Back in 2015, the Royal Academy of Music bestowed an Honorary Doctorate on the ultimate ‘elder’, the incomparable Quincy Jones – and the Principal, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood,  asked me if I would mind ‘looking after him’ whilst he was in the building. Alongside accompanying him through the day and guiding him through the ritual of it all, I was also tasked with arranging some of his music to be played at the ceremony… so no pressure there. I was to spend a day with the great Quincy Jones!

I became aware of Quincy quite early on in my life (before his association with Michael Jackson put his name on everyone’s lips he was already a big deal with some of us) largely due to my schoolboy obsession with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie (‘It might as well be Swing’) and this led me to seek out the earlier albums that Quincy had recorded in Europe with his wonderful, though short lived American big band (featuring Clark Terry and Phil Woods) and when I had thoughts of becoming a film composer, I also began checking out some of his film scores (‘The Pawnbroker’ – ‘In the Heat of the Night’). I think it’s important to remember that Quincy had almost a quarter of a century of work behind him before he produced ‘Off the Wall’ for MJ! 

One of the things that always intrigued me – aside from his prodigious output as a composer/arranger – was his experience in Europe in the late 50s when he studied with Nadia Boulanger. Whenever he spoke about this formative time in Paris he would emphasise the rigour of her teaching and how it affected him. When asked what he learned from her he invariably answered “Counterpoint, structure, science, left brain”. Having read other accounts about her methodology it was clear that this was exactly what Quincy needed and wanted at that time. He said “She was THE lady. I learned so much from her – in New York they wouldn’t let you arrange strings if you were black – only horns or rhythm section…” he clearly wanted more. 

I’m not sure how many Jazz musicians she took on but apparently she said…  (according to Quincy – and I’m paraphrasing slightly) “I have to be careful with Jazz musicians because they tend to shack-up with music first and then they ‘formalise the relationship’ later.” In countless interviews he often returned to the same mantras… invariably quoting his old teacher… “You don’t have freedom in music until you have total restriction… restrict yourself and establish the periphery and then you have freedom in music.”  In his biography Quincy was even more emphatic… “When you have total freedom, you automatically create chaos. As a jazz artist, this was hard to swallow until I had to score films on a deadline.” Nadia Boulanger’s influence on him was clearly deep and lasting and he returned to New York invigorated by the experience. 

It is interesting how it seems fashionable now amongst some younger musicians to downplay any training they may have received. Perhaps the image of the naturally creative ‘autodidact’ is thought to be more marketable. Anyhow… the message from Quincy couldn’t be clearer… ‘Get the very best training you can!’

 My day with Quincy began on the steps of the Royal Academy – and from here we were ushered into the Principal’s office to relax whilst his assistant was taken through the geography and layout of the day to check that everything would be manageable for him. This meant that we had a good forty-five minutes together and although initially I was nervous I really needn’t have been. Quincy was interested in everything and everyone – and when I asked he talked a lot about his time studying in Paris and much more besides. It helped a little that I was in the middle of the Miles Ahead project with his oldest friend, Jon Hendricks – and able to pass on his regards. At one point – to the bemusement of everyone around us – we sang through the Oscar Pettiford tune ‘Swingin’ ‘Til the Girls Come Home’ and he talked about living in New York with both O.P. and Jon in the mid 50s. That must have been some hang! He also confirmed a story that Jon had told me of how, when times were hard, they would stand outside the Brill Building in New York and sell their songs for cash to those going in to work there. These are the small pieces of Jazz history that don’t make it onto the curriculum.

When the time came to move on to the proceedings Quincy was duly ‘gowned up’ and made ready for the ceremony to begin. He didn’t seem bothered by the formality of the event – in fact he was very relaxed about it all. I had arranged a big band medley of his ‘Stockholm Sweetnin’ and ‘Soul Bossa Nova’ and he very generously signed my score as we waited.

The buzz amongst all the graduates having Quincy in the building was palpable, and he could not have been more gracious to all those around him. The big band played really well and I think he was pleased to hear Stockholm Sweetnin’ – which he wrote when he was eighteen! There was a defining moment – after his citation had been read and his Honorary Doctorate presented – when he turned around to the students and raised his fist up high. To see one of the elders of our music stand astride the Halls of Academe like that, every inch the conquering hero – a Colossus even – was a moment I’ll never forget… my worlds had truly collided. 

 And then, after the ceremony, Quincy sat and had refreshments with all the students – it was all pretty relaxed. At one point he quietly flicked through my score page by page whilst we sat in silence. These moments stay with you.

      
And then he was gone. 

The postscript to this memorable day was that whilst we were holed up in the Principal’s office, Quincy gave me his card – and said to get in touch if I thought he could be of any help. I did get in touch and I did ask him for help. I needed to somehow get my choir, the London Vocal Project, to New York so that his old friend Jon Hendricks could hear us sing his Miles Ahead project – his lifetime’s work… fifty years in the making. Quincy came through! Wheels were quietly set in motion… access to funds, the email of his Travel Agent and a covering letter for each choir member to get us through U.S. customs (Trump had just been elected!). But that’s another story… 

The post My day with Quincy Jones… first appeared on UK Jazz News.

As Pete Churchill looks forward to the launch of the album ‘Search for Peace” with Australian singer Ingrid James at the 606 Club, he reflects on his “singular pathway through this music I love .”

Pete Churchill writes:  There are many roads that lead us towards a life in Jazz. Unlike Classical music, we have no prescribed pathway we can follow and so many of us will arrive at this music having carved a very different musical furrow for a while. My journey into jazz began with ‘songs at the piano’.

 As a student in Canada (Art History at first!) my earliest gigs were in archetypal North American piano bars – night after night singing and playing requests for rooms full of people, many of whom had settled in for a long evening of drinking – mostly to forget! I recall this time as a total baptism of fire. Every night I had to cover songs that crossed a wide range of styles… the Great American Songbook (of course) but also Elton John, not to mention Hank Williams, Cat Stevens, Stevie Wonder and the Doobie Brothers. But this was the late 70s, early 80s and luckily for me there were so many great songs on the radio that I soon realised that every request was worth the effort if I made it so. 

 In time I graduated from solitary singer/pianist to playing in a number of bands across an even wider range of genres. Gradually my understanding of the musical language at the heart of each style improved – and bandleaders certainly never hesitated to let me know if I strayed into the wrong musical territory. I learned about ‘Three chords and the Truth’, the simplicity and nobility of triads and I was told “If you’re bored you’re not playing right!”. In one Country band I was labelled ‘College-Boy’ – not exactly a compliment – and yet I seem to have survived with my dignity intact. 

Over and above gaining a sizeable repertoire (there are songs in my head a wish I didn’t know!) and a reasonable level of fluency in different keys, this pathway into music taught me that every style of music had its own grammar and syntax and, most importantly, its own standards of excellence.   

 I arrived at the Guildhall in London to study Jazz for I suspected that in this music I would find the freedom I craved… a freedom of approach that seemed unattainable in other kinds of music. Only this music promised to offer me a chance to own all my influences and to value my singular pathway. But the college experience was certainly not plain-sailing… for me it proved to be another ‘baptism of fire’ – everyone appeared to be considerably more informed than I was and it was all very intimidating. In fact, it wasn’t until I left college that I realised that what I thought to be my greatest liability – my somewhat distracted and meandering journey into Jazz – was perhaps my greatest strength after all. 

Nevertheless, there is no doubt in my mind that, since graduating, I have led a charmed life in Jazz. My career as a Jazz Educator (I never really left college) kept me deeply involved with making music at a high level – and this has been a complete privilege… so much more than I had a right to expect. As a teacher at the Guildhall I was able to develop close connections with artists whose paths I would probably never have crossed as a player. In addition it was a group of Guildhall alumni who initially formed the London Vocal Project and invited me to join them. This has led to some extraordinary musical collaborations… experiences I would never have dreamed of in those long evenings playing requests back in Canada. Finally, my fifteen years with Mark Murphy (we connected on the songs – he certainly didn’t hire me for my chops!) proved to be a constant Masterclass in how an improvising jazz singer can balance freedom and discipline when approaching a song. I am very grateful.  

Now, forty years on, the ‘song’ is still at the heart of everything I do and one of the greatest joys of my life is when I am required to arrange new repertoire – to frame songs in such a way that the listener can listen with fresh ears. Every now and then a project comes along where I get to sift through all these sounds that jostle for space in my head – and use them in arranging a well-chosen repertoire. This new album, ‘Search for Peace’, a wonderful collaboration with the great Australian Jazz Singer, Ingrid James, is exactly this kind of project.

 We spent a fair amount of time planning the repertoire (it began remotely and the final sessions took place in Ingrid’s beautiful riverside apartment in Brisbane) taking the time to decide exactly the right ‘tone’ for each selection. This involved choosing the appropriate ‘feel’ for each song, the right harmony for that ‘feel’, the balancing of the ‘fixed’ and the improvised material and the best pacing for each arrangement. 

With Ingrid’s blessing I felt I was able draw upon any references that felt appropriate to frame each track – Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Gerald Finzi… – they all went into the mix and gradually the album began to take shape. The culmination of this process was when we spent two very special days in a beautiful rural recording studio near Brisbane – with a wonderful Steinway! It was a complete joy from start to finish – not something you can say about every recording project! 

 The album is out now on ABC Records and this Thursday (19th September) Ingrid and I will be launching it at the 606 club – ably assisted by Jack Tustin on bass and Luke Tomlinson on drums. 

 It has been quite a journey bringing Ingrid’s vision to life and a real privilege to collaborate the way we have. 

 For myself, I seem still to be navigating my singular pathway through this music I love and as I look back I know that it is projects like this that make me thankful for the sporadic nature of those early years and happy that those sounds still echo through my crowded brain.  

The post ‘Search for Peace’ album launch, 19 Sep, 606 Club first appeared on UK Jazz News.

I first heard Kenny’s music over thirty-five years ago when I was a Jazz Composition student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Ken came to guest with the Big Band and I was completely and utterly smitten by his music. I remember one of his original scores went missing and I was given the job of reconstructing a new complete score from the individual parts. It proved to be a masterclass in composition and the beginning of a lifelong obsession.

Since then, in all my time as the conductor of Kenny’s big band, through my involvement with his vocal music over the years and, of course, in all my composition teaching, I have continued to be deeply immersed in his sound world. So when Chris Laurence sent me a short score of a piece Kenny had written especially for him, and asked me if I could try and make sense of it with a view to getting it recorded, I jumped at the chance.

The music was scored in Ken’s inimitable handwriting and, at first glance, it all seemed to be very detailed and clear. However, on closer inspection I discovered that whereas the first two movements were complete, the last one was unfinished – in fact it stopped quite abruptly on the last page as though Ken had been interrupted. At the bottom of that final page though, Ken appeared to have returned to the piece and sketched out some rough ideas for a final section. The big question was whether there might be enough material here from which to fashion an ending.

My first task, however, was to make a fair handwritten copy of what was complete on the original score. Ken’s handwriting is not unclear but it is a composer’s hand with all the usual abbreviations and shortcuts and you can feel how impatient he was to get his ideas onto the page. Also, one of the first problems to solve was that there was no indication of the instrumentation (other than Chris’s part of course). However, it became apparent (after a few false starts) from the register and character of the ensemble parts, that Ken had written for a low string section… one violin, two violas and two cellos. I persevered and once the first two sections were laid out in full score it all made perfect sense – a new Kenny Wheeler composition was unfolding before my eyes and it was very, very exciting.

It was now time to approach the last section. I could see that, where the music tailed off, Ken had lightly sketched an unfinished melody for the vibes – with some five-part string chords voiced underneath. The rest of this final page was filled with a sketch of a new chord progression and this included a two-part vibes motif over the top – and then there were also a couple of four-bar sample Bass-figures underneath (for Chris!) that were clearly meant to be extended throughout the whole progression. I had found the seeds of the last movement.

Looking at one of Ken’s scores in detail is a bit like taking the back off a watch

Over the years I have found that the clarity of Kenny’s musical language is such that, when you do get the chance to study it, you end up learning so much more than you bargained for. If you pay attention it will teach you about proportion, development, pacing and how to strike the right balance between the written and the improvised sections. Looking at one of Ken’s scores in detail is a bit like taking the back off a watch.

As with other Jazz composers, many of Ken’s large scale works started out as lead-sheets so it is often possible to follow the journey of a piece from the original sketch (the lead-sheet) through a quintet version perhaps and on to the large-scale compositions we all know. His original ideas always seem to develop very organically and, unlike other composers perhaps, his process is there for us all to see.

Bearing all this in mind and armed with everything Ken’s music has taught me over the years, I simply allowed his sketches to develop the way they seemed to want to go. Bit by bit, the last section of this wonderful piece emerged before my eyes. At times the process was almost mystical. The final melody seemed somehow to complete itself and lead very naturally towards a reprise of his opening material. I simply had to get myself out of the way and allow the material to do what it needed to do – to let the music complete itself.

This wonderful piece was Kenny Wheeler’s gift to Chris Laurence – a testament to their life-long friendship and their musical relationship and I think you can hear this resonating through every single note that Ken has written for him to play.

Having been professionally copied and formatted by the wonderful Pete Hurt, Piece for Double Bass and Low Strings has now been recorded beautifully and becomes an exciting new addition to Kenny Wheeler’s catalogue of string repertoire.

What an immense privilege it has been to be part of the team that has helped to bring it all to life.

(*) This feature by Pete Churchill was written to accompany the release, and appears in shortened form as a liner note. With sincerest thanks to John Thurlow of Jazz in Britain giving permission, indeed for being so supportive of UKJN reproducing the article here.

The post Pete Churchill – Kenny Wheeler’s ‘Piece for Low Strings’, dedicated to Chris Laurence first appeared on UK Jazz News.

I initially imagined that lockdown would be a bit like retirement – a rehearsal perhaps or a ‘dry-run’ to see how things were likely to pan out after I had ceased all professional activity. As it happens I discovered that the work I managed to hold onto simply expanded to fill the available space left by the work I’d lost. The money didn’t expand of course! Before the pandemic stopped us in our tracks, as with so many of us I imagine, I probably kept myself busy in order to avoid thinking too much about why or how I was working – but I find that this time of enforced idleness has given me more opportunities to stop and take stock.

Thus it was that I found myself with a rare afternoon free and so I decided to take a break from all the hiatus of activity that ordinarily seems to define my life. There I was, sitting in my garden and trying to relax, when I happened upon a thread posted by my good friend Todd Stoll at JALC (Jazz at the Lincoln Centre) and it pointed me towards a really interesting speech given by Wynton Marsalis in 2012 at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. 

The whole thing is on YouTube and has been divided into nine parts – and so I ‘binge-watched’ them all. 

If you’re at all curious then this is definitely worth it – the best hour I could have spent at a time when I have been struggling, like so many others, to hold it all together in what are often impossible circumstances. 

Wynton’s speech was addressed to an auditorium full of Music Teachers and so, before you dive in, there are a couple of things that it might be useful to clarify. It may help to understand the difference between how school-music is taught here in the U.K. versus how they go about things in the U.S. 

In America, classroom music is often based around an ensemble – in which case, if you’re a music teacher then you’re basically a band director. This couldn’t be more different from how music is taught here and it explains a lot about the differences between our two musical cultures and why students arrive at Music College in both countries with vastly different skill-sets. 

When you join a High School music class in the States therefore, you are likely to be joining a band and you may even be told what instrument to play – i.e. whatever fills a gap in the band at that particular moment. With music in schools structured this way kids, from the very start, begin to realise that music isn’t ‘instrument-specific’ – that it has an existence separate from the instrument through which they are currently accessing it. 

In the U.K. however, if you show any aptitude, you are usually encouraged to make a choice of instrument at quite a young age and you then explore music largely through that instrument. There are graded exams to take and levels of attainment to achieve and any experience of ensemble playing will likely be outside the school. It is entirely possible, and quite common, to achieve a Grade 8 on an instrument without ever having played in an ensemble. Indeed it is entirely possible to pass your Grade 8 having only ever played 24 pieces of music – three at each grade. 

Back to Wynton’s speech – what was it that grabbed me? Right from the start he demonstrates an understanding of his crowd and what it is like to be on the front line. To become a Music Teacher, he states, is to enter a sacred profession. The American High school Band Director is the rarest of breeds and Wynton knows it. (Ideally you should watch the whole thing but I have transcribed a section of his speech from Part 2 that particularly affected me – link below.)

He speaks with such eloquence that it made me realise how much language and oratory has disappeared from our culture here in the U.K.  As with any transcription, of course, it only captures a fragment of the story – for the essence of his delivery is, like any solo, untranscribable. Words, like notes, lose something when committed to paper. He speaks with a deep rhythmic understanding of his text which suggests that he has grown up, maybe through church, hearing language well spoken. It is clear that the sound of each word is as important to him as it’s meaning and, in fact, one of the themes Wynton focuses on is the importance of developing a good sound… so the mode of his delivery – as my good friend Steve Watts (bass player) has been known to say – clearly reflects the subject matter. 

To continue this parallel between speaking and playing I noticed that parts of the speech unfolded like a good solo – with repetition of motifs, use of space etc. and Wynton has an ear for the long-form as well. I became aware that the overall shape had been structured compositionally and this served to frame the various quasi-improvised sections. The arc of it all was explicit with material from the beginning returning at the end (Part 9) having been transformed by the thread of the material in the central ‘development’ sections – classic compositional structure. 

Now I’m not sure if there are any firm conclusions to be drawn from this line of thinking – and perhaps, as my Dad used to say, “It’s not necessary to have all the answers as long as you’re asking the right questions!”. However there is definitely something here that’s worth pursuing. I am convinced that, as musicians, we cannot escape the influence of our own language and how we have heard it spoken. We may not, like Wynton’  become ‘orators’ ourselves – perhaps choosing instead to speak through our instrument – but we can not escape the lasting influence of the very first sounds that we hear – the rhythms and cadences of speech.

To my ears Jazz is message music. There is a ‘cry’ in the sound of my favourite players and an element of preaching, of protest even, that is deep at the heart of it all. This is what drew me to jazz at a young age. There was something being said in the music that my culture hadn’t found a way to express – certainly not in such a vital and immediate form – and the connection with the expressive power of speech was always there in the way melodies were played and in the lines of the improvisers. 

In this music I heard singers who still treasured every word, who had a clear sense of narrative and were able to rephrase the lyric so as to make you listen afresh every time. They were aware of the expressive power of the text and, beyond its literal meaning, they could express something essential about the song just through the sound of every syllable. 

Sadly, here in the U.K. I think we may have lost our connection with the spoken word – and this may go some way towards explaining why there is often less of a connection in the playing of younger musicians, certainly on this side of the Atlantic, with melody and groove. We perhaps are educated to think that the secret to becoming a better musician is to explore more music – whereas the most transformative input to our development may well lie outside our discipline. 

When I first met Jon Hendricks (the ‘Poet Laureate of Jazz’ and Godfather of vocalese) and before we began working together on his last masterpiece Miles Ahead, we simply talked about language -specifically as found in the King James translation of the Bible. From there we moved on to Shakespeare (much of which he believed was written by Sir Francis Bacon!) and beyond! Jon was obsessed with the language of the Bible – he was the ‘son of a preacher-man’ after all – and I realised that the resonance of this translation still permeates much of the language of Black American churches and is the raw material from which many preachers develop their powers of oratory.

Here in the U.K. in the last half of the 20th century, the glorious language of the scriptures and the prayer-book was summarily dismantled when a new ‘Alternative’ liturgy was brought into common use. In the interests of making the message ‘more accessible’ all the mysteries of the old translation were stripped away. In an astonishing act of linguistic vandalism and in the mistaken belief that the process would make the message more enticing, the church ensured that the opportunity for churchgoers to bathe themselves in the sound of poetry every week was taken from them. The King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were translated at a time in history when – as the essayist Clive James put it so succinctly – ‘the English language was in such good shape that even a committee could write poetry.’ The Church of England took this language and placed it in a museum. In America, however, it still resonates and this translation was at the heart of Jon Hendricks’ eloquence and the rhythm of the language inhabits every lyric he ever wrote. 

Crucially, although I have never heard Wynton claim to be a poet I can certainly hear the poetry in his playing. Similarly when he speaks there is music in the rise and fall of his cadences… you can hear motivic/melodic development, the riff, however you want to define it, as he warms to his theme. The link between music and the spoken word is clear and you realise how closely connected it all is. Check out this particular section of his speech (Part 2) and see what you think. I have transcribed his ‘exhortation’ on music (below) but you should really listen to it first – as you would a solo. 

Wynton Marsalis on Music…

(Speech to the ‘ Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic’ 2012 – Part 2)

“Just the name… ‘Music’ – it bespeaks spirituality and sophistication and solemnity and silly songs, sensuousness and skipping and squeaking and squawking sounds and special sonatas and symphonies and so much swing and swooping and special sauce that we call soul. 

“It bespeaks the blues and saying what you have to say. And music is everything from the movement of the heavens to the chirping of crickets, the ringing of church-bells and the ringing of a cell-phone alarm, the splashing of water and the howling at the moon, the whispers of new lovers, the cacophonous cadence of embattled couples and the lonely cry of the broken hearted. 

“Music is the exhortations of a country preacher and the sound of the midnight moan. It’s the super-trite jingle of a TV commercial and the ditty that identifies a video game, the identifying theme of a movie and the sound of an entire ethnic group. It can also be the travail of Southern Slaves in song, the voice of morning prayer that stops cities and the anthem that calls a nation to attention. 

In music there is the recorded history and memory of a people brung to life at every performance, the tying together of generations, an expression of pride and ultimately love and also a sense of belonging.

This music is something. It can reorder emotions, can awaken thoughts, can raise morale and open the mind’s eye with a single golden note. Music is consciousness made physical through the razor’s edge of performance. It is consciousness forced into truthfulness through the pressures of time. You don’t have the time to lie. Music is always now.”

Wynton returns to this theme – a recapitulation of sorts – in Part 9 of his talk… almost an hour later. But, like any good Jazz performance, it is not the same… he paraphrases, adds to it, omits some things and his cadences are different. 

You will have to check out the whole thing and draw your own conclusions I guess – but for me, this is one of the great speeches about music… because it IS music.

So there you have it – the result of a free afternoon in my garden. It’s clear in this case that work did expand to fill the available space… who’d have thought! 

     “ON RETIREMENT…

Just before I finish, I have found a few thoughts on retirement that my Dad sketched out for a book he never completed – this could easily be taken as advice for those on lockdown! 

“I find that one of the many delights of a happy retirement is that one can, with care, at last find time to read more widely than formerly and find time to reflect upon a million matters that were pushed aside in a professional musical life. Beyond the whirlwind there is a calm and we are perhaps foolish if we resist its beauty, if we continue to precipitate ourselves in all directions in imitation of our younger selves either through anxiety or a nostalgia to retain our youth.

“Such reflections as maturity may bring can often be fruitful; we may retrieve fugitive thoughts and let them scamper into speculations that previously were sternly rejected in a former, busier existence.”

      Maybe the real lesson here has been how important it is that I take time out to think. 

      And as for Music… I think I’ll leave the last word to Wynton!

     “It’s the singing of a cymbal in full swing. 

It’s the sweep of brushes on snare and the very last wisp Ben Webster’s sound makes kissing the air…  and it’s much deeper than notes.”

The post Music, Language and the Rhythm of the ‘Word’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.