Heading to Croydon to Talk Jazz

Geoff 0:00

Hello Podcats. Geoff Gascoyne here. Today I'm in Croydon in south London and I'm on my way to see Pete Long, who is an award-winning sax player, clarinetist, model airplane builder, and creator of the Croydon Calendar, which he sells every year. And we're going to talk about big bands and whatever comes up. So here we go.

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Announcement 0:37

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Geoff 0:46

Pete, how are you?

Pete 0:48

I'm alright, thank you, Geoffrey. Lovely to be here.

Geoff 0:50

It's delightful to be in your wonderful house. Just reminds me of uh when I was growing up in Hertfordshire, they had houses like this.

Pete 0:56

Yes, they were everywhere, weren't they? This one was built in 1965, same as me, and just after you.

Falling for Glenn Miller and Big Bands

Pete 1:03

Pete 1:03

So can you tell me a little bit about how you got into jazz? Well, it was it was largely to do with my age. I believe that when you're about 12, you start working out what music you want to listen to. Um my experience now educating and also my own memories about 12 is when you start working out what you like. And when I was 12, it was very barren times for pop. If, as it turns out, you like complicated chords and chromatics.

Geoff 1:29

So you're talking about the 70s, though, right, aren't you?

Pete 1:31

Mmm, going into the 80s. Yeah, going into the 80s. So the rise of punk. I didn't really like punk, I didn't like people being violent. The glam pop that was appearing, Blondie and so forth, is harmonically quite static. I couldn't have explained this to you when I was 12, but it just it didn't get my ear. So Mum had some records, and the thing that really did get my ear was her Glenn Miller record. So it was Glenn Miller for me.

Geoff 1:58

Same as me, exactly the same as me.

Pete 2:00

But of course, if you look back on it with what you know now and you think about his arrangers, Jerry Gray and Bill Finnegan and those guys, they were at the front edge of 20th century contemporary classical technique. And so something like, you know, all these charts I used to love, and even something like Little Brown Jug, Bill Finnegan, there's that interlude in the middle where he goes into massive, great fat 13th descending chromatically. Yeah, and that was the bit I loved.

Geoff 2:28

Right, right.

Pete 2:29

And of course, when I started to listen to more big band music, because you know, Glenn Miller records, what else is there? And you hit Duke Ellington, which is all that and more, and groovier, and then for me, Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band, yeah, my die was cast. I just like big fat chords going round in semi-tones.

Choosing Sax Then Adding Clarinet

Geoff 2:48

Okay. So so you were what instruments were you playing when you were 11 and 12 years old?

Pete 2:52

None. I was just listening to it. Okay, and so when I went to my first saxophone lesson, I decided I was gonna play the sax because I could play a little bit of flute and uh the same teacher at my school. I went to my first sax lesson with the intention of becoming professional from the get-go. I wanted to play the saxophone for my job, and I wanted to play In the Mood and American Patrol. Lucky old me, the dream's come true.

Geoff 3:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete 3:18

But uh yeah, I get to play a lot of other stuff as well. But interestingly, there are a few charts when you always go, oh, brilliant, it's this. I still get a little bit of boyish excitement when we turn over the page in the big band and there's In the Mood.

Geoff 3:32

Yeah.

Pete 3:32

There it is, I've said it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Geoff 3:35

I'm with you, I'm totally with you. I I I absolutely love it as well. Yeah. And then you played clarinet as well, don't you?

Pete 3:40

Well, that again, that was from the um listening to jazz. So one of the other big influences I had when I was I'm a bit older now, I'm about 15, 14, 15, and my at school said, Oh, if you're listening to Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, you might like Benny Goodman. Uh and he lent me some of the live recordings of Goodman's Big Band on the radio in the late 30s, where they're coming out of the Roseland Ballroom or somewhere on the radio show, and there's a thousand to two thousand dancers there, and whenever they finished, they these enormous audience goes absolutely bonkers. And Benny is playing 'hot clarinet', which I like the sound of, and it's having this crowd reaction, and I thought, yeah, that'd be good, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be a good job? So I got hold of a clarinet. I'd already got quite into the saxophone, so adapting that to the clarinet was pretty simple for me, and so I I started learning the clarinet. I was very lucky, of course, because this was from the 14-15, so the brain was like a sponge, and of course, some of my colleagues had a much harder job picking up the clarinet than flute when they got to college stage because the brain had it's not quite as gungy. Yeah. I was really lucky I got it in that age because to me there

Geoff 4:58

You have no fear, do you?

Pete 4:59

No, that well,

Geoff 5:00

I can be learning.

Pete 5:01

I'm quite I'm quite happy being bilingual on the two, they are slightly different.

School Bands and Free Council Music

Geoff 5:05

So, did you have opportunities to play in a band when you were that?

Pete 5:08

Yeah, we had a we had a we had a uh it was called a dance band at school, so there's a school dance band, but of course, this was the great age of free music on the council. So

Geoff 5:19

Which area, where did you grow up, by the way?

Pete 5:20

Croydon here.

Geoff 5:21

You grew in Croydon?

Pete 5:22

Right here, and um in fact I grew up in a house around the corner from here. And so there was the Croydon School Symphonic Band, there was uh uh two orchestras, and so there was heaps of playing on the council, clarinet ensemble, you know, you know, being a uh hormonal teenage lad at the time in the early 80s at an all-boys school. All of a sudden I was in the clarinet section - with lots and lots of girls. This made the clarinet even more exciting.

Geoff 5:48

It's not the most naturally sexy instrument, though, is it? Let's face it!

Pete 5:52

No, it's not. No, it's not. But I was surrounded by my contemporary females, plus there was Benny Goodman, who I I know take your point by saying not naturally sexy, but the kind of attention Benny Goodman was getting was that sounded exciting. Right, right. That was rock star stuff. I believe actually, we could look this up, but I think Benny was on something like $38,000 a week in 1938. That's quite sexy.

Geoff 6:20

That's pretty sexy, yes.

Pete 6:21

Yes. Plus, he was that good at the clarinet, which is it has its

Banking Stock to Music College Leap

Pete 6:24

own attraction.

Geoff 6:24

When you left school, did you go and study music?

Pete 6:27

No, I worked in a bank. Uh I'm from a long line of bankers. You know, my father was a bank manager, his father was a bank manager. It was expected that I would get a proper job. My parents understood that I had leanings to wanting to play music for a living. And it scared them because if you come from banking stock, the whole thing is about security and planning for the future. Which is an option often not available in our profession.

Geoff 6:51

Mostly not available.

Pete 6:53

Mostly not available. You have just yes, just missed the box where it but it's funny, isn't it? When we get one of those surveys, I don't know, how many hours a week do you work? How long do a week do you spend it? And you can't answer any of the questions. You know what I mean? Anyway, so I worked, but I was disastrous. I was absolutely disastrous as a bank clerk. I I made stupid mistakes because I couldn't focus on the job. And so on the quiet, I auditioned to music college and then got the fun uh got the funding, it's funding now, it was a grant back then, got the grant from the council, got it all sorted out, then just presented it to my mum and dad as a fate accomplish. I'm leaving the bank in September and going to college. I've got it all sorted out, and I think because I got it all sorted out, my dad sort of respected it and gave it his blessing.

Geoff 7:39

In those days, you got a grant and you didn't have to pay anything back, did you? No, it was just like a free education. Free money, yeah.

Pete 7:45

It was free. Yeah, but the other thing, I mean, uh everything was free. I mean, I pay I paid, my parents paid my clarinet lessons at school, my saxophone lessons. But if I'd have been at a state school, they wouldn't have had to. And all the orchestras were free, and then further education was free. I I'm sure I'm not looking at this through rose-tinted glasses. I'm sure the whole musical environment was healthier back then, simply because so many more people at school got an opportunity to rub up against music properly, you know, have a go at playing it. And of course, the vast bulk of people aren't gonna take it any further than maybe grade three. But, what you are doing, you're training people's ears and you're training an audience, you're training interest in music. Uh it's just better culturally. It's England was nicer.

Geoff 8:39

So, where did you go to college then? Where which

Pete 8:41

I went to the London College of Music because I only had enough money for one audition. But the point is, you've got the same teachers as you got anywhere else. I learned a huge amount from my teacher, a gentleman called Steve Pierce, who is also known in some circles as The Other Steve Pierce. Because of Steve Pearce, the bass player.

Geoff 8:58

Yeah, yeah.

Pete 8:59

Uh, but they are spelt different. I was sort of trying to rage away and be Coltrane at the time, and um he calmed me down and gave me good classical fundamentals and made me play the Brahms clarinet concerto.

Learning to Arrange With an Atari

Geoff 9:13

And you learned about arranging as well at this stage?

Pete 9:15

No, that was a bit later. I've always been interested in arranging. Uh but no, arranging actually came with the Atari computer in 1990. I'd always wanted to do arranging, so I thought when guys were getting the Ataris, I thought, I'll get one of those. I asked around to ask what I needed, so I got an Atari, and I was the talk of the business because I'd spent money and got it upgraded for 600 quid to four meg, and I just sat down and I said, right, uh, some big band charts.

Geoff 9:47

On what program would you be using at that stage?

Pete 9:49

That was on Notator, which is forefather of Logic, wasn't it? Yeah. And it was all rubbish, but the point was nobody else had to hear it. And gradually I got the hang of it until uh I was confident enough some years later to bring a chart to a band. And then once you start doing that, it's it's very

Geoff 10:06

Do you remember the first time you brought a bar, a chart and what that was and what band it was?

Pete 10:11

Uh well, the very first chart I ever did was back at school when I tried to uh take down Christopher Columbus by Fletcher Henderson and I was 15 and it was rotten. Uh but no, the first ones I did well, probably for my Ellington big band in the 90s, Takedown to Duke. I did a tiny amount of that. Most of it was done by a bass player, in fact, called Alan Prosser. And some of them I got from original scores. No, that was probably the first time I did arranging up a high level for things. And then,

Jools Holland Years and Going Solo

Pete 10:41

of course, when I got into Jools Holland's band, I was one of his arrangers. So I did loads of arranging for loads of people, which is why my arranging CV.

Geoff 10:48

How long did you play in Jools' band?

Pete 10:50

I did five years for Jools. Uh that did for me. I needed to go and do my own thing because you know it's Jools' bus.

Geoff 10:57

Yeah.

Pete 10:57

You're very welcome to ride it with him, but it goes where he's going.

Geoff 11:01

Yeah.

Pete 11:01

You know.

Geoff 11:02

Yeah, sure, yeah.

Pete 11:02

And he's ever so nice about it, and he's a lovely geezer, but I just wanted to do my own thing.

Geoff 11:06

Yeah. And do you still do you still run your own big band?

Pete 11:09

Well, currently I run the big band at Ronnie Scott's. Takes up a lot of my time. Uh, I will do my own big band gigs, but I don't have time to hustle for them really. Not

The Real Stress of Running Big Bands

Pete 11:21

these days.

Geoff 11:21

It's stressful running a big band, isn't it?

Pete 11:24

It's all right, I got used to it.

Geoff 11:25

Yeah, you've yeah.

Pete 11:26

I remember the first three or four years I was doing that, I the first sort of things I did on any big scale were doing called Rat Pack -style gigs in the early noughties for a concert promoter with you know three guys impersonating down the front, and I fixed the big band. And the stress, because it was high stakes, I was charging them a lot of money, I was getting a good knock out of it. And um I remember just worrying myself to death that my musicians were all gonna go wrong, and then after a while you learn that no, of course they're not gonna go wrong, they hardly ever go wrong.

Geoff 12:04

Well, but of course, the brass section are all in the pub, though, aren't they? That's the that's

Pete 12:07

They're always in the pub. They're alright. Yeah, that's all okay. Uh they're always in the pub, but they don't turn up to work wanting to get you the sack. It's not what they're doing. They're they're turning up to work to earn their money. Yeah, true. So they will be on time, they'll have the right clothes, you know who to book as regards the pub thing after a little while, and um, yeah, you can just rely on them to do it. And also, I don't know if you've had this on one of your gigs, but sometimes something can go terribly wrong with maybe a singer not knowing the chart properly or something, something and they come in on in the wrong place. Or that happens to you a couple of times, and then you realise it's not a catastrophe. Your musicians will help you out. Yeah, everybody wants this to be right, and uh and often if there's something bad like that that happens, it's sorted out in four bars. You're all being on both sides of that. So so no, it's not it's not that stressful. Uh, group texting and internet banking made it a whole lot less stressful. I mean, I can remember having to sit down in the morning with the cheque book and the envelopes and the stamps.

Geoff 13:17

18 cheques.

Pete 13:18

Right, 18 cheques, and then some guys, some guys, one trombonist who will remain nameless, wouldn't pay his cheques in for weeks.

Geoff 13:27

Right, okay.

Pete 13:28

So I'm going, oh, I'm quite well off. I'll I think I I I think I'm gonna go and buy a cor anglais or something, and then uh

Geoff 13:34

Yeah, but it's you find people like that that don't send their invoices in for months as well, are you? Yeah, that's what I hate.

Pete 13:40

Yeah, but but no, no, the bank transfer, yeah, there's no more that stress. Yeah, plus, touch wood again, very useful if you get investigated. Everything on bank transfer. I've been it's the same circumstances is I had a big orchestra, like a proper symphony orchestra on the payroll for a week. Wow. And so the turnover goes, it's astronomical, your turnover. And of course, it's big spike, and the the revenue's computer notices this, and all of a sudden you've got them on your back. So I sent them the bank statements, and this has happened twice. And they look through every single musician's fee has come out of the same account ever since I started trading, and it makes them go away. So there there are things you can do to mitigate the stress. I think it's probably much more stressful if you're not used to doing it and you haven't got the infrastructure. But group texts, internet banking, and a trust in your musicians!

Geoff 14:32

But but but also musicians getting depth in the the day before and things like that, people pulling out and

Pete 14:38

oh crikey, yeah. Well, I mean that just happens. That yeah, that that is stressful. There's that word we all dread, which is Isobel.

Geoff 14:47

Yeah, that's the fixer, the L ondon fixer.

Pete 14:48

Isobel Griffiths, bless her, it is a fixer. She fixes all sessions, which is well, that's the apogee, it's the work everyone wants to do. Morning of your gig. Oh, and it's the tone of voice, and oh, uh, Hello mate, isn't it? Yeah, it's like hello mate. Oh, hello, hello Andy, how are you? Um, and then the I word, um, Isobel, and you go, go and do it, just go and do it, I'll sort it out. So it's wise when running a band to have a good grasp of who's leaving music college.

Geoff 15:17

Yeah, because you find the good ones, the ones that don't that aren't that busy.

Pete 15:20

Yeah.

Geoff 15:21

Yeah. Right,

Favourite Standards and Calling the Keys

Geoff 15:30

can we talk a little bit about standards, about jazz standards? Yes, of course. You've always practiced standards. Do you have particular standards that you you like to call?

Pete 15:38

Yes, I do. I tend to like fairly simple ones with a twist of chromaticism. I do like a twist of chromaticism. Something uh standards I will call, I'll call Sweet and Lovely, which is a little bit unusual, isn't it? Or um I like playing Tea for Two, which is interesting, isn't it? Put me on the spot now. There is no Greater Love will come out. Stompin' at the Savoy, I like playing. Get the audience to sing it. It's always nice. It's good halfway through, halfway through a set with our elderly target audience. If you have if you're in a situation where it is an elderly target audience, which it frequently is, we all know. A good a good thing to do is to wake them up a bit by getting them to sing, get a bit of air through them. We're gentlemen of a certain age, we know that if you go into a nice warm room with a nice comfy chair, you're probably gonna start nodding off. It doesn't really matter what's going on. You know, and and of course, I sympathise with our ETA, elderly target audience, yeah, when I notice it's happening. So, yeah, get them to sing a song.

Geoff 16:46

Stompin' at the Savoy is the one you ...

Pete 16:48

All they have to sing is Savoy, it's not very hard. Yeah.

Geoff 16:51

I asked you to pick a tune today to have a little play on. Which tune do you fancy?

Pete 16:55

I like playing Just Friends. I've always liked Just Friends. Okay. I've liked it since I probably heard it on Humphrey Littleton's Monday night show first. I used to sit there with the uh cassette recorder with the buttons. And if I like the sound of something, save it for posterity. But it really came home to me with Charlie Parker's recording with the strings. That's one of the most beautiful jazz records ever made.

Geoff 17:15

It is, isn't it?

Pete 17:16

And Charlie Parker, who I love, you know, you can he he'd have been a bad poker player, Parker, because you can hear quite clearly when he's happy, and he was having a smashing time. They said there was a square side to Bird, yeah, and he loved it when it got cheesy. He just loved it. And then later, Eddie Daniels did a great recording of it with the string chord set and a rhythm section, which is the one I really liked.

Geoff 17:36

Um, what's great about Just Friends is I love the way it starts on the four chord, doesn't it?

Pete 17:41

It does. It always makes for an interesting sequence. Uh, there's a few that do it. Well, Sweet and Lovely does as well, doesn't it? Calling these tunes on gigs, I always do belt and braces and call the start key and the finish key. Yeah. Because I there's been some unpleasantness in the past. Yeah. Uh Unforgettable's another one. After You've Gone, there's lots of them. Uh and they're all interesting tunes. Uh what's interesting is they do end in a different key, but it sounds completely logical. You know? And Just Friends is it's so pretty. Starts on the major seven, doesn't it? Lovely.

Geoff 18:13

So we're in G, so it starts on C. Do you want to have a play on that? Do you want to grab your clarinet and we'll uh

Pete 18:19

Alright, double my money?

Geoff 18:20

We'll get set up. Fabulous.

Pete 18:21

I'll go and get it.

Geoff 18:22

Can't wait for it. Uh right, so

Playing 'Just Friends' on Clarinet

Geoff 18:24

here we go. Two choruses of Just Friends in the key of F.

Pete 18:27

In the Key of F. Yes. And you'll hear Graham Harvey's beautiful intro. Here it comes ...

Geoff 20:08

Oh yes. Yes, Pete.

Pete 20:10

There we go.

Geoff 20:12

Fabulous.

Pete 20:13

Thank you very much.

Geoff 20:14

Wow, it's such a great instrument, isn't it? So, this is your first instrument, would you say?

Pete 20:18

Uh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to say because, as you know, a man of many instruments, you you tend to be playing what the business is telling you to operate with.

Geoff 20:27

of course, yeah, yeah.

Practising With the Quartet Play-Along App

Geoff 20:28

How is it playing along with the with the app?

Pete 20:30

I love the app, and uh, I can say this on the podcast. I have bought my own app with no commercial , uh coercion at all! No, I use it every day, practicing my various things. Fabulous. It's really, really, really handy. I will now only, can we mention the competition? I'll now only use the iReal if I really have to play a specific thing that is not on any of your things. But you're closing all the gaps now. No, it's it's kind of like Aebersold, but more user-friendly. I guess that was your intention, wasn't it?

Geoff 21:02

Of course it is, yeah.

Pete 21:02

So now the app is tremendous. If you haven't got the app, don't be a mug, get the app.

Geoff 21:06

Thank you very much. Here's the five quid I owe you. Um so

Pete 21:11

See what I do for 20.

Geoff 21:13

Right.

Why Improvising Means Editing Licks

Geoff 21:14

Can we talk a little bit about sort of licks and ideas and improvising ideas? Okay. Because it's it it's nice on on this podcast where I get people to play little ideas and things that they things that that might be going through their head when they're when they're improvising. When you're starting off with solo in on Just Friends, just give me some ideas of some things that you might play.

Pete 21:33

Well, if one thing I do when I'm talking about playing jazz to students is we have to get , have to join together and get rid of the word improvising because it terrifies newcomers to our art form. Because improvising, they take it at face value, means making it up out of nothing. And we all ask any jazz musician, that's the last thing you're doing. What you're actually doing is, editing a load of licks you've got in your head, and anything that might be loosely terms of imp as improvisatory is the direction in which you're taking it. That's the bit of freedom, but you've got to know a load of licks, it's like learning a language. So one of the nice things with Just Friends to know is your first two chords, which on the clarinet are C major seven, it's B flat major seven concert C major seven. Now, the thing about the clarinet also is you can tailor your licks to the sound of the instrument. So the clarinet is particularly effective on arpeggios. It has been since it's been invented. Just the chord tones. And wide leaps on the clarinet are good. And then it goes to the minor, C minor seven. So that's really pretty. It wouldn't work quite so well on a trumpet, that phrase, but it's really clarinety. Right, okay. So it's good to study transcriptions by the masters.

Geoff 23:12

As um as Martin Hathaway says, it's uh it's like a musical typewriter, isn't it?

Pete 23:17

Not as much as the saxophone. Yeah. Uh but the but yes, yes, it is. It it it's it the clarinet will go up and down its uh four octaves, four, three octaves, three and a half for you. Without it, won't really grumble. So you can make sure you just take advantage of your instrument sound, but draw on what notes of the chords are gonna be have the most effect. So if you're going from C major to C minor, the big business is the E flat, isn't it?

Geoff 23:43

Moving from E natural to E flat.

Pete 23:45

Yeah, and the major seventh. Some people play C minor major seventh as the second chord, which is very effective, so here it comes again. That's just the straight arpeggios. Yeah. Uh and then it goes to a G major seven. Then to this next chord's got loads of different spellings. Uh when I'm blowing , in my head, I've got B flat diminished. But it it could have kind of got to be.

Geoff 24:18

That instantly sounds like Benny Goodman, doesn't it?

Pete 24:21

Yeah, oh yeah, you know. One of the lovely things about Benny, uh, he shares this with Tubby Hayes in that there is no, and Harry Connick actually, there is no masking his intention, his technique is flawless. So Benny's really easy to take down because the technique is it's spot on. You can tell what you know what he intended. Tubby's the same, yeah. As actually he's Harry Connick. I had to take down a bit of Harry for a bit of a project the other month. If you actually take one of Benny's solos apart, it's so chordal, it's it's actually you're going, really? Really? It's that sounds that good. And Benny's one of these guys, Tubby's the same league, his notes are more interesting, as is Cannonball, Adderley. But part of the attractiveness of what you experience when you listen to them is the sheer level of the craft. Tubby, Cannonball, Benny , all sound great because they simply sound great. Before we get onto the notes, the actual racket is tremendous. And Harry Connick's story, I was out doing a gig in Norway, and there was it's years ago, and there was a young trumpet player from New Orleans who was out there, and there's an after-hours jam session. So I'd meet him every night and chatting away, and uh it was just around the time of the When Harry Met Sally film when Harry Connick became very famous. And so I was talking about Harry Connick, is it all hype? And he went, it's no, it's not hype, but he said, but it's not what we thought. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, first day of college, I'm at the same college as Harry in the same year, and so we got sent a letter saying all the people in your area, because in America we all live a long way from the college. He said, I had a car, and the letter was like, Could you pick this kid Harry Connick up and take him in? He said, I did, a very nice lad. And he said, Right, I'm gonna finish at four today. When are you finishing, Harry? He said, Oh, I'm finishing at 4 15. Right, what have you got? He said, I've got the opera class, and he said, Oh, we'll sing fair enough. So he went to the opera class. What he wasn't expecting, he said there was this stringy kid chewing gum, accompanying the opera class, reading off a full orchestral score, transposed, 15 years old.

Geoff 26:33

Wow.

Pete 26:34

Wow! And he said, Connick from that point on was the star of our college. Yeah, and so when he left college with full honours and all this, uh he said, Yeah, I'm going to New York. And they thought, right, because all the time at college he'd been the sort of uber -Chick Corea guy, and they thought, well, he's gonna go to New York, he's gonna get in, I don't know, the Phil Woods Quartet or something, and just be, you know, what I guess Brad Mehldau eventually became, you know. And um, judge of our surprise when two months later there's a copy of Time magazine, and it's our mate Harry from college with a white tux on and a red flower sitting at a piano with a microphone entertaining the glitter arti of New York. He got up there and went, Oh no, I'm gonna get into society, and that's when that Harry Connick was born. It's an incredible story because they he was the uber -jazzer.

Geoff 27:25

Absolutely.

Pete 27:25

It creeps out in a lot of his playing, doesn't it?

Geoff 27:27

It does, yeah.

Pete 27:28

But he had the nouse or the desire, maybe, to take it somewhere else.

Geoff 27:32

I've been a fan of Harry since the start of that. Like when I first met Jamie Cullum, this was what bonded us together because we were both.

Pete 27:40

Well, love of , love of Connick?

Geoff 27:41

Yeah, love of that, right? He wanted to sound like it and uh

Pete 27:45

Yeah, yeah, you can hear that.

Geoff 27:46

And we were we were in America on tour uh with one of our bus tours with Jamie, and uh he was on in the same town as us. He'd just finished his concert, we finished our concert, and we were walking, we see these tour buses and this big line of people. Harry's sitting there, and in the in the open air in Wisconsin or somewhere, we just join the end of the queue, and we get to the end of the queue, and he goes to sign, he recognises Jamie, and then we go on his tour bus and we spend the spend the rest of the evening on his tour bus hanging out with him. Such a hero, incredible,

Pete 28:16

and a good egg, by the sound of it?

Geoff 28:18

A great guy, yeah. A great guy, yeah. I've always loved Harry, yeah. Incredible.

Pete 28:22

But anyway, incredibly easy to transcribe because it's meticulous.

Geoff 28:25

Thanks for that info on the improvising. That was amazingly...

Pete 28:28

Yeah, don't call it improvising, kids!

Albums, Heroes, Gigs and Career Highlights

Geoff 28:31

Right, can we move on? I've got a series of questions that I ask everyone. As we sit in your front room surrounded by vinyl and Airfix airplanes, yeah. The first question is what's your favourite album? The look of horror comes over Pete's face.

Pete 28:46

In the Beginning by Dizzy Gillespie. Okay. The subtext of that question is it's the Desert Island Disc one. Which one would you save if the house was on fire? I'd say that one.

Geoff 28:54

Okay, is that a big band record or a small band record?

Pete 28:57

It's it's a potboiler of Dizzy's recordings from 1945 to 1950. Quintet sides with Charlie Parker and then his big band and other odds and sods, and it's Dizzy in his early pomp, of whom I never tire of listening.

Geoff 29:11

It's kind of everything that you need there in terms of jazz, isn't it?

Pete 29:14

Well, yeah, but Dizzy's such fun. The thing I love about Dizzy more than anything is it's perfect synthesis and total mastery, and it's all pushed along with joy, and it comes through every note he plays.

Geoff 29:29

Is there a particular album that you might have transcribed more than others? Or I know you're talking about it.

Pete 29:34

Yeah, there is actually. It's 100% Proof by Tubby. Right. I was studying Tubby quite hard for a bit, and he's easy to transcribe.

Geoff 29:43

Very clear, isn't it?

Pete 29:44

He's very clear. Even when he's going double time, it's amazing. So I took a lot of that down.

Geoff 29:48

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

Pete 29:52

Oh, yes, there is. Uh Sonny Greer, Ellington's drummer from the 40s. Played time like no one else. I'd love to sit sit in front of that. Well, failing Sonny, actually, Duke, accompanying, to my money, the greatest accompanist in the history. Yeah. Ellington's piano playing often overlooked. Yeah. Because the scale of his other achievements.

Geoff 30:11

Alright, question number three. Uh, what would you say is the highlight of your career so far?

Pete 30:16

Oh, uh, it's easy. That was last August bank holiday. Quite unexpected. It was a gig at Ronnie Scott's with the big band, and we were playing Dizzy Gillespie's rep, and we'd done it lots of times, but uh there was one thing about that, particularly all the planets aligned. Ryan Quigley was in the Dizzy chair, which helped. I had Roberto Pla's Satin Singh being the Cuban contingent backing up Skelton, it was being uh Teddy Stewart, Dizzy's, it was fantastic. And Sarah Osterlauf, do you know Sarah does everyone know Sarah out there? You should. She was doing the Bebop vocals. And there was this one thing when we're she's singing a slow blues, and Ryan's doing the Dizzy obligato, and the rhythm section were in kind of double-time Latin, but very quietly behind it. I just thought this is this is the best music I have ever been responsible for. I did I wasn't playing a note of it. I just waved my arms about. Fabulous, yeah. Uh it's the only time I've posted a gig on Facebook because I just thought Ryan did this one solo that needs to be transcribed and learnt from.

Geoff 31:20

Is it was it recorded at all?

Pete 31:21

On an iPhone. Ah. It's it's it's on my Facebook page. You can we'll check that out.

Geoff 31:26

Fabulous way. What would you say is your musical weakness?

Pete 31:30

My ears. My ears. I'm not very good at pitching. Uh, I've got much better since I've been learning the brass.

Geoff 31:36

Pitching in in just?

Pete 31:37

pitching sounds, like trying trying to pick out a melody. Oh, okay.

Geoff 31:41

But you but that comes from transcribing though, doesn't it? You've done a lot of it.

Pete 31:45

Well, yeah, kind of, but transcribing you have a lot of goes, can't you? It's you're sitting down with a piano. No, like somebody's playing a line going, uh, pick this up. Okay. I've got better at it, you know. Now now I'm you know more of a grown-up at 61. But no, it's always been my my bête noir, has been my lugs. I'm alright with reading. It's kind of why I have a method for playing jazz, because I'm relying partly on my ears and quite a lot on maths when I'm playing. This is candid stuff, isn't it?

Geoff 32:12

Are you good at playing standards in unusual keys, for example? If I was to call Just Friends in E flat or something.

Pete 32:17

I get round the changes, but the melody would be it would be a bit like my sister Sue trying to reverse out of the little car park.

Geoff 32:26

That's a good idea. Right, question five. Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Pete 32:33

No, no, but I do get nervous in theatre pits when you have to play exactly what's on the page, and everybody sat around you knows exactly how it goes and exactly how they want it played.

Geoff 32:46

If you're, for example, if you're depping in a West End show.

Pete 32:48

Depping in a West End show, yeah, that's important. That that's that is nerve-wracking. Uh uh, so that's when I get nervous. The first couple of times depping on a show, but I don't think I'm alone in that respect.

Geoff 32:57

No, no, I feel exactly the same.

Pete 32:59

But no, performing with a big band on stage, especially if I'm directing it, no, it's it's just leaping about. Yeah, and if it's stuff we already know, absolutely not. It's like having people around for dinner, that is yeah.

Geoff 33:09

Uh, question number six have you ever been starstruck?

Pete 33:12

I have. It was a NYJO gig in the Barbican, and the guest artist was Buddy DeFranco, who is my clarinet hero, and he was there playing.

Geoff 33:23

Playing with you?

Pete 33:24

Playing. Well, I was in the I was in the saxes, yeah. So the thing I remember about him, and he's an absolute gentleman, was we would it was a tribute to Woody Herman. It was meant to be with Woody Herman, but Woody unfortunately had passed in the interim between the gig being booked and the gig, and so they made it a benefit for Woody's family because Woody died with not a lot of money. And Buddy came over and took Woody's part. And so we're playing Woodchopper's Ball in D flat, and it starts with the clarinet right in the middle of the clarinet, the weakest part of the instruments range. It's the one all the arranging books tell you to avoid if you want the clarinet to be making a statement. Woodchopper's Ball is on those notes, and it's NYJO as well. NYJO in the late 80s, it's quite noisy. It was young Chris Dagley, may he rest in peace, and you know, ten brass and five sax. He said, Whoa, it was noisy. Buddy started playing this solo and he had such a big sound, he cut straight across the band. I'll never forget it. Oh, that's middle B flat on a clarinet. And he's loud with I'm not sure if he was louder than us, but you could hear him, he could project it. And that absolutely knocked me out. And then he started playing his jazz, which is it's like Milk Jackson on a clarinet. It's just beautiful.

Geoff 34:39

Are there memorable gigs that you've seen like that? Because I remember talking to Stan Sulzmann and Alan Barnes and those sort of people talking about you know seeing Coltrane and seeing these greats play actually live and what it felt like. Has there been any gigs that you've seen over the years?

Pete 34:54

Yeah, well, the most notable week was the JVC Jazz Parade 1984 in the Festival Hall. Monday, Freddie Hubbard with Michel Petrucciani. That was pretty good. Uh, the next night was Miles with Marcus Miller and Bill Evans. And that famous picture of Miles in the black and white stripy pants. That was on that gig, so I saw that gig. And then on the Thursday was Dizzy with his sextette, and each gig was remarkable for different reasons. Dizzy was majesty in decline, but Jesus, what majesty. Miles bonkers with moments of beauty, like you'd expect from Miles in the

Geoff 35:29

Back to the audience, presumably?

Pete 35:30

Yeah, he's playing a lot of keyboards that night, I remember. And Freddie Hubbard was just devastating. And I'd never seen Petrucciani before, so that was quite the thing. Incredible. Yeah, and Davro I saw all of them. It's funny with students now. They said, So you've seen Miles! You've seen Miles! You've seen Miles! How did you get to see Miles' out and bought a ticket and went? Yeah, that's what you did.

Geoff 35:50

I never saw Miles actually. I I saw Stan Getz. That was nice. Yeah, I saw I saw some really great gigs, yeah. Uh right, next few questions are not music related. Starting with

The Croydon Calendar, Malta and a Favourite Chord

Geoff 36:02

what's your favourite sandwich?

Pete 36:03

At the moment, thickly spread sandwich spread. It's got to be on one of those seedy loaves.

Geoff 36:08

What do you mean sandwich spread? What like fish pies or something?

Pete 36:10

Sandwich spread. It's called sandwich spread. You get it from Sainsbury's.

Geoff 36:14

What is what's in that?

Pete 36:15

Sort of salad cream with bits in. Ah, that's uh crunchy salad. Oh, okay. Lovely. In this heat. Um winter sandwich. Well, could be anything, bacon, probably.

Geoff 36:25

Can't go wrong with bacon, can you? No. Uh what about movies? Have you got a favourite movie?

Pete 36:29

Yeah, Blazing Saddles.

Geoff 36:31

It's not very PC nowadays, though, is it?

Pete 36:33

Well, it depends, doesn't it? I mean, it does use that word a lot, but it's using that word to lampoon, expose, and malign redneckery. So maybe it's okay. But the comic acting in that film, it's astonishing. There's one line, which I can't, because it's it's it's not fit for podcasting, but when I know it's coming up, I start laughing before. In fact, I'm thinking about it now ago. And so are you. And you don't even know which line it is!

Geoff 36:59

I know, I know, I know what you mean. Yeah, and of course the the Count Basie Orchestra are in the desert, aren't they?

Pete 37:04

And the Count Basie Orchestra play a specially arranged performance of April in Paris, arranged by was it Jonathan Tunick arranged? Somebody like really like you wouldn't expect a musical theatre guy, arranged that, Broadway guy. Yeah, amazing. Oh, it's just glorious. It's a great film, yeah. And the dignity with which Cleveland Little imparts it to Sheriff Bar. If anybody says that film is racist, they're just not watching it carefully enough. You know, it absolutely isn't.

Geoff 37:32

I'm gonna watch that again tonight. Right, what about venues? Have you got a favourite venue you like to play in?

Pete 37:40

Uh yeah, I like playing in the Apex Theatre in Bury. We we've played there. And I like playing at the um Stables in Wavendon. And actually the Fairfield here in Croydon, that's three. Um the reason is the acoustic in each is flawless. Weirdly, the Fairfield in Croydon is a glorious acoustic in Croydon.

Geoff 37:58

Is the Fairfield still open? Is it still

Pete 38:00

apparently

Geoff 38:01

It's kind of falling into a little bit of a ill repute.

Pete 38:04

It's it's having a bad attack of Croydonitis. The middle of Croydon, it's only a mile over there, bad things are going on over there.

Geoff 38:10

You you do some photographs of Croydon, don't you? I do, yeah.

Pete 38:13

Croydon is the most beautiful. Well, it started as a gag. I was down the sorting office in Factory Lane in Croydon. Picking up a parcel, picking up a parcel, yes. And you have to cue for a while. And I was looking out the window, and there's an expression, isn't there? Is if God wanted to give Britain an enema, this is where the pipe would be stuck in. And I'm looking out this desolate landscape out of the window. Yeah, it's you're one story up, you get quite a few. I took a picture of it and put it on Facebook when here's beautiful Croydon folks, and it got loads of, and so I thought this is fun. So there's quite a lot of desolation in the middle of Croydon, and so I started taking pictures of it and just putting them just for fun, and then that year I had enough to just make a little fun calendar, and I sold loads of them, and I thought, oh, uh, okay. So I did it properly the next year, and the idea of the calendar is that it pays for music lessons for poor kids in the borough to try and make Croydon a little bit less nasty.

Geoff 39:12

Amazing,

Pete 39:13

and so things it has paid for so far is it paid for all the gear and the tuition for a pan band in a school, bought the pans, paid the guy to teach them, and this year, for example, um, we have six trombone scholarships because there's no trombone players coming up in the Croydon music system, so so the calendar is forcing them. So that's good, isn't it?

Geoff 39:37

That's amazing. God, I had no idea.

Pete 39:40

Yes, so yes, under this brash exterior, we have a charitable heart.

Geoff 39:44

You, we do. So what about travel? You've you've travelled a lot. You've got a favourite place to visit in the world, a favourite city.

Pete 39:50

Oh, Malta. Yeah, love going to Malta. My my mum's family is Maltese, and I go out there as much as I can. I'm going in a couple of weeks, and I'm actually doing a collaboration with some Maltese jazz musicians, a suite of eight pieces I've written called Postcards from Malta, each piece about an aspect of my holidays there when I was a kid in the 70s. So, you know, there's uh there's a there's a nice disco one because everybody loved the disco in the you know back then, and there's one about oh, food, lots about food, jazz musicians and food. Uh I saw a flying saucer once, so I'd written one about that.

Geoff 40:26

You actually saw a flying saucer once.

Pete 40:27

Out the window of the plane coming home, yeah. Okay. And conveniently for the jazz narrative here, uh it it was it was a fly I I looked it up because you know there'll be types of flying saucer, and there are. And my one I saw was one called a pork pie. It's pork pie hat shaped. It was black ceramic tiles with portholes around the top. And it it passed our aeroplane very slowly on the right. I was looking out the window.

Geoff 40:54

And you didn't get do you get a photograph of it or anything? Of course not.

Pete 40:58

I was twelve!

Geoff 40:58

Of course not.

Pete 40:59

The amount of faff to get a photograph of anything, and so I just watched it anyway, and so so it means the pork pie hat flying saucer, it's enabled me to call movement eight pork pie hat, you see. I was thinking of calling it hello pork pie hat, but that'd be too cheesy.

Geoff 41:15

And of course, everyone loves Maltesers, don't they?

Pete 41:18

Everyone loves Maltesers, only that they're from England, yeah, of course.

Geoff 41:22

So uh window or aisle?

Pete 41:24

As a young man, window, older man now, easy access to the lav, aisle every time. It's kind of how old you could tell your progression through life.

Geoff 41:33

Funny, I'm still I'm still window, I still love a window.

Pete 41:36

I love a window, yeah. I love a window, except when you have to wake the other two people up.

Geoff 41:40

That's true, that's true.

Pete 41:41

That's the that's mm. So aisle for me.

Geoff 41:43

Okay, a couple more questions. Cats or dogs?

Pete 41:45

Dogs.

Geoff 41:46

You have a do you ever have a dog?

Pete 41:47

I'd love a dog, but uh ours. I live on my own, my house don't permit it.

Geoff 41:52

Most used app on your phone?

Pete 41:54

It will be the uh the texting thing. Boring answer. Do you did do you want do you want an app app?

Geoff 41:59

No, not in particular. Texting is good. And the final question, what's your favourite chord?

Pete 42:04

My favourite chord is D flat 6/9 on a piano, voice, D flat, A flat, D flat, F, B flat, E flat. Because when I was in our school big band, we used to play Skyliner very badly, I would imagine. But on the chart, the old stock chart, where you get the Dodo Marmarosa piano introduction, it goes BONG, it just starts with that chord, and then it goes dee-doo-doo, down to the fat and fifth at the top, it's BONG! But and that and a big open chord, of course. I was like 14 in the intermediates, and I went, oh, that boy! That's that's pulling some switches, and I went and learnt the voicing, and yeah, so it's that, and I use that spread a lot when I'm arranging because it's it's so good to be euphonious, yeah. It's just open and pretty and good, and and I love the way that rather than being a big flash intro, Skyliner sort of comes on sidebar, goes, Well, hello, and that chord. Great. Yeah, my single favourite chord is yeah, D flat 6/9 voice like that.

Thanks and How to Subscribe

Geoff 43:08

Wow. So, Pete, I think that'll do it. Thanks so much for having me around. It's been great. It's been great. Thank you for your time. See you soon.

Pete 43:16

See you soon.

Announcement 43:17

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