UKJazz News: For readers unfamiliar with Nicky Hopkins, can you talk about his work and influence on you?

Paddy Milner: Nicky Hopkins was an unsung hero of the music world who played piano on some of the biggest records of the 60’s & 70’s but was largely unheard of outside of musical circles. His piano playing is all over the recordings of the Kinks, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, and also the wonderfully rocking piano solo on “Revolution” by the Beatles, amongst many others. You’ll know his work! He was a versatile musician, which made him very suited to a variety of musical settings, but it was his rock ‘n’ roll piano playing that has particularly influenced me – he was very much influenced by the great Blues and Boogie pianists and brought that into the new wave of 60’s British R&B-based bands, helping to create a new sound in the process.

UKJN: You feature in a new documentary about him called ‘The Session Man’. What’s the story behind how you got involved and your contributions to the project?

PM: I was brought in by Chris Kimsey, who worked with Nicky whilst engineering and producing the Rolling Stones and others. Chris was closely involved with the project and was one of the key interviewees. I’ve done many studio projects with Chris over the years and he thought I’d be a good fit to demonstrate Nicky’s piano parts in the film. It was a joy to transcribe Nicky’s awesome piano parts, play them and talk about them. I felt a synergy with Nicky’s playing, sharing many of the same influences and perhaps having taken a similar path in our learning journeys with a mix of formal training, learning from records and experience playing in bands from a young age.

UKJN: Who are some of your other musical influences?

PM: I have a broad love of music from Blues and Roots through to the classical repertoire (which I studied at University), although some players and styles are more of a direct influence from a piano playing perspective. There are so many musicians and composers that have a place in my heart, but here are some names from the piano world that immediately come to mind: Dr John, James Booker, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Otis Spann, Johnnie Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans and Brad Mehldau. I’ve been enjoying playing more organ of late, so players such as Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, Larry Goldings and John Medeski are also in there for sure! 

UKJN: You have worked with, among others, Sir Tom Jones, Van Morrison and the late Jack Bruce. Tell us a little bit about your experiences working with them…

PM: I’ve had wonderful experiences with them all in different ways! I’ve been with Sir Tom for a decade now and it still blows me away how professional and committed he is to every performance, with a voice that continues to fill room after room! We’ve had some really amazing tours, memorable gigs in iconic venues, lots of laughs and I couldn’t think of a better way of seeing the world. Van is another man with a powerful and one-in-a-million voice, and it’s always exciting to be on the edge of your seat while on stage with him! Jack was a spontaneous musician and I loved the way he would take the music to different places, always pushing the boundaries – that taught me a lot about the benefits of taking musical risks and being out of your comfort zone.

UKJN: You teach an online piano course on learning to play ‘authentic’ blues piano’. What does authentic blues piano mean to you? 

PM: It’s a loaded term for sure! For the purposes of my courses, I’m really referring to recreating the sound world of the classic blues pianists we know and love, so it could be understood as ‘authentic-sounding’. I say this because I don’t think it’s possible to teach how to play ‘The Blues’ per se, which is a deeper expression of the human condition, but it is possible to learn the language that characterises the sound world of Blues piano, which can then be used to express human emotions. So, in short, my courses can help you learn to produce the sounds associated with Blues piano but it’s down to you to fill those sounds with emotion to really play the Blues.

UKJN: Without giving too much away, tell us what is on offer here and what a prospective student can expect.

PM: It’s an opportunity to learn the basics of the Blues piano sound world, focusing on authentic-sounding piano parts and creative ideas for improvisation. It’s very much a progressive approach, beginning with ideas in their simplest form and then gradually increasing the complexity as the course develops. By the end of the course, students will be able to play an authentic-sounding Blues including a variety of improvisational ideas and space for their own creativity.

UKJN: Is there a particular level of pianist this course is targeted at?

PM: It’s aimed at relative beginners and those with a little more playing experience who are looking for an entry into improvisation. Students don’t need to read music for the video course but it is useful in order to best make use of the PDF downloads that accompany the course.  I have other courses available with Music Gurus that are more suited to those at a higher level.

UKJN: Are there any essential recordings / artists that you recommend students of the course should check out before enrolling?

PM: Solo records by Otis Spann, Pinetop Perkins, Memphis Slim, Champion Jack Dupree, Lafayette Leake, Johnnie Johnson would be a good start to give an overview of the sound world the course takes inspiration from.

UKJN: Anything else our readers should know about the course or ‘The Session Man’?

PM: These are two projects that I loved working on so hope they will be useful and interesting to people. The Session Man is not yet out in the UK but look out for a release date!

MusicGurus is offering a Black Friday exclusive 25% discount on subscriptions which give you access to all of Paddy’s online courses, quote UKJAZZ25 code for discount (linked below)

The post Learn blues piano with UK pianist Paddy Milner first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Before launching into a discussion about the rest of the music, all of which is outstanding, it is worth looking back on the mostly forgotten location in which it was recorded…

Unlike other New York clubs of the time, like the Village Gate or the Vanguard, Slugs’ Saloon was located in a particularly dangerous area of Manhattan’s East Village. Patrons routinely found themselves victims of muggings or general violence outside, and sometimes even inside, the venue (the shooting of trumpeter Lee Morgan by his wife is probably the most well-known incident there). “Slugs’ was a den of iniquity”, remembers American pianist Richie Beirach, who spent countless nights in the audience there during the mid-Sixties. Yet, despite its surroundings, Slugs’ regularly played host to performances from the most innovative and inspirational, mostly black, jazz artists of the time: “It could be so scary, but the music there was the kind you wouldn’t hear anywhere else”, said Beirach (*).

Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ is a testament to how this was an environment in which musicians like Henderson and Tyner would thrive musically. The aptly named recording documents a particularly special performance from a super-band co-led by the two legends. They are joined by the late Henry Grimes on bass, and a young (at the time) Jack DeJohnette on drums; forces of nature indeed. 

They hit the ground running with a burn-out, the title track from Henderson’s 1964 recording In ’n Out. Naturally, he takes the first solo, and it is immediately striking how flowing and swinging his lines are at this blistering tempo, while so intelligently constructed. Tyner comps for about the first quarter of the sax solo before dropping out, just as he would typically do with Trane in these moments. Tension builds while the sax so utterly locks in with the drums that they start to anticipate the beginning and ends of each other’s phrases. DeJohnette simultaneously dances between the time and orchestrates in his characteristic manner, while Grimes and his rock-steady walking lines serve as the glue in these more eruptive moments. After the lengthy sax solo comes to a close, Tyner takes over and matches all that energy on what sounds like an upright piano! It is a magical track. One to listen to on repeat.

A particularly beautiful rendition of the standard “We’ll be Together Again” follows, with standout performances again coming from Tyner and Henderson. Then comes another extended up-tempo blues called “Taking Off”, quite similar in vibe to “In ‘n Out” except for its collectively improvised head and being in a minor key. While it also features superb performances from all, placing these two tracks with their lengthy runtimes and sheer forces of energy so close together in the set is, for better or worse, quite intense. That said, it’s a minor critique in the context of what is happening and is mostly counter-balanced by a ballad being sandwiched in between. The final two tracks, both a little shorter in runtime, are Tyner’s “The Believer” (originally recorded with John Coltrane in 1958), and lastly “Isotope”.

What a remarkable document this is. We get to hear Joe Henderson recorded in a live setting alongside the pianist most featured on his early recordings, while at the same time witnessing his coming association with DeJohnette start to bloom. It is a convergence of pasts and futures for all of the musicians at arguably their most fertile periods of development. Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ is one of the most astounding posthumous albums to be released in a long time, and the producers deserve huge commendation for releasing such important music so authentically, instead of trying to edit down any lengthy runtimes. It cannot be recommend enough.

Release date is today, 22 November.

Charlie Rees is an English saxophonist, composer/arranger & journalist. He is also the Assistant Editor of UKJN.

(*) Many thanks to Richie Beirach for his memories of Slugs’ Saloon.  

The post McCoy Tyner & Joe Henderson – ‘Forces of Nature’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

UKJazz News: Think back to when you first heard Roy Haynes… can you remember your impressions? 

Adam Nussbaum: The first recording I heard with Roy Haynes was probably Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth, which had an amazing band with Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Bill Evans and Paul Chambers. I realised from the music, which was so good, that Roy had that ability to get inside whatever the music was and elevate it. After that, I started hearing him on lots of other recordings. One that really stood out was a gorgeous trumpet quartet record with Booker Little, Scott LaFaro and Wynton Kelly and Tommy Flanagan alternating piano. If you don’t know that record, Booker Little sounds incredible! He had a beautiful quality in his tone and his vocabulary was very special at that time. Then I saw him live for the first time at the Newport Festival in New York with his Hip Ensemble.

The thing about Roy is he had what I would call a ‘signature identity’; a ‘one in a row’. He arrived on the scene already formed with a sound and a personality that was instantly recognisable as his. He tuned his drums on the higher side and his internal drummer was also so strong that he could dance around the time, which kept the music very alive. But I think his greatest gift was that he was blessed with phenomenal ears. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that the best musicians are the people who hear the best. And Roy could hear in the cracks. That’s how he could get inside the music so that, whatever context he was in, he elevated it to a beautiful place. 

I have to refer to something I heard the wonderful drummer Kenny Washington say before Roy passed: What other drummer from the era of the forties would have been able to play on Chick Corea’s Now He Sings, Now He Sobs and sound so hip? He just brought so much life to it. Again, it was his incredible ability to get inside the music which he had from the beginning. 

UKJN: What about his style of drumming do you think makes him so identifiable on recordings?

AN: Some musicians have a lot of information within their vocabulary. But Roy didn’t have an amazing worked-out, traditional vocabulary. He was a self-made guy with his own, and he was able to use it in such a musical and audacious way. It’s not like you can sit down and practice 500 licks Roy Haynes played because there aren’t that many. The truth is, you don’t need a lot of information if you know how to put it anywhere you feel like doing it. 

He was from Boston and kind of set the standard for other drummers from there: Tony Williams, Alan Dawson, Clifford Jarvis and other great drummers that aren’t that well known from up there like Jimmy Zitano, Bobby Ward and Lenny Nelson all had a certain pop and clarity. I think you can hear it regionally with drummers from different places in the country, how each place has its own flavor and accent. It’s especially apparent when you hear drummers from New Orleans, but it’s anywhere you go – New York, Philly, Boston, D.C., Chicago – just like if you travel around the UK, people have different accents. 

UKJN: Are there any personal encounters you would like to share?

AN: Roy was once being interviewed at an International Association for Jazz Education convention, I think by Dan Morgenstern. I was in the audience with several hundred people and raised my hand. He saw me and said, Hey Nussbaum! What do you want?” I said, “Roy, when you were a kid, who was the guy in the hood who inspired you?” I asked him that because I knew there’s always someone early in your development, usually a direct contact, that affects you. His answer was the drummer Herbert Wright, who played with James Reese Europe and later stabbed him! And I said (laughing), “So Roy, that’s where you got that killer instinct!” 

In 1983, I got to play at the White House with Stan Getz, Jim McNeely and Marc Johnson in a concert hosted by Itzhak Perlman. Roy was also there with Chick and Miroslav Vitouš, and Dizzy too with his band. I ended up playing on Roy’s drums and got to hang with him, it was so great. Maybe 25 or 30 years later, I said to him: “Roy, I think I’ve figured you out… ‘You’re from the past, but you were born in the future”. He liked that. He was a real treasure. I feel very fortunate I got to have some nice interactions with him. 

UKJN: He was pretty much still active at 99. Did he ever discuss any secrets to his longevity?

AN: I think if you’re a musician with a natural gift and ability, this is something that’s a life force for you and it helps to keep you alive. I never really got into a discussion with him about it, but he always kept his ears open and always kept his eyes open. This cat was always dressed so slick, he looked so hip all the time. He didn’t take any BS, he cut right to the chase. He was an amazingly open-minded person. Somebody who just seemed to enjoy life. 

You know, there’s a thing old drummers say: “I saw Max [Roach] do it, I saw Philly Joe [Jones] do it, I saw Papa Jo [Jones] do it, I saw Klook (Kenny Clarke) do it. But I saw Haynes and he did it and did it and did it and did it.”(laughs) Which is absolutely true. 

UKJN: For anyone looking to get more familiar with Roy Haynes, which recordings do you recommend they begin with?

AN: As far as recordings, other than the ones I’ve already mentioned, there was that great one he first did on Prestige with Phineas Newborn and Paul Chambers, We Three. Another one I heard early on was a great recording with McCoy Tyner and Henry Grimes, Reaching Fourth, that came out on Impulse!. You hear that wonderful record he did with Stan Getz, Focus, where Roy is playing along with the strings, that’s a beautiful piece of music that Stan was improvising over and Roy was just so in there. Of course, the things he did with Trane when he was subbing for Elvin in 1963 were great – on Transition, he plays on “Dear Lord” and there’s that great version of “Dear Old Stockholm” – and then there’s also a snippet of recordings from May ’65 that originally came out on an LP called To the Beat of a Different Drum as part of a series called ‘The Mastery of John Coltrane’. That stuff is really incredible because he had a very different kind of sound to Elvin – they used to call him Mr. Snap Crackle – and it brought out another aspect of what Trane did. He also was associated for many years with the incredible Sarah Vaughan.

Thank god for recordings! Every time I heard him it was so wonderful and inspiring. I mean, who else in this world went from playing with Louis Armstrong to Pat Metheny and everyone in between? It’s hard to imagine who he couldn’t play with.

God bless him, man. Every time I think of him, I’m just gonna smile and, to quote that record he made in 1977, say thank you thank you. 

Charlie Rees is an English saxophonist, composer/arranger & journalist. He is also the Assistant Editor of UKJN.

The post Remembering Roy Haynes with Adam Nussbaum first appeared on UK Jazz News.

According to Nate Chinen, reporting for the New York Times: “His death, after a brief illness, was confirmed by his daughter, Leslie Haynes-Gilmore.”

UKJN will have tributes to this icon of jazz in the next few days.

The post RIP Roy Haynes first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Sharing the news on Facebook earlier today, Champian Fulton wrote:

UKJN will have tributes later to this great figure in jazz (*).

The post RIP Lou Donaldson first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Early bird tickets for the festival are now on sale with day passes starting from just £29, and weekend passes from £125.

The post Brick Lane Jazz Festival announces first wave of artists first appeared on UK Jazz News.

UKJN will have tributes later to this iconic figure in music.

The post RIP Quincy Jones first appeared on UK Jazz News.

“I was never really much of a leader – not beyond the local gigs I was doing in New York. Becoming a leader in the sense of touring and writing my own compositions and learning to do this on a larger scope, that’s come a little later and it was never initially my strength.”

The subject of that interview was his album The Bright Side. It was a strong debut recording for his trio with American bassist Dan Loomis and Canadian drummer Ernesto Cervini, a group he had been playing in for several years up to that point. Though aged 51 at the time of release and already well established, he seemed to find a more assertive and individual voice as a leader, particularly as far as listeners outside New York City were concerned.

Lumination, their follow-up release, builds on many of the best elements from The Bright Side. The track listing, comprised of ten originals, follows the same outline as before: a couple of groove tunes (“Disco Nern” & “False Spring”), a Frahm contrafact (“Kern You Dig It?”), a Cervini blues called “The Nurse is In” with plenty of swing and more. A few tunes stand out, like Frahm’s ballad “Moonface Lament” and “Vesper Flights” by Loomis, but there is nothing radically different from before and there probably doesn’t need to be. These tunes are strong, unpretentious vehicles for the performers, many of which manage to convey a healthy sense of humour.

Above all, the playing is what makes Lumination special. Frahm remains an exceptional technician of his instrument, but equally impressive is how he develops his ideas during improvisations; a masterclass in motivic development. Quotations have also become a signature of his solos, with the most blatant here a reference to Charlie Parker’s “My Little Suede Shoes” at the beginning of the trading on “Loo-Lee”. This kind of gimmick was used to maximum effect by Sonny Rollins, but Frahm is certainly the modern master. The playing of Cervini and Loomis suits the saxophonist to a tee, providing him with an elite foundation. Both also give engaging and, when appropriate, sensitive performances throughout.

If the headline of The Bright Side was Frahm’s emphatic arrival as a bandleader, the story of Lumination is the evolution of this trio’s rapport as a unit from one release to the next. Whether subtlely exchanging ideas within the ensemble or brazenly quoting a well-known tune during a solo, these guys always sound like they are having fun. They establish great moods which helps listeners relate even to playing as advanced as that on this album. Joel Frahm and his trio have an outstanding collective voice and now have one more album that proves it.

UK audiences can catch them live as part of their European tour next week (full details below).

Lumination European Tour Dates & UK Booking Links:

• Saturday, 28 September – Herr Nilsen (Oslo, Norway)
• Sunday, 29 September – Bimhuis (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
• Monday, 30 September – Pizza Express (London, UK)
• Tuesday, 1 October – The Moldy Fig (Eastleigh, UK)
• Thursday, 3 October – Seven Arts Leeds (Leeds, UK)
• Friday, 4 October – Salon de Jazz (Cologne, Germany)
• Saturday, 5 October – Jazz in der Mitte (Reutlingen, Germany)
• Sunday, 6 October – Neimënster (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg)

Charlie Rees is an English saxophonist, composer/arranger & journalist. He is also the Assistant Editor of UKJN.

The post Joel Frahm Trio – ‘Lumination’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The following statement is republished with the express permission of its authors:

Dear Friends, Admirers and Supporters of Richie Beirach,

We are reaching out to ask for your support for the renowned jazz pianist Richie Beirach, who is currently facing overwhelming health and financial problems.

Richie has touched countless lives with his music. He has been a dear mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and supporter to so many musicians and now he needs our help to make it through an excruciatingly difficult period.

Richie is struggling with serious health issues that have rendered him unable to perform and led to a severe financial crisis. His medical expenses have piled up, with over €16,000 in outstanding bills and additional costs exceeding €100,000. Despite efforts to secure assistance, the situation remains dire, and Richie is unable to manage these overwhelming financial burdens on his own.

We are organizing a crowdfunding campaign to provide Richie with the financial support he desperately needs. Your generous contributions will help cover his medical bills, daily care expenses, and essential living costs, allowing him to focus on recovery.

Richie has given us so much through his incredible talent and dedication to music. Now is our chance to give back. Every donation, no matter the size, will make a significant difference in his life.

Funds are collected by a non-profit, TGR The Green Room, but will be passed on in their entirety to Richie.

Thank you for your generosity and support.

Sincerely,

Regina Litvinova / Charlie Rees / Sidney Corbett / Gregor Huebner / Tobias Frohnhöfer / Heather O’Donnell

The post GoFundMe campaign launched to help legendary American pianist Richie Beirach first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Charlie Rees is an English saxophonist, composer/arranger & journalist. He is also the Assistant Editor of UKJN.

The post 10 Tracks I Can’t Do Without: David Sanborn (RIP) first appeared on UK Jazz News.