Jazz and Beyond / archive
Conversations with the musicians behind the music.
32written interviews · 118 audio interview linksThese interviews were published as recordings. The links open their historical Wayback captures.
'...Ella Fitzgerald - she was such an instrument and she really used her voice as an instrument and that's what really inspired me...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Someone once said to me "if I shut my eyes I could swear it was a man playing the trumpet"...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The neighbour down the hall from me Patience Higgins is a great saxophone player who played in the Duke Ellington Orchestra...'
Listen to archived recording →'...He was almost anti-theory, which is actually what I wanted to learn from him...'
Listen to archived recording →'...He is very musical and he is very talented with his instruments...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The work of Jelly Roll Morton is equal to any classical composer that you can name...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Jazz is about being in the moment...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Anybody who is gonna be a swinging singer with some power and know how to drive a big band around, you're gonna have to listen to Sinatra...'
Listen to archived recording →"...Judy Baily used to put it down to the Volcanos..." Previous interview - 17/3/2011 Previous interview - 25/7/2004
Listen to archived recording →'...The music from Cuba is so rich...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I like all that dirty deep stuff that Mingus is great at too...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The soldiers were kind of excited about this prospect of travelling...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Ella Fitzgerald is a big influence for me vocally...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Jobim used to say composing is 10% inspiration and 90% hard work...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Bill Evans and Marc Ribot meet the Dirty Three is the best way I can describe it...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Part of being a jazz musician, I mean you're already miles away from the mainstream...' Listen Matt's previous interview (14/9/2009)
Listen to archived recording →'...Conceptually I am very influenced by Miles...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I Often write the title before any music is written...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I want the richness and sound to be as important as the notes...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I believe in this music and bringing it to people for a greater purpose...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I was overwhelmed to receive that award...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I was learning Metallica songs on the piano...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I used to make more in 1983 as a band fee than you do now...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I've listened to some pretty extreme music over the years...'
Listen to archived recording →'...It's about selecting the right notes to make a message...'
Listen to archived recording →'...They turned the Manly ferry into a night club...'
Listen to archived recording →'...It wouldn't happen if people were trying to make money out of it...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I went to a Wagner festival in Germany a couple of years ago to see some opera...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The tenor saxophone seems to be like the electric guitar of the Rock and Roll world...'
Listen to archived recording →'...With Chris [Abrahams] we just chat about the weather, really not about the music at all...' Listen Alister's previous interview (18/10/2012)
Listen to archived recording →'..."At [the] start she had to bribe me with chocolate bars to improvise"...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I'm trying to make myself happy, as opposed to others and as a result, I think the performance is more honest...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Sampling technology has been part of our sound since the very first Clarion Fracture Zone CD...'
Listen to archived recording →'....I feel almost like I'm in heaven when I listen to Jazz Music...'
Listen to archived recording →'...We were leading a sordid double life. The affair had to end...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I didn't choose it. It chose me...'
Listen to archived recording →'...It's just a compulsion....when you're a creative person you have to express those things that are inside...'
Listen to archived recording →'...He manages to melt my heart with one note...' Listen Tim's previous interview (15/11/2011)
Listen to archived recording →'...I hardly use a pencil anymore...'
Listen to archived recording →'...As a kid growing up I was always in strife [because] I was endlessly inquisitive...'
Listen to archived recording →'...You really need to be comfortable being a little fish in a big ocean...'
Listen to archived recording →'...My manager says I'm not allowed to busk anymore...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Sean [Wayland] was a teacher who was trying to encourage me not to become a jazz musician because he'd look in his diary and he'd realise he didn't have enough money to pay his rent...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I learned jazz from Ella Fitzgerald CD's...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The whole point of studying with Michael Carvin was to open up my playing and to free it and to make it sound like Andrew Dickeson...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Actually I started playing trumpet first...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I would like to think that I'm treated seriously as a saxophonist as well...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Jazz just makes sense in the States and specifically in New York...' Listen Adrian's previous interview (19/4/2010) Read Adrian's interview (24/4/2005)
Listen to archived recording →"We don't have massive attention spans. Facebook and You Tube have made me like that"
Listen to archived recording →"There's none of this rivalry that saxophone players often get into" Read Matt's previous interview (18/7/2004)
Listen to archived recording →"I really like to get one fat band sound happening together"
Listen to archived recording →"I do mistakes in every song, but I can laugh about this because I take a lot of risks on stage and this is the fun part"
Listen to archived recording →"Do I talk about the Jazz Police or not?"
Listen to archived recording →"I think that Jazz musicians are often too concerned about what the other musicians think, rather than what everyone else thinks"
Listen to archived recording →"It's really hard to pay tribute to someone, yet still try and sound like yourself" Previous interview - 21/06/2010
Listen to archived recording →"I don't see 'compromise' as being a dirty word - It's not 'what' to but 'how' to" Previous interview - 25/7/2004
Listen to archived recording →"I started to fall in love with jazz harmony and how it challenged me"
Listen to archived recording →"I just started checking out jazz just because I wanted to be a better rock guitar player"
Listen to archived recording →"I started playing some Be-bop, sitting in one day at the age of sixteen, they all covered their ears"
Listen to archived recording →"Composing is something that I feel compelled to do..."
Listen to archived recording →"I've always loved dance music and electronic music..."
Listen to archived recording →"Jazz is always looking to the future and points the ways to the new possibilities of sound..."
Listen to archived recording →"...It's hard to go past someone like Tony Williams for me..."
Listen to archived recording →"...I love listening to Kenny Baron..."
Listen to archived recording →"...Playing jazz is a very giving thing..."
Listen to archived recording →"...My mum's a painter and my dad's a sculptor and they raised a family of four kids on art alone..."
Listen to archived recording →'...I tend to call it Rock Jazz to Jazz Rock...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I would like to bet that most guys couldn't even name one Oscar Peterson original...'
Listen to archived recording →'...If you're gonna be into jazz guitar, you've got to go back to Charlie Christian...'
Listen to archived recording →'...My dad is an old rocker from the 1960's...'
Listen to archived recording →'...For me it would be like speaking French and not moving to France to further yourself...'
Listen to archived recording →'...If you're not sure about jazz go and see it live...'
Listen to archived recording →"...We are always playing around with different beats when Bandika is around..."
Listen to archived recording →'...Everyone compares me to Grapelli...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I remember finding this old beaten up cornet in the back of the linen closet and I felt so bizarre that I never talked to anyone about it...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Jazz has always been, and has come from a searching for ones own voice...'
Listen to archived recording →'...All people who listen to music are sort of equal...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I'm a complicated person, but I try to be a simple piano player...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Jazz today is a tapestry of so many different cultures...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Dianne Reeves and Kurt Elling are major influences on the way I try to interpret songs...'
Listen to archived recording →'...My audience is not really a jazz crowd, so what I want to do is take them with me into the jazz world in a way that's accessible and not too scary and say to them - look we're improvising...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I'd love to make a record with solar power...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The first tenor saxophone that I can remember really clearly listening to was the stuff on Pink Floyd...'
Listen to archived recording →'...For the first time ever we have gone on the road with a brand new rhythm section entirely...'
Listen to archived recording →'...It seemed like [Sydney was] the Mecca of Australian contemporary music...'
Listen to archived recording →'...10000 hours is the minimum needed to achieve musical excellence on an instrument...' Listen the first interview '...You can't really choose what goes in and to an even greater extent you can't choose what comes out...' Listen the second interview
Listen to archived recording →'...It's hard to have jazz people accept us wholeheartedly...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I did not ride a horse, so I had a bit of spare time to practice...'
Listen to archived recording →'...One of the biggest downers for us was the introduction of poker machines. They would rather put poker machines, make lots of money that way rather than have a band in the corner...'
Listen to archived recording →'... I played golf with Sadao Watanabe...'
Listen to archived recording →'...The kids who are now 20 – 25 [years of age], they have 100's of world-class musicians to listen to 'here'. In other words jazz stopped being something that was done 'over there'...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I just love that old style standard verse that's romantic and yet simple...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Sometimes they almost look like they are a bit embarrassed to be up on stage...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I always try to play something that is beautiful...'
Listen to archived recording →'...In the moment you're playing - thats the art!...'
Listen to archived recording →'...I've never gone into a record date trying to make a definitive record...'
Listen to archived recording →'...In life and in music I've always been happiest when I've ignored those rules...'
Listen to archived recording →'...An improviser knows when they're being honest. Basically, I suppose thats what I aim for, honesty in playing music...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Duke Ellington once said that there were only two types of music: good music and bad music...'
Listen to archived recording →'...Revolution is always bloody...'
Listen to archived recording →'...One thing I'm really interested in is branching out from a jazz foundation...' Frank Presley's interview with Sandy Evans 14 th 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 th 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.
Listen to archived recording →23/09/2007: '...As a youngster I was a guitarist so I listened to a lot of 70's + early 80's rock...' 02/06/2006: '...I don't mind hecklers, it makes the gig a lot more fun...'
Listen to archived recording →23/09/2007: '...The rate of pay for musicians hasn't gone up since the 1970's...' 20/08/2006: '...You don't have to live in New York to be a thriving jazz musician...'
Listen to archived recording →'...If it's a thing of beauty then it's art...'
Listen to archived recording →'Suddenly I was improvising and I [said] "That's what I want to do"...'
Listen to archived recording →'You know it's funny - Warne Marsh was a swimming pool teacher...'
Listen to archived recording →'It's really just the music that we play and it definitely appeals to people...'
Listen to archived recording →'The more you listen to music and the more you write about it, the more you have that knowledge...'
Listen to archived recording →'Everything I do is completely accessible to everyone...'
Listen to archived recording →'We always think of our music as World Jazz...'
Listen to archived recording →'Throughout that entire tune, I take myself on the journey...'
Listen to archived recording →'When you are playing for a German audience you can hear a pin drop most of the time...'
Listen to archived recording →'The way we compose in the studio, nine times out of ten we stare at each other and see what ideas come out...'
Listen to archived recording →'I usually find myself thinking "Should I be doing less?"'
Listen to archived recording →"I really feel I have to be able to relate to the lyrics..."
Listen to archived recording →"For everyone there that saw the concert, it just had everything"
Listen to archived recording →"It's a matter of finding yourself in the music..."
Listen to archived recording →"I picked Frank's album up, toddled over to my mother and said 'Daddy'..."
Listen to archived recording →