uh just this year, uh 2026, it's been published. And I'm I'm so happy because uh if anybody deserves to be documented, I believe Clive Powell deserves it.

Geoff 39:37

I agree too, yeah. Well, you know, I was in his band for twelve years. Complicated character. Very complicated. Um I met him just after his wife committed suicide. So very difficult times. But once I got to know him, very loyal incredible musician. Yeah. What a great singer, great Hammond organ player. I mean, we used to do two weeks at Ronnie Scott's, you know, every year we'd do two, sometimes three weeks. Incredible highlight of my career in the world.

Ben 40:01

You know, and when you look at his beginning, you know, he he left school when he was like 16 years old. He was an indifferent student. Uh he grew up in a cotton mill town, a mining town. He actually started working out at the mill at one point. He took the job.

Geoff 40:19

This is Lancashire, isn't it? Leigh, Lancashire easily. Yeah.

Ben 40:22

On the Larry Parnes circuit. It's crazy. I mean, it was a time from the past, from almost like music hall stuff. And to transition from that uh through the the whole rock and roll scene. Talk about an insider who's an outsider. Yeah, complicated, that's the word. Perhaps there's more than one Georgie Fame.

Geoff 40:43

I look forward to the book very much.

Ben 40:44

Yes, I I I can't imagine what you'll make of it. Please tell me when you see it.

Geoff 40:48

I wish you had one. You could sign it to me. Sign it to me.

Ben 40:51

You know, I I would if I had uh We had them at uh at Ronnie's the other night. I mean, they literally just came out this week.

Geoff 40:59

Well, Ben, it's been amazing to catch up again.

Ben 41:02

Likewise. I hope we get to play together.

Geoff 41:04

Yeah, I hope so. I've I'm always free. And uh London is uh is healthy and uh you're healthy and we're all the weather's beautiful and

Ben 41:13

yeah we're we're we're still here. This is still doing okay. We have to appreciate this while we have it. We never know what's coming in this world.

Geoff 41:20

Well, there we go. So I hope to see you very soon.

Ben 41:22

Likewise. Thanks, Geoff.

Geoff 41:24

All the best.

Announcement 41:25

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