Frank Presley's interview with Sandy Evans 26 October 2007

Historical article recovered from a Wayback capture dated 2018-02-24.

’…One thing I’m really interested in is branching out from a jazz foundation…’

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Frank Presley’s interview with Sandy Evans 14

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November 2004

”… a friend of someone in the band came to the gig at the Opera House (Jazz Now Festival August 2004) and actually said that it was the best gig they had been to in their life because they never knew what was coming next.”

Frank Presley

How have you and Tony been able to cope with Tony’s Multiple Sclerosis over the last seven years and yet still be able to produce collective volumes of creative output?

Sandy Evans:

It’s been very tough for both of us. Obviously much more so for Tony and it’s been much harder for him to keep his creative work going. He’s done that in several very beautiful ways. Not very long after he became ill, he recorded some solo clarinet improvisations that have sort of become the start of a new career in a way. He’s released a CD entitled ‘Songs of Hope’ its like very beautiful healing music in the true sense of the word. Dealing with his feelings with coming to terms with MS. They are very beautiful pieces. A lot of people have had an amazing response to them and he actually performed at Wangaratta Jazz Festival the weekend before last. He plays it over a drone and the other part of the work that he’s doing in that way is telling stories and jokes and telling about his experiences. So it’s taken a long time for him to sort of get the courage and the organization to get that happening in public and it hasn’t been easy but he’s doing that now which has been great. He’s also learned the guitar. When he stopped performing in Jazz bands, he had a beautiful guitar. He started playing classical guitar and that kind of leads into Gest8 in a way because the latest piece that he’s written for the band came from playing the guitar so that led on to a whole new way of thinking in a sense that may not otherwise have happened.

FP:

He’s always loved folk music though hasn’t he?

SE:

Oh definitely. Well that probably came about through ‘Mara’. Tony and I both played with the ‘Mara’ band for a long time and we were very lucky because that’s a fantastic band that introduced us to lots of folk music both through the band and through festivals that we played at around the world. That was very very inspiring so he definitely has a feel for that. I think it’s a double-edged thing in a way because when he was growing up, his father would turn off the Scottish folk music whenever it came on the television. His father was a Jazz musician so he sort of looked down on the folk music a bit. Having said that, last time I was Scotland, Tony’s brother had unearthed a recording of Tony’s father playing piano and his grandfather playing twin keyed melodeon singing Scot songs in the most beautiful voice. So he does actually have it in the blood.

FP:

Gest8. How long has the band been going now?

SE:

We started it about 18 months ago but we have only done one gig. Originally there were all sorts of reasons we wanted to get it together. Tony and I had really enjoyed working together in Clarion Fracture Zone and when Tony got ill we decided not to continue with ‘Clarion Fracture Zone’ which was actually heartbreaking for all of us. We have a beautiful friendship with Alister Spence and a very close musical relationship too. We felt that band very much depended for its identity on the three of us as personalities and as players and if Tony wasn’t going to be there performing, we wanted to sort of honour his memory really by not continuing with the Band. But having said that, there were a lot of ideas in the music that we wanted to continue developing, plus as you observed, I’ve done a lot of things in the last seven years. Tony wasn’t having so much opportunity to compose and he is a fantastic composer and we love working together. We seem to have kind of complementary styles you know. Not the same by any means but he sort of does the oranges and I do the apples and we end up with the fruit basket at the end of the day. So we decided to think about putting a small large band together. The largest band that we thought we could actually handle and I guess it was a really exciting opportunity because we know so many great musicians and there are so many directions we could go. What we ended up choosing I guess was a combination of people who we’d known for a long time like Steve Elphick the bass player. I’ve known Steve pretty much since I started playing and Tony’s known Steve for a long time too. Then some people that we hadn’t worked with so much like Carl Dewhurst. I’ve known Carl for a few years in the Australian Art Orchestra and I think he’s an extraordinary musician. It was also an intersection of a lot of different things that we’re both interested in. For me, my interest in Asian music has been evolving mostly through playing with Satsuki Odamura the Koto player. To call Satsuki an Asian musician is quite wrong I think because she’s an amazing improviser that transcends the cultural or national boundaries. She’s just an amazing musician.

FP:

Is she Korean or Japanese?

SE:

Japanese. So because I’d been working with Satsuki in a trio, I knew some of the possibilities for the Koto to put it in a more of a Jazz environment and I thought that would be fun and as it turned out, that’s worked really well and her and Carl have a great musical interplay. Like two kids in a sand pit. It’s fantastic this interaction between the guitar and koto. So that’s one whole layer of the band. Then we’ve got Greg White doing computers. I’ve worked a lot with Greg with Roger Dean in ‘Australysis’ so I’ve always been interested in sampling and keyboards and you know from my first band ‘Women and Children First’, it’s often been a component of projects that I’ve had. It’s been interesting to watch the development of the technology over the years, so that now it’s a radically different story from what it used to be and Greg’s coincidentally having his 50

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birthday on the night of this gig. He’s been through all the analogue days and he’s totally versed with all the latest computer technology. He was originally a Jazz guitarist so he’s got a Jazz sensibility in quite a big way so his input is very very interesting. Then we’ve got three horn players. Myself, Paul Cutlan playing bass clarinet, e Flat clarinet and tenor in the band. Paul is a very very versatile player with extraordinary skill and he’s just been one guy who’s just been ‘blossoming’ to use you word. It’s been amazing to watch his development. Then we’ve got Phil Slater who is another amazing guy. A great trumpet player. A real thinker. Conceptually he’s very advanced in terms of how he thinks about improvisation and how he places himself in any given context. So we’ve got people who can deal with conceptual challenges as well as have a good time in the music. Then Simon Barker is playing drums. Tony used to play with Simon and Steve in Michelle Morgan’s group ‘Chelac Compound’. They played together for a long time. Simon is such a mature musician and Simon also has a connection to Asian music through spending a lot of time in Korea and he’s studied Korean shaman music particularly drumming. So he’s an amazing Jazz player and he’s also got very eclectic interests, so we’re a bit of a hodge podge.

FP:

You’ve actually toured South Korea haven’t you?

SE:

I went to Korea twice with Gai Bryant actually and loved it. The second time we went, Gai went and spent a couple of months there studying with a flute player and she organised us to perform with him, so we did get to have a little insight into traditional Korean music. I knew nothing about it before I went and it blew my mind. All the ornamentation in his playing was so intricate and so beautiful and tied very closely to what the drummers would do. I knew nothing I must confess.

FP:

But it’s even coming through on your album ‘Not in the Mood’

SE:

You’re right. I transcribed a Korean Chant and in that chant I heard a real similarity to Coltrane’s music and I thought I’d like to try putting it together with a kind of Elvin Jones feel.

FP:

I always found that ‘Clarion Fracture Zone’s’ music had a great sense of humour in it. Can listeners to Gest8 expect that same sense of humour?

SE:

Yes

FP:

What’s your repertoire like so far?

SE:

Tony has a piece called ‘The emperors old clothes’ and actually it’s a little Henry Threadgill inspired and it’s a really good tune. It’s quite rocky, but that doesn’t tell you what it is at all. But the music, quite a lot of it is fun, some of it is beautiful and introspective. Some of it is funny and it’s very hard to describe. Actually a friend of someone in the band came to the gig at the Opera House (Jazz Now Festival August 2004) and actually said that it was the best gig they had been to in their life because they never knew what was coming next. I think with a band with that combination of instruments and that sort of range of experience in the players, really as composers we just have to give them the nice space to play in and we can’t really go wrong. So it’s a mixture of all sorts of things. Tony has a piece called ‘Kaleidoscope’ which is a Latin song written on the changes of ‘Giant Steps’ (John Coltrane). He doesn’t like anybody to think about it in those terms. He just wants it to be it’s own tune. So there’s that connection to the Jazz history in a sense but he’d hate to hear me say that.

FP:

But he loves Be Bop doesn’t he?

SE:

Yes and older Jazz too. We’re both big fans of trad Jazz, swing and we see a continuum in the history of the music. I think that was one thing that did come out in ‘Clarion Fracture Zone’ was that sue we were quite a modern band avant-garde in some regards but we definitely as you say appreciated the humour, the fun and the life within ourselves and in older music.

FP:

Gest8. Still in it’s embryonic stage?

SE:

Yes we don’t know whether we need to change the name once it’s sort of born.