New YouTube Channel and The Plan

Geoff 0:00

Hello Podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here. Hope you're well? Big news this week. We've just started a new YouTube channel dedicated to the podcast. So just search Quartet Jazz Standard s Podcast on YouTube. And please subscribe to it if you can. Very new to this, but uh you never know. So all the podcasts, all 55 episodes, are on there. So there you go. And today I'm going to West London and I'm going to visit a wonderful drummer and harmonic a player, Pat Levett. And I'm looking forward to talking to him all about drums, finding out about the chromatic harmonica, see how that works. Talk a little bit about Stevie Wonder and Toots Thielmans. So here we go.

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Announcement 0:55

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Geoff 1:04

So, Pat, how are you today? You all right?

Pat 1:06

I'm well. Thanks for coming over.

Geoff 1:07

Thanks for inviting me around.

Pat 1:08

Good to see you.

Geoff 1:09

I'm interested in your um journey from drums to chromatic harmonica. Yes. Which we'll talk about in a little while. But can you tell us a little bit about your background? Because we don't really know each other that well. I know your dad very well, of course. Yeah, right, yeah. Uh your dad is John Levett, who's a great promoter. How long has he been promoting for?

Pat 1:24

Gosh, I think he started about 25 years ago. So I've worked for him a lot.

Geoff 1:29

So is he kind of instrumental in your love of improvised music?

Pat 1:32

No,

Choir Training and Early Musical Roots

Pat 1:33

actually. Well, my mum's really musical. Um, she was uh a n oboe player and did piano and she studied at Royal Northern. And uh, if I get it from anyone, it's from her. And so she taught me piano from an early age. And also, for some reason, decided to play flute, and I was also singing a lot. I was a singer really as a kid.

Geoff 1:55

As a chorister?

Pat 1:56

Chorister in uh Peterborough Cathedral Choir, and I did a lot of the solos there. We'd rehearse in the morning and do a service every day, and two on Saturday and three on Sunday, and then no holidays, stay there. So it was a full job, and I was playing flute and playing piano at that time, and reacting against all of that, I taught myself

Teaching Himself Drums and Finding Jazz

Pat 2:16

the drums.

Geoff 2:16

Do you think because the the drums is possibly the loudest instrument, is that you kind of rebelling against the traditional upbringing?

Pat 2:23

I don't know why I did that, but I think there was a lot of friends in my year who were doing drum lessons, and I actually signed up and they were full up. So I thought, well, I'll buy a pair of sticks and teach myself. So took my little Walkman down to the drum room and played along to Michael Jackson and stuff. And that was that really. And then someone told me to listen to Elvin Jones. So and I listened to a lot of blues, a lot of Hendricks and Cream and Robert Johnson and uh B.B. King and all that, and I was I loved all that, and I was in a school band that played all that sort of stuff. I checked out Elvin on Coltrane Plays the Blues. Yeah, I remember that record, and it just sort of blew my mind apart. Yeah. I was like, okay, yeah, I want to do this. So that was the jazz drumming side of things, and then kind of about 30 years ago, I've always listened to harmonica, a chromatic harmonica, and been drawn to it. And so I I I bought one and there was one knocking around the house, and I sort of mucked around on it. I didn't really know what I was doing. And then COVID came along, and I couldn't play drums where I was, so I sort of took it a bit more seriously then. So that's kind of when it really started properly. And um, I've been focusing on two things really melody and tone, a bit like any other wind instrument. It's quite or any other instrument, it's challenging to get a nice tone out of it.

Geoff 3:42

Do you think that having known the flute, do you think that was a advantage?

Pat 3:45

Yeah, yeah, definitely reading

Geoff 3:47

and embouchure as well?

Pat 3:49

I don't know about embouchure, maybe. I th, I don't even know if I'm doing my embouchure correctly, to be honest. I've never had a lesson on it, but I think what I'm doing is well, it's called the pucker technique, so you're singling out one hole, but there's another one where you can cover four holes and your tongue moves, so you don't have to I can't do that. That's way too clever. But apparently Toots did the pucker technique and Stevie, so I'm in good company.

Geoff 4:12

That's what Stevie does, isn't it?

Pat 4:13

Yeah, and so I've been focusing on trying to get a clean sound and really understanding melody. Uh, because being a singer in my youth, I've always been drawn to melody and harmony. Although I couldn't tell you what anything is at the moment, I need to work on my ear on that because I'm just a mere drummer.

Geoff 4:30

You say that, but I came to your gig at the 606, and I was blown away. It was it was amazing. You know, you basically did a quintet at the 606 club playing all the melodies on harmonica. You know, so you did a bit of Stevie Wonder, you did a little bit of Toots Thielmans, some 80s pop, and a bit of Kenny Wheeler. So just from listening to that set, that's your history right there, isn't it? You've picked all the tunes.

Pat 4:51

Well, melody, yeah, good melodies, and nice changes. It's great that you're coming over about your your app because it's like something I'm working on. Yeah, is going through changes and sort of getting that those gears working so it's stronger, you know.

Geoff 5:04

But have you studied harmony though?

Pat 5:06

I mean, to a fairly rudimentary level for uh uh in comparison to the people I work with, if you know what I mean.

Geoff 5:12

Right, where did you study harmony?

Pat 5:14

Well, that would be all at college at Guildhall and

Geoff 5:17

Oh, you went to you , so you went to Guildhall?

Pat 5:19

Yeah. Right. Yeah, sort of finished in 2000. So uh first drummer there, which is quite weird experience. New species in the zoo.

Geoff 5:26

So you would have had harmony lessons as part of the course, right?

Pat 5:29

Yeah, Pete Churchill sort of writing stuff out in time, you know, flying over your head, going, What earth is going on?

Geoff 5:35

It's quite an overwhelming time, really, isn't it? Yeah.

Pat 5:38

I I can hear stuff, I know that. I know when it when it sounds right and when it sounds wrong to quite sort of detailed level, yeah, but I I'm Thielmans trying to convey that to like a keyboard player or we'll have to go around the houses before we find the right one.

Geoff 5:53

Fabulous. Um, and so getting back to the drums, are you doing many gigs at the moment? A few, a few a week people take, yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah.

The Coal Miners and New Orleans Songbook

Geoff 6:01

You play with a band called the Coal Miners, right?

Pat 6:03

So this is my little sort of project I got together, sort of just to have a bit of fun and playing playing music that no one else was really playing in town. Um, mainly Allen Toussaint stuff, who's the sort of Quincy Jones of New Orleans, if you like. Yeah. Wrote millions of tunes for lots of different people.

Geoff 6:20

Yeah.

Pat 6:21

And the meters were on most of those recordings, a lot of them. There's so many, there's like a whole treasure trove of of great little tunes that no one's really heard of.

Geoff 6:29

Fantastic.

Pat 6:30

We that we kind of get away with them as being our own, also almost. Yeah. We did like a tribute to Allen Toussaint, that was our last record. And Alan's son actually contacted me and and said, Um, knowing my dad, he would have loved this record. Fantastic. So I was like, okay, that's I'm that's it. I'm I'm happy now. Yeah. It's got the seal of approval. So yeah, we do that. We've done like, gosh, for yeah, about 25 years. It wasn't supposed to be like world famous or anything, it was just a nice little knees up playing some great music, and that's what we do about once every other month. At the moment,

Geoff 7:04

And that was your band, you started that, did you? Yeah, who's in that band?

Pat 7:07

Gosh, I mean, over the years, everyone's been in that band. At the moment, we have Paddy Milner or Joe Glossop on uh keys and Spencer Brown on bass, Rob Updegraff. Well, there's quite a few guitarists that do it on guitar. Uh Frank Walden plays tenor, but Jim Hunt as well, and Andy Ross sometimes, and uh uh and then we've got a front line of Tommy Hare and and sometimes Polly Gibbons and Amy Byrd and Jaelee Small. So there's there's hopefully enough musicians to make it work, given any day.

Becoming a Frontline Harmonica Player

Geoff 7:40

So, what's the plan for the harmonica going forward? Are you gonna get more gigs as a sideman?

Pat 7:45

Yeah, I mean I've been asking, you know. I've I've played like eight bars here or there on other people's gigs and stuff, which has been great, and on lots of other people's records as well. But that gig the other day was kind of the first one under my own name, and so it sort of set sail now.

Geoff 8:02

So yeah and you filmed it as well, didn't you?

Pat 8:04

Yeah, filmed it, and um so hopefully we'll get some stuff out of that. It sounds quite weird, but sort of playing live, I have to have more experience, I think, on the harmonica because your head goes into a different place when you're new to the instrument.

Geoff 8:16

It must be so different from going from being a rhythm section player to to a front frontline player.

Pat 8:21

Yeah, it's a totally different thing, right? It's um much more used to being the biscuit base in the cheesecake, as it were. But like I think it's a good thing to do. Yeah, there's bumps in it, and yeah, it didn't go perfect, and I can I can work with the things that went wrong, and it's it's not getting to the point where I'm thinking I can't do this at all. There was a lot of that sort of anxiety, maybe sort of going into it. Yeah, can I do this? Should I be doing this, you know?

Geoff 8:45

And but to be honest, I mean you had Ross Stanley on organ, you had Ian Thomas on the drums. I mean, a really solid band, geez.

Pat 8:53

At least they'll sound fine.

Geoff 8:55

Yeah, but you you you know, you know soloing, you just you you you can't play a wrong note, really, you just move a semitone, you've got a right one, haven't you? You know,

Pat 9:03

yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah, a great band. I'm really glad they were up for doing it as well. That helped as well, to be honest, their support and like knowing that they were there because it felt good playing over that, you know?

Geoff 9:14

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, so your insp, inspirations for playing the harmonica, I guess, is guys like Toots Thielmans, yeah.

Pat 9:21

Yeah, and Stevie.

Geoff 9:22

And Stevie, of course, yeah.

Pat 9:23

I think I remember seeing at college saying to some friends, like, I want to I wanna play harmonica like Stevie, and I was like, No one can do that. Yeah, we all sort of laughed about it.

Geoff 9:32

And you put in some time into learning your solos,

Stevie Wonder Solos and Practice Payoff

Geoff 9:35

haven't you?

Pat 9:35

I yes. So in lockdown, I thought, how can I spend my time productively? And so I thought I'd transcribe uh in the end, I think there's about 11 solos now, really famous ones. I also put a playlist together, you can find it on Spotify, of everything he played on, like all the other stuff he's played on for other artists. Wow, that's about 16 hours long, that playlist. Wow, it goes on and on and on, and there's some crazy names in there. There's like sort of Pixie Lot and uh Frank Sinatra turns up.

Geoff 10:07

Sérgio Mendes.

Pat 10:08

Yes, that's right. You'll be surprised at at where he turns up sometimes. But anyway, I took eleven of my favourite solos and transcribed those, and what's interesting is that no one's done that before. Isn't She Lovely or something? Like no one's really written that out or such a famous thing for that for that instrument. So because of that, relatively speaking, in in sort of click numbers on the internet, it's done quite well for a harmonica video. So out of that I've got a bit of work and um actually a few endorsements.

Geoff 10:45

Well, you must have learnt so much by just doing that. Is there any specific things that you learn?

Pat 10:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair to say he was he's my teacher. If I get into it, you have to start talking about how the harmonica actually works.

How the Chromatic Harmonica is Laid Out

Geoff 10:55

Well, let's do that briefly if you don't mind, because you've you've got a chromatic harmonica in your hand, yes, which has how many holes does that have?

Pat 11:02

This one has 14, which essentially means it's a bit like sort of a a bass guitar with an extra string at the bottom, kind of like a five string or something. But you've just got that extra bit at the bottom.

Geoff 11:12

So is that three octaves?

Pat 11:14

It's three octaves with a well, three and a half going down that half octave. Yeah. Uh, which I like, but the standard one is just twelve, just just three octaves. Uh, and you'll find that's more common, most most people play one of them. And the octave is arranged in four holes: C D being on one, E and F being on two, G and A being on three, and B and C being on four. Yeah. And then that just repeats three times. Sounds quite simple, but the problem is you can't see it. So it's very easy to get lost unless you had perfect pitch, which I don't know.

Geoff 11:48

And then you have a button on the end, which

Pat 11:50

yeah, and so the button on the end takes any note up a semitone, which if you start thinking about it, it gives you two F's and it also gives you two C's or three C's.

Geoff 11:58

Okay, that's where it gets complicated.

Pat 11:59

Yes, and uh the the the crossover between the first octave and the second octave is a bit confusing because if you blow on hole four, you're getting a C. And if you blow on hole five, you're getting a C. And if you draw up on five, you get a D. And if you draw up on four, you get a B. So sometimes you think you're on one of the other, do you know what I mean? And that's a harmonic landmine, yeah, taking your leg off. So um there's many moments like that. So that's kind of a tricky area to navigate. I've found over the the short time we've been playing it. But between A and B, they're next door to each other because basically you blow for C and you draw in for D, so it sort of goes up when you draw in. But when you get to four, it goes the other way. Another little confusing thing. That means that when you're drawing in on three, you're drawing in, you're getting an A. And when you're drawing in on four, you're getting a B. So what Stevie does when he goes from A to B, he'll push the slider in, so you get that little B flat, a little passing note between the two. Yeah. So it's a smoother run. Okay. Run. Okay. I was like, oh, that's cool. That's like kind of in melodies, that really that's a really nice. Makes it more soulful and like and then you know, little runs like he does in in D major and stuff. Things like that.

Geoff 13:32

Wow.

Pat 13:32

They they kind of like I it's fair to say he taught me that. You know, but that's just going down the scale, but in quite a soulful way, and like he did a blues with Tony Bennett, and that was in G, and that's a great little solo that's like oh man, it's like you can you can see how clearly he's thinking about phrasing, usually starting on the fifth, and then sort of theme and variation, and and yeah, it's not Toots, you know, it's not

Geoff 14:02

So we'll talk about Toots Thielmans in a minute, actually. But can you give us a couple more key Stevie things?

Pat 14:08

He likes to finish a lot of stuff high For Once in My Life, goes right up to the very top. Also, at some point in the solo, most of his solos, he will do that, he will go quite high. When you're starting out in harmonica, that's quite a tricky thing. Yeah, because the lower register and the higher register aren't that easy to get a sound out of. So that was like that that made me work at that, but he'll be like, you know, like trilling like that for ages. I think I saw him the other day doing circular breathing for ages and doing something like that, and um, the crowd goes nuts.

Geoff 14:45

But the soul, the soulfulness that you get from Stevie, it's it's such an expressive instrument, isn't it?

Pat 14:50

Uh man, I mean, like I say that I play this stuff, but I I am the first to admit as we play any of our hero stuff, none of us sound like like the real thing. Like his sound is unreal, and I've seen him play many different makes of harmonica. It doesn't really matter.

Geoff 15:05

It doesn't matter, yeah. It's the same with any instrument, really, isn't it? Yes, you think you're playing a rented instrument and you sound exactly the same, you know.

Pat 15:12

I met Bernard Purdie doing exactly that. I bumped into him by chance, yeah, and I had this horrendous kit. Horrendous, and it was like cheap, like a cheap Chinese thing or whatever. And it just sounded amazing. Wow. I was like, how are you doing that? Like, you know, it's it's the way, but but Stevie's he gets the reed. I think it's like and Toots does it as well. That like the reed is very, very small, right? It's a few centimetres, well, it's tiny. They're somehow they're them they're making it respond in a certain way, tiny little subtle things, and everyone sounds different on on particularly on this instrument, I think.

Geoff 15:48

Do you have a problem with managing the breathing because it's in in and out? And do you do you sometimes do you kind of ever hyperventilate?

Pat 15:55

No, I haven't. Well, no, not yet.

Geoff 15:58

Was that ever an issue with you?

Pat 15:59

There can sometimes there can be melodies where either it's a long note and you're drawing in a lot, and then the next note you have to draw in a lot. Sometimes, though, if you play, if you move the song into a different key, you can get away with uh, as I say, there's two Fs or something. You have a different note choice.

Geoff 16:16

Right.

Pat 16:16

Uh sorry, a different way of playing the note. Yeah. So you can um adapt that, you know, if it's becoming too much of a problem. If you're doing it properly, you should have good breathing.

Geoff 16:26

Sure. So that's Stevie

Toots Thielemans and Bebop on Harmonica

Geoff 16:28

Wonder. So that's the soulful side, but let's talk about Toots now. So Toots Thielmans is the obviously the ultimate jazz harmonica player, isn't he?

Pat 16:37

Yeah, it's mad listening. I mean, I know that I heard a story that he would send Stevie, and I think went the other way, they would send each other birthday cards every year.

Geoff 16:47

Oh my god.

Pat 16:48

Yeah, I mean Stevie is a harmonica player. You know that the minute he heard Toots, it was all over, it's like that's it, it's it doesn't really get much better than that. And he did it so young. He was so young, really, he'd figured so much out and it was so clear and so precise. I've heard a few people who are very, very good and get very, very close to that, but it's like being a pioneer on that and being that good is really quite astonishing. Um, there wasn't like 50 of him before that, and to come out of the box being the best ever is is pretty astonishing.

Geoff 17:24

I hear a story that um the reason Toots, because Toots Thielmans was a guitar player, wasn't he?

Pat 17:28

That's right.

Geoff 17:29

And wasn't he in hospital or something? And he he was

Pat 17:32

I don't know that.

Geoff 17:34

Somebody told me, I think it was my friend Sebaastian de Krom.

Pat 17:36

Right.

Geoff 17:37

He told me that Toots learned harmonica because he had an illness when he was young and he was uh confined to bed and couldn't play guitar.

Pat 17:44

Oh right.

Geoff 17:44

Okay so that kind of fits.

Pat 17:47

Yes, yes, it does. Yeah, he um his obviously his harmonic knowledge shines through on the instrument.

Geoff 17:54

Because what you're hearing with early, well with all era of Toots is is Bebop, isn't it? It's the best kind of Bebop.

Pat 18:01

Yeah, he he he played changes really strictly in the early recordings and um and nails it like at really quite quick tempos. That's really impressive.

Geoff 18:12

Have you transcribed any Toots?

Pat 18:14

No, something I will do, and I know um it's like Julian Jackson, uh a harmonica player in in England, he's ridiculous. He he can do a lot of that stuff, and there's a few other players as well. And I think Jules actually uh hung out with with Toots for a while, lived with him, and learnt quite a lot from him. To me, that's something I'd love to be able to do one day. I hear him just do big leaps and jumps, and like you know, um, yeah, it's incredible. And I'll and I I've listened to it for so long, but it's I think the Stevie thing was a bit more accessible for me. Uh the sort of soulful sort of bluesy playing. But yeah, obviously I love jazz and I love Toots playing.

Geoff 19:02

Well, now you have the Quartet apps, you'll be able to you'll have 700 tunes to practice to in whatever key you want to. Yeah, great. So I asked you to pick a tune to play on today.

'Days Of Wine and Roses' Performance

Geoff 19:14

And what did you what did you pick for us?

Pat 19:15

Uh well, we'll go with the good old 'Days and Wine and Roses'.

Geoff 19:18

Right. Why did you why did you pick that tune?

Pat 19:20

It's one of those tunes that you play day in, day out kind of thing. Everyone knows it. But you never get well, I never get tired of it. I really enjoy this one.

Geoff 19:28

Excellent. Okay, so we're gonna play two choruses of Days of Wine and Roses in the key of F. Uh, and here we go. Yes, sir. Yes, indeed. That was killing. Oh, da, da. You know, I mean, it's just all there, it's killing.

Bending, Vibrato, Intonation, Broken Reeds

Geoff 21:40

Tell me about the bending. How how do you do that?

Pat 21:42

Basically, you direct the air towards the ground. This way I can.

Geoff 21:48

Is this something you discovered for yourself or did you did you find right? Yeah.

Pat 21:52

And and the other one is the vibrato, you can do it with the breath.

Geoff 21:57

Yeah, so you're physically moving your lip up and down.

Pat 21:59

But when you're drawing in, You can get a nice vibrato by moving your mouth.

Geoff 22:05

Like you're chewing the instrument.

Pat 22:06

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I like that vibrato a lot. And I've noticed that I've actually used quite a lot of vibrato. I don't know why.

Geoff 22:12

But that's the that's the charm of it. That's that's the expression, isn't it?

Pat 22:16

Well, the intonation is quite important on this. You'll find it when if you pick up a harmonica for the first time, it it will sound a bit odd. It could be sharp or f or quite usually flat.

Geoff 22:27

Really?

Pat 22:28

Because people would just automatically play it like this.

Geoff 22:33

How are you doing that though?

Pat 22:34

You well, again, you're sort of directing the air in the wrong place. In a certain way. So you have to have a the the air has to be a lot more direct if it's straight. If it moves, that's when you move the reed.

Geoff 22:46

So the reed inside that is it is it just literally like a saxophone reed? Is it a straight piece of something that vibrates up and down?

Pat 22:53

Yeah, it's uh they're always um I should know which metal it is, but um this is the other thing about Toots is and and uh I think I was saying the other day, like like with Hendrix or something, no one can play the Strat like like Hendrix. It gets this tone out of it, like, and it's it's the same with Toots and and he used the Hohner Chromonica 48, which is like the only chromatic, really, until last 30 years or so, uh, apart from the 64, which Stevie favoured the bigger one, the four-octave one. But the 48 is quite punchy, little bright thing, it's a lot smaller than the one I use. And when you play those, they're they're very bright and very shrill, and he got this incredibly warm, wide sound out of it. It's like, how are you doing that? It's like bonkers. So that's how much you can sort of shape the instrument out. Yeah, shape, shape the sound you get out of that reed. That's fascinating, really. Amazing. Um, but the annoying thing about reeds is they break.

Geoff 23:51

Do they?

Pat 23:52

Yes, and uh this is probably my biggest annoyance with this instrument, along with some others, but that is the biggest because you can hear it starting to go, it goes flatter and flatter and flatter, and then finally it just goes.

Geoff 24:06

Do they have a shelf life?

Pat 24:08

Well, technically, if you if you're not if you don't play them too hard, you could keep one forever. But certainly I've gone through quite a lot. On the album I made a few years ago, I went through about four.

Geoff 24:18

Really?

Pat 24:19

So it's like you know, and and they're they're not cheap. No, you know, and the problem is when you break one reed,

Geoff 24:26

You gotta replace the whole thing?

Pat 24:28

The whole thing's done for. So that is an annoyance. Broken reeds.

Geoff 24:32

Can you break a reed by blowing too hard?

Pat 24:34

Yes. I did that actually. I got I bought a brand new harmonica and stupidly just played the highest note, gave it ten bells and bang.

Geoff 24:44

And it went.

Pat 24:45

And I was like, whoops, shouldn't have done that.

Geoff 24:47

Oh god.

Pat 24:48

Um, and then had to buy another one.

Geoff 24:50

Oh mate. Yeah. Wow.

Pat 24:52

So that can rack up the cost sometimes.

Geoff 24:54

God, yeah. It's a beautiful thing, it really is. Yeah. Beautiful thing. Yeah.

Quickfire Questions And Career Highs

Geoff 24:59

Right, so I've got some questions that I ask everyone. Okay. Um, if you're up for this. Question one, what's your favourite album?

Pat 25:07

Let's say right now, I've just been listening to Songs and the Key of Life a lot.

Geoff 25:11

50th anniversary.

Pat 25:12

Yeah, and we did a gig um at the Jazz Cafe recently with a great band, and I was asked to come in and play that solo on Isn't She Lovely. And and I think that that harmonica solo was probably responsible for for me being here talking to you today.

Geoff 25:27

Yeah, sure. And do you hear the extra four tracks that you put out? Yes.

Pat 25:31

Yeah.

Geoff 25:31

I mean you can see that they're album tracks, they're kind of yeah. You but the first uh the first one particular is is a is a banger, isn't it?

Pat 25:37

Brilliant. There and and I recognise the Roberta Flack did one of those because I got her record with that on it. Um I didn't realise the connection until that moment. Yeah, they're amazing.

Geoff 25:46

Fabulous. Question number two. This is probably going to be a obvious answer, but is there a musician alive or dead you'd like to play with?

Pat 25:53

Uh yes. My mind goes straight to Jim Keltner. Oh. I think uh

Geoff 25:58

Okay. I wasn't expecting that. Very creative drummer.

Pat 26:01

Oh my god. Yeah. Just spend some time with him playing opposite that, whether it's percussion or drums or whatever, would be uh yeah, that'd be awesome.

Geoff 26:11

Is he still around? Is he still playing? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because Jim played on so many different things, didn't he?

Pat 26:16

Oh, it's mad. There's a great website with with all his recordings throughout the years. There's so many records you wouldn't realise he's on, you know. Then he turns up with like Bill Frizzell, all sorts of different things, you know. And he was a jazzer, really, when he started, he hated the Beatles, funnily enough.

Geoff 26:34

Right.

Pat 26:35

Um and then he ended up playing with all of them later on when he got into rock and roll. But um, yeah, his choices are incredible. Tuning, drums, every note, unbelievable. Yeah.

Geoff 26:47

Amazing. What would you say was the highlight of your career?

Pat 26:51

Harmonica or drums?

Geoff 26:53

One of each.

Pat 26:54

Okay, one of each. Alright, okay. Well, with harmonica, I'd say the highlight so far has been this is really really clangy. But uh okay, go for it.

Geoff 27:02

That's what it's all about.

Pat 27:03

Uh, I got asked to play with the RPO, well, not with them, on a recording with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Pete Townsend's uh Quadrophenia ballet. Having been fairly new to the harmonica game, that was a real privilege to play on that. And there's been and basically all the other recordings I've done as well, that they've all been the highlight. There's quite quite a few now. But that was, yeah, gosh. And then I went to see the ballet and uh and and heard my my bit and uh saw them all dancing. It was incredible. So there, what an experience. Fantastic. That was complete. I had no idea that was coming, you know. Yeah, drums-wise, highlight I I got to I mean, there's big there's there's been a big gig or something, which is quite nice, like playing with Tom Jones or something, was a really nice gig. It's just too many, too many to think of. I can't really pin one down.

Geoff 27:55

That's fine. Tom Jones, what a what a legend, absolutely. Uh, question four. What would you say was your musical weakness?

Pat 28:02

So, as I say, you can't see the instrument, right? With the harmonica, not the drums. And so seeing harmony. So, like when I hear Toots, you know, I just hear how strong he he sees harmony in his mind. And I'm so envious of that. I'm I'm struggling sometimes to nail that down. But I don't think it's too far away. I think I just need to spend some more time with that.

Geoff 28:23

It's building a vocabulary, isn't it?

Pat 28:24

It's it's it's producing that melody on the spot. Think of it more as melody than soloing, and and go for fifths and thirds and sevens, and like, you know, and obviously, as you're saying, like well, all the great musicians like, but like the other night with Ross or or Artie, you know, when they're playing solos, Ross doesn't even look where his hands are going, you know. He's reading the chart and he's off, and it's like I'm so uh in awe of musicians like that. That's incredible to me. Yeah, um, that's definitely my weakness.

Geoff 28:51

It's building a language, isn't it? And just getting more of it, and you know, you just it just develops your whole life.

Pat 28:56

Yes, that's yeah, yeah.

Geoff 28:57

That's the beauty of being a jazz musician, I think.

Pat 28:59

Yes, you know, yeah.

Geoff 29:00

Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Pat 29:02

As I said, like I sang a lot as a kid, sort of quite big things, you know, and as a soloist in front of maybe an orchestra, and like all of that sort of stuff didn't bother me at all, and drums never had an issue. Harmonica? Unbelievable. Like, and this was like wasn't , a few years ago. And I had this really quite sort of pretty full-on panic attack, kind of really anxiety, like oh

Geoff 29:30

You must have been encouraged from the the gig the other day, though, surely after the

Pat 29:34

That I felt fine on that, but so well, and I think that surprised me because I'd never have been ever. Yeah, and then suddenly I was like, whoa, yeah, that was quite a thing. I don't know, I mean because I'm fairly new to it. Suddenly it all goes out of your mind, and like yeah, it's like and and I'm not that used to being at the front, right? So it's like uh I wasn't expecting that until the moment. I think it was like, oh, yeah, okay, but that's that was a a while ago now, and and it hasn't been like that since. But I think that was uh one of the first times I sort of went out, yeah. But no, since then it's been great, and and the other night it was really, really nice. It was so it's it's good to know it's getting better. Yeah.

Geoff 30:15

Uh have you ever been starstruck? Any of your heroes?

Pat 30:18

Uh yeah, I mean that would be a highlight. Drums would be playing with Zigaboo Modeliste, who's in the Meters, obviously playing all these recordings that I'm working with with the Coal Miners. Again, like Stevie, just like the minute you hear it, it's just like, oh, you know. So working with Zig on a couple of gigs. Zigaboo Modeliste is the drummer in the Meters, is one of the godfathers of funk drumming, single-handedly invented the sort of New Orleans funk thing, never to be replicated by anyone, really. He's got a completely unique thing going on, and what a lovely guy as well. And so I got to meet him and then we did a couple of gigs, and Bernard as well. I got to play with him, my other hero, so yeah.

Geoff 31:00

Right, what's your favourite sandwich?

Pat 31:02

Uh, I'd say um bacon, uh, Camembert, and tomato.

Geoff 31:08

Okay, interesting.

Pat 31:10

Warmed up.

Geoff 31:11

All right, melted Camembert?

Pat 31:13

Yeah.

Geoff 31:13

Fantastic. I'll try that. Uh, what's your favourite movie?

Pat 31:17

I wouldn't say it's like my favourite, as in I've wanted to watch it all that often. But Apocalypse Now is quite an astonishing thing. And I think it's one of my favourites just because of just how you know, in the creative process, just how bonkers the whole thing is. There's nothing quite like it. And I think that's um like if you've got an idea, like I think there's a documentary that Coppola's wife filmed called something like The Heart of Darkness, which is the the book it was based on it. But that's worth watching as well.

Geoff 31:48

Do you have a particular genre that you prefer? Would you like war films or do you like ?

Pat 31:52

No As long as the story is good, a bit like melody, you know, as long as the melody is strong, it could be in anything, you know. It's kind of the same kind of thing, right?

Motorbikes, Vespa Drum Hacks, Fabio Sings

Pat 32:02

Geoff 32:02

What about travelling? Have you got a favourite city?

Pat 32:04

Um, I do like going to Bologna and that area, going over to the coast, mainly because I like motorcycle racing.

Geoff 32:13

I saw the helmets around, actually. I can see that. You've got I can see five, six, seven, eight motorcycle helmets just in this room.

Pat 32:21

Well, there's a pillar of one famous racer, and then there's three others.

Geoff 32:24

Are these collector items or are these things that you uh you wear that yourself?

Pat 32:28

No, I wear that one. I've one of them I wear, but um no, the rest are all display only. A lot of people don't really understand. A lot of people who do understand are sort of like, whoa, that's quite uh serious stuff. But there's this guy, Valentino Rossi, who's from this area of Italy, and um he was racing for 26 years in Grand Prix, so um, so it was great to go out and be amongst his people, as it were, and his his way of life, and the circuit is about four miles from where he lives. Everyone's really lovely there, the food's great, there's a beach, everyone likes motorcycling. I mean, come on.

Geoff 33:04

Amazing. This is the kind of motorcycling where they lean and their knees are almost touching the

Pat 33:09

yeah, and elbows now, yeah, right down.

Geoff 33:11

That's crazy.

Pat 33:12

It is crazy, yeah. Those guys are absolutely crazy. There's a guy who celebrated the other day and he he did a wheelie and won the race and fell off wheeling at about 160 miles an hour.

Geoff 33:27

After he just won the race?

Pat 33:28

Yeah, and then laughed about it like he tripped over. And I was like a window into that mind. It was like, whoa, no

Geoff 33:35

Hard. It's an extreme sport, that isn't it?

Pat 33:37

Yeah, yeah, the the y're bonkers. But a good race is is mad, it's not like car racing.

Geoff 33:43

And you drive a motorcycle, do you? Obviously.

Pat 33:45

Yeah, I've I've I've got three now. Yeah, a little one, a middle one, and a and a Shire horse. Yeah, yeah.

Geoff 33:53

You drive a car as well, though, don't you? Yeah, because obviously with a good one. You can 't get a drum kit on the back of a, back bike.

Pat 33:58

Well, you say that. The Vespa, I want to put a thing out for Vespa, uh particularly old shape, the Vespa S, or the LX, any drummers listening out there, get one of them, and you can put a snare drum, a 14 snare drum fits perfectly between the feet, cymbals on the back, post drum pedal in the top box, and you can if there's drums there, that's what you need. I've that's saved me so much time in London. Hours and hours and hours. Anyway,

Geoff 34:27

Very economical thing to do, yeah. Uh uh when you travel, window or aisle?

Pat 34:32

I don't mind.

Geoff 34:34

You don't mind?

Pat 34:35

I don't mind.

Geoff 34:36

That's the first time someone said that.

Pat 34:38

Don't mind at all.

Geoff 34:39

You don't have a preference?

Pat 34:41

No.

Geoff 34:41

That's that's a great way to be, actually. I wish I didn't. I always have to have a window. I if I can see the ground, I feel safe in an airplane.

Pat 34:50

Oh really?

Geoff 34:50

I don't know why? Oh. Just the way it goes, yeah. Okay, big turbulence, as long as I've got a frame of reference that's that's not moving. You know, okay, right. Yeah, there you go. Interesting. Uh cats or dogs? Obviously, dogs.

Pat 35:03

Oh dogs now. Yeah. Yeah. My dog's called Fabio.

Geoff 35:06

He was singing along, actually. I thought in fact, to finish this off, I'd like to. Can we get him down and then we can get him get him singing?

Pat 35:16

Fabs. You're on , come on. Downstairs.

Geoff 35:24

Here he comes. What kind of dog is he?

Pat 35:27

He's a Moroccan stray, essentially. So he's been rescued, and uh there's a billion things going on there.

Geoff 35:33

Right, right. So he has a special ability. So he's he likes the um the harmonica, right?

Pat 35:38

He loves it. Goes crazy when he hears it.

Geoff 35:40

Right, okay. Let's a little bonus, let's get this. Off you go.

Pat 35:46

So he particularly likes this Toots song. Yeah, he's off. Yeah. All short notes.

Geoff 36:13

And that's all from me and friends. That's fantastic. Oh my god. Wow. So I have two two more questions.

Favourite App, Favourite Chord, Goodbye

Geoff 36:21

Yes. Your most used app on your phone. Um I mean, I know it will be Quartet, but but it will be before Quartet, yes. Of course.

Pat 36:29

Instagram, yeah, most probably. It's good to know what's going on, and also I get work through it. People send me messages. Yeah. In fact, the annoying thing is when I took it off, I did get a message from like a guy who did like Hollywood soundtracks. Yeah. Oh damn. You miss what you missed the gig. Yeah. But now it's on. I keep looking at it all the time.

Geoff 36:50

Yeah, you do, yeah. Uh and the last question: what's your favourite chord?

Pat 36:56

I suppose we'll just go with C major for now.

Geoff 36:58

C major, which is what the uh chromatic harp the exact notes are just like C major.

Pat 37:05

There you go.

Geoff 37:06

Perfect.

Pat 37:06

Or

Geoff 37:09

D flat major.

Pat 37:09

Or D flat major. Yes.

Geoff 37:11

Yeah. Fabulous. Well, Pat, it's been such fun. I've learned so much. It's been great to talk to you. And um Thank you. Thanks for your wonderful playing, and um yeah, it's been great. Lovely to meet your dog as well.

Pat 37:23

Um Fabs.

Geoff 37:25

And good luck with the the project.

Pat 37:27

Thank you.

Geoff 37:28

Well, I I hope to see you soon. Let's stay in touch and

Pat 37:31

Thank you.

Geoff 37:31

Bye,

Pat 37:32

Yeah.

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