Jazzwise Sneak Peek

• COBHAM
• Brings Spectrum ON W
• 50 To Cheltenham
• PLUS:
• NEIL COWLEY TRIO
• Excite With Entity
• Nubya Garcia
• A New Symphonic Odyssey
• Mark Kavuma

On The Album That Changed His Musical Life

Chuck Taylor

Billy's Full

Spectrum Dominance

Remarkably, Billy Cobham turned 80 in May but

- with a busy year of touring including a headline spot at this year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival -you wouldn't know it. Ahead of all that, he opens up to Stuart Nicholson in an exclusive interview, covering his early life in military bands, tours with Horace Silver, getting fired from the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and his classic jazz-rock album Spectrum was fired from Mahavishnu," says drum legend Billy Cobham matter-of-factly. After the band played Detroit on 23 December 1973, the musicians went their separate ways. McLaughlin, chastened by the experience, set about regrouping in early 1974.

"It was time for me to be gone," continues Cobham. "Even though I was told I was going to be in the band, the next thing I knew my last cheque bounced, and I got a message saying, 'you're no longer with us'; that's the way management works, and still does today I guess."

It was a strange ending for a band whose music had, in the space of three short years, redefined the possibilities of jazz-rock. While guitarist John McLaughlin brought a stunning technique and a deep harmonic understanding to the music - "I was conscious of what I wanted to do, the way I wanted to play, nobody else was doing," he told weekly newspaper Melody Maker - Billy Cobham was similarly taking jazz drumming to the next level. If Tony Williams had been the drummer of the 1960s, then Cobham raised the bar with performances such as 'Meeting of the Spirits' from Mahavishnu's debut Inner Mounting Flame and 'One Word' from follow-up Birds of Fire, become the undisputed drummer of the 1970s.

That's how Weather Report came together, that's how Mahavishnu came together, that's how Eleventh House came together - just co-operations just for the hell of it, and for the love it //

Mahavishnu's intensity, tremendous volume, challenging time signatures and sheer velocity of execution forced Cobham, as he would later admit, to compete physically in terms of stamina and speed, his performances a vital element in the success of musicians contemplate in how-does-he-do-it wonder. With the fiftieth anniversary of the release of his hit album Spectrum last year he has once again returned to the touring circuit, and UK audiences will have an opportunity of seeing a living legend as he headlines at the Love Supreme Festival on Saturday 6 July and at his 80th birthday celebration at the EFG London Jazz Festival on Wednesday 20 November at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Billy Cobham was born in Panama City on 16 May 1944, but was raised in Brooklyn from the age of three.

In those formative years he had two main interests: music and baseball.

"I worked in marching bands as a young person. It was one of the things that kept me off the street.

the band.

He massively expanded his drum kit with two bass drums; and the SA array of tuned tom-toms spread out in front were not for decoration. His renowned technical prowess enabled blisteringly fast fills around his tom-toms that still sound awesome today and were imitated by drummers around the world. As the Percussive Arts Society noted, "Billy Cobham is one of the very few who can be called a pivotal drummer in music history. He changed the way we set up our drums and cymbals, he changed the way we play them and he changed the way we play music."

Ever since his halcyon days in the 1970s and 1980s, Cobham's performances have been the stuff of legend, combining the techniques of jazz with the visceral

I played baseball in contests everywhere, that's the thing with being young, you really want to be the best at what you do," he reflects. Precociously talented, he passed the entrance examination for New York's High School Of Music And Art at the age of 14, an institution that attracted talented students across all New York boroughs, "I walked in with my rudimental procedures off pat because I worked extensively in marching bands. When I attended, my colleagues were Jimmy Owens, Eddie Gomez, Larry Willis - a great jazz pianist but he was a voice major then - Janis Ian, Laura Nyro, Fred Lipsius from Blood Sweat & Tears, Lew Soloff, power of rock, a compelling duality that audiences love and Billy behind his signature kit - Photo courtesy billycobham.com

Jazzwise ■ July 2024 - 19

TAMA

Bobby Colomby, there was a whole bunch of them, Al Foster, the list goes on, all working their way to graduation. Warren Smith was a teacher there, a great percussionist with Gil Evans. It was perfect for me, not only was it a music school but it was also an art school, so the late Jeremy Steig, known for being proficient playing the flute, was actually a painter. He was studying painting, but he was a good flute player, made some great records. In a situation like in High School, the requirement was that you play together with your colleagues, and to be really good at contributing as a participant; so therefore my foundation was very strong.

They had Billy Cobham, who was a sensation, he could create these kind of pyrotechnic things people had never heard before and when Michael Brecker soloed it was so far ahead!"

- Mike Mainieri on Cobham's time in the band Dreams

20 Jazzwise July 2024

"In that kind of environment you learn a lot of things and actually your teachers help you refine them because they are your colleagues. Being young, the competitive element is very high, you don't want to be following everybody else, you want to be right in the middle of it all rubbing elbows with the best. There was a jazz orchestra called the Marshall Brown Newport Youth Band, and that band was mostly made up of all the kids from my school, and they played the Newport Jazz Festival every year and you're sitting in an environment where - from my own class was Eddie, Eddie Gomez the bassist, and behind him, sitting right behind him, was Richard Ten Ryk, later known as Richard Tee who played keyboards for Paul Simon, and he also a lot with a band called Stuff - that was who he was. It was just that kind of environment, and the beauty of it all was you didn't have to pay anything to go to school there, it was one of the special schools the Mayor of New York had way back in the 1940s, a guy named Fiorello LaGuardia, and he created special schools in the humanities, in the arts, for kids into chemistry and the sciences."

Cobham graduated in 1962: "I was 18 years old, I was just looking for jobs, that's 1962, so '63, I'm still looking, just playing around with local bands and stuff like this, and taking on jobs just to help my family out as best I could until a crazy thing happened, and that was the assassination of President Kennedy. That took a toll on me, and at that time was the Vietnam war, so I knew if I didn't do something to take care of myself I would end up carrying a rifle.

"So I decided to take the examination for the United States Army Band in Washington, and I was fortunate enough to pass and join the army band. And there a lot of schooling began, because I was in the midst of a great group of musicians that also had the same idea - Cecil Bridgewater played trumpet, Grover Washington played not just saxophone but he played bass as well, and a lot arrangers and writers, making up what we needed to do to take care of the USO. It was an organisation to entertain the troops, and I was lucky enough to teach a little music in the Naval School which got me through my time.

"I left the army in January 1968, and I was on the road with Horace Silver at the end of that month until December of the same year, where the last date I played was actually at Ronnie Scott's at the end of that month after a very long tour - at least for me! I think we did 45 shows with Horace Silver and a junket of bands - Horace, Max Roach's Quartet, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, a gospel group called The Stars of Faith, and the Elvin Jones Trio with Jimmy Garrison and Joe Farrell. We were all on the bus together. From England we started and had to get a ferry or fly to and from the continent. That's what I remember about that. A lot of time to pull things together, and all the people involved in those groups, either you gotta to be deaf or totally dumb if you don't get something out of that!"

On his return to the States, Cobham began taking on dates as a studio musician, as life on the road held few charms for him. Initially working for Atlantic Records, he also did a lot of work CTI Records - he was on 67 albums between 1969-73, with 20 in 1973 alone.

"In New York there was an industry known as studio musicians, and that's what I thought I wanted to do. I thought if I could excel at that I could be home each day, and that was all okay. What was beautiful about doing stuff for Creed Taylor was that we were working with musicians at a higher level of proficiency, so the chances are you're going to like the first or second solos that these guys played, no question about it, and it didn't take a whole

Top: Cobham in the studio, early 1980s; bottom: with the Mahavishnu Ochestra, 1972

lot of time if you have a front line of - hypothetically - Joe Henderson, J.J Johnson and Freddie Hubbard. The thank-yous you get are not in words. When someone calls you on the phone and asks you, 'Are you free tomorrow for a session that starts at 10am, probably a double session, that's your thank-you for the things which you did before. They don't say, 'that sounds good, no, they ask you to come tomorrow. That's it.

"After while I grew stale, and things were changing anyway because of rock n' roll, so I ended up on the road with a series of things I felt I could be a better contributor at"

After he played on one of the Bitches Brew tracks (as well as a number of outtakes), Miles Davis tried to persuade Cobham to join his band. "I really wanted to go out on the road with Miles but on the other side I made the decision, 'what is best for me'; I wasn't that kind of roamer, I couldn't just go out and wait until he decided when we were playing, where we were playing, how much we're getting - something about it just didn't sit right with me, so

I just didn't do it, that's all."

In the event he went briefly with the band called Birdsong, before joining Dreams, with Michael Brecker on tenor sax, John Abercrombie on guitar.

Vibist Mike Mainieri, a close friend of Brecker, saw Dreams several times, stating: "You've got to realise they had Billy Cobham, who was a sensation; he could create these kind of pyrotechnic things people had never heard before and when Michael soloed it was so far ahead!"

The band were signed by Clive Davis of Columbia, made two albums and broke up.

"We did have a good time, that band was a great band, and the same thing goes for the Mahavishnu Orchestra," reflects Cobham. "John McLaughlin came to me with some ideas, "I have something, do you want to check this out?' I had time, I was subbing for people like Grady Tate and things like that back then, 'Are you free today, 'Yeah, what's up?' We all lived down in Greenwich Village or down on the West Side, everyone tended to live in this same basic neighbourhood, and there was always something going on - 'Let's do this, 'Let's try that' And that's how Weather Report came together, that's how Mahavishnu came together, that's how Eleventh House came together - just co-operations just for the hell of it, and for the love it. I was honoured to be in the middle of all that stuff at that time." Without a job after his three years with Mahavishnu, Cobham decided to return to studio work: "If I was going to go back into this field, they're not going to know me, time goes past very quickly in the studios, people forget quickly, so I wanted to do a recording of what I did as a sampler, and that's what Spectrum was supposed to be, as far as I was concerned. I handed it out to one or two people, but primarily it was for Mom and Dad - 'Hey, I made a record!' - and that was it. Six months later, I'm in the studios anyway and people kept telling me my record was good and I thought they were referring to records I had recorded in support of other artists on, until the head of artist development at Atlantic phoned and said, 'Where have you been? We've been trying to find you."

Without Cobham knowing, Spectrum (1973), reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Jazz Albums chart and No. 26 on the Top 200 Albums chart. With encouragement from the record company he formed a band to tour the album: "Naturally I called

Cobham: handy with sticks, handy with his hands

John [Abercrombie], the Brecker Brothers, people that I knew, and said, 'Come on, let's go out and do this!' No problem. It was easy. I was out there by myself, and I had to do what I could, we made it work."

Last year was the 50th anniversary of Spectrum, and naturally enough Cobham formed the Spectrum 50 band to celebrate the occasion. But when he takes the stage for the Billy Cobham at 80 celebration at the EFG London Jazz Festival in November it will be an ambition fulfilled as he will be performing his compositions with a full orchestra.

"Billy has always said he would love to perform his compositions with a symphony orchestra during the time I have known him," says trumpeter, arranger and composer Guy Barker. "Then he phoned out of the blue to say, 'We can do it!' So I am arranging the music for his Spectrum 50 Quartet plus the BBC Concert Orchestra plus my big band, so it will be quite a lot of people on the stage! We will be dong new orchestrations of repertoire including 'Red Baron, 'Spectrum, 'Crosswinds, 'Stratus, and 'A Funky Thide of Sings' plus new material he has written, such as 'Mirage' for example. The man is a living legend, he really is, and this show will be something special."

Your Billy Cobham Playlist

When Mahavishnu Orchestra's debut album Inner Mounting Flame was released in November 1971, nothing like it had been heard before in jazz - virtuosity reinforced by intensity and an astonishing degree of ensemble cohesion. It was the start of Cobham's global fame and the beginning of his far-reaching influence on generations of drummers, equivalent to John McLaughlin's effect on guitar players.

Jazzwise Editor-in-Chief and Cobham buff Jon Newey has compiled an extensive Spotify playlist covering the highlights of Cobham's storied and hugely varied career, from Horace Silver and Mahavishnu to electric Miles, the mega-seller Spectrum and beyond. Simply scan the QR code with your mobile to listen!

Photo: Tim Dickeson billy

Jazzwise July 2024 ▪ 21

BACK WITH A BANG!

Neil Cowley has decided to re-form his famous trio after performing and recording as a solo artist for seven years. Here he tells Andy Robson why, and what he hopes to achieve...

24 Jazzwise November 2024

The Neil Cowley Trio are back. It's seven years since Cowley broke up the band for a 'solo' career. But now they're in our faces again, as brazen, ballsy and ecstatic as ever with the gloriously melancholic Entity, The sounds are big, the beards bigger and future plans bigger still. Yet Cowley, in his English way, still swims in doubt. "I've questioned every step of the way, this re-uniting of the trio. Is it a step back? A step forward? A comeback?" he asks. When Cowley went into the solo side of his life in 2017, he was hardly to know that it would presage the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, which was also the year his solo debut Hall of Mirrors dropped. But with lockdown, Cowley had no choice whether he was 'solo' or not.

"I didn't enjoy a single moment of that solitude," he says. "I lived opposite a headmaster. He'd sit in the garden saying, "I could do this for the rest of my life!' I was thinking 'Well I couldn't!"

Over time, Cowley asked. "What is the socially most active thing I can do? The socially most cohesive group that I know? And it had to be the Trio."

But returning to 'social discourse, Cowley's description, didn't have to be alongside Rex Horan's bass and Evan Jenkins drums? Cowley had long been a serial collaborator across many genres before the trio hit the scene in 2006. Yet he never had a moment's doubt about bringing his Antipodean brothers in rhythm back to the fold.

"It was dangerous getting back together. I didn't want to break up the band again," he explains. "It was all the cause and effect of my own neurosis. But Evan and Rex support me in beautiful ways. Evan is like Tigger, bouncing up and down Yeah, mate, I can do that. Which I need. Rex has a musical brain the size of a planet. If I get his approval, I know it's for real." But with the complex Cowley rivers run deep. There's a reason he calls Horan and Jenkins 'brothers'.

"When I made that decision (to go solo), a lot of people cut me off; media wise, general contact wise it was a severe cut off. "There was a certain amount of hubris on my part. A management team came along who had big ambitions that I could be even bigger. I look back at it as an ugly instinct. "I'm more at ease with who I am now. I'm enjoying the essence of just doing it (making music) and not going off in different directions.

Yet Cowley has no regrets about his explorations into electronics and contemporary classical music.

"I'd guess you'd call what I was doing neo-classical..." he says. "I wanted to explore sonically what I could do on my own. 'Grace' the solo piano tune was such a massive thing for me."

Cowley's connection to classical music goes back to when, "the borough's music adviser (Eric Stephenson) campaigned to find talent in places you didn't expect to find it. Like Hillingdon! When he found me and couple of others, he proved the talent was there.

"But when I went to the Royal Academy, I didn't feel one of them. Partly 'cause of this accent. I didn't like the culture; I didn't like the people surrounding me. I was always on the outside.

Stephenson taught Cowley for free, and during his brief teenage stay at the Academy, he also had teachers like Jean Anderson, "whom I've adored ever since. But

It was dangerous getting back together. I didn't want to break up the band again

I was still a fish out of water."

Stephenson "taught me a lot of Russian and Eastern music. A schizophrenic element of me was that when I went out, I put on this hat that said I was a 'classical prodigy. But I never really wanted to be that.

"At home [with his mother] we'd be listening to James Brown, Errol Garner, who's still a huge hero, Dudley Moore and what he thought about Garner and Oscar Peterson. All this while me mum was playing Fats Waller and we'd be dancing in the front room to him.

"And all this while loving and learning Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 (which he performed at the Royal Festival Hall aged 10.) So, both things were going on. And when you look at how I compose, the syncopation, the clusters of 5ths down at the bottom end, the nasty little 10ths chords that Errol Garner played 'cause he didn't know what he was doing, bless him...then there's the delayed right hand he always played against the metronomic left which I analysed and analysed just like Dudley Moore.

"Whether you want it or not you'll always hear that in me, always that duplicity!" smiles Cowley, "the heart-felt jazz-soul- blues stuff: and then the head, the classical."

It would be easy, lazy even, to lay this duality (Cowley uses 'duplicity' and 'schizophrenia' to describe himself, but he's tough about his own emotions) at the door of Cowley's upbringing.

Printed for mike from Jazzwise - November 2024 at exacteditions.com. Copyright © 2024

Neil Cowley was born to a caring, nurturing mum after she had a brief affair with Max Miller's musical director. His father, who led a trio, never told his own family of their half-brother's existence. So, there were secrets within secrets for Cowley.

"Every fortnight he would call from a phone box, tell me a joke and the pips would go before he got to the punch line. And every couple years we'd go to Brighton (to meet him)."

That sense of being apart, yet a part of a wider family, seems vital to Cowley's musical trajectory.

"I met Dad's children when I was about 32. They are 25 years older than me. And I realised that my Dad, being the ego-centric that he was, they never got a look in at the piano! He was always on it! Whereas I was left to prosper on my own at the piano.

"I sat down for two months, honing this and that, not sharing with anyone. I always need to do that deal with my own doubts otherwise I get waylaid by the opinion of others. I'm a control freak. It's not great to admit. But I know that now."

The music that bloomed for Entity is epic, yet intimate, hopeful, yet laced with yearning, high energy yet at times diaphanous. It's all those 'dualities' that make Cowley so listenable and the Trio so loved.

And of course, Entity busts any sense of 'genre. Cowley may say, "I've always had trouble fitting into a 'genre. I've always felt that any genre I've dipped into people have said, 'Are you really one of us?' And I may think, 'Do I want to be one of you?" But that's Cowley's gift: to yoke together different styles and traditions, from Shostakovich to Errol Garner. And from that he's created his own music. He is his own genre now, "So, I think I'm quite an experiment genetically. I got so much genetically from Dad. I don't want to disparage him: he was a magnificent fellah. But in a way there was a bit of fire in me that I bordering on the transcendent. was going to be better than him."

"Sub-consciously I used the angst as a driving force in my twenties. So, when I did announce myself (to his half-siblings) I worried I might lose my edge. But it didn't soften me that much!" But Cowley now has his own family, with adult creative children, and he lives in what he calls "a quintessentially English Village. One thing I won't do is live on the coast. When I visited Dad in Brighton, it always rained." He laughs. But ruefully.

Indeed, most of Entity was written at home, another novelty for Cowley.

"I have a little room at the end of the garden," so he's close to domestic delights but slightly separated.

"My grandfather lived in a chicken coop at the end of the garden. He had 9 children. Everyone needs their chicken coop!

L-R: Rex Horan, Neil Cowley and Evan Jenkins

Printed for mike from Jazzwise - November 2024 at exacteditions.com. Copyright © 2024

"That's good to hear! I want to point people to the universal rather than what is on the ground. We are utterly ludicrous as a species to think we are any more important than that mote of dust over there. We are ridiculous and laughable, and I love that! It gives you a sense of wonder!"

There was a reason Ray Brown nicknamed Garner "The Happy Man. And it may just be Cowley has found his happy place. Perhaps. Possibly. It's the swimming in doubt that keeps us going. And a sense of duty to the Jean Andersons and Eric Stephensons of the world.

We all need our feet on the ground- and our head in the stars.

The Neil Cowley Trio play Earth, Hackney on 19 November as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival

Jazzwise November 2024 25

"Clark Terry's sound, his phrasing, his articulation, wasn't like anything I had ever heard before."

The trumpeter and Banger Factory Records boss Mark Kavuma tells Brian Glasser that it's an album by Clark Terry and Thelonious Monk that changed his life hen I knew that I was going to do this [interview], I thought "There can only be onel'

The record has been one of the biggest albums in my development and who I am as a musician: In Orbit by Clark Terry and Thelonious Monk. It's funny, it's an album that not many people know about it. There's not that many albums with a trumpet leading a quartet - there are some, of course, but it tends to be quintets. For me, it put things into perspective of what's possible. I stumbled upon it almost by accident - a friend of mine gave me a hard drive with a lot of Thelonious Monk albums to check out, and I came across In Orbit when I was going through that. I was around 19. It resonated with me the first time I heard it; and I kept on coming back to it because it combines all the musical things that I'm about. There's a lot of gospel influence in there - for example, Trust In Me' - or shall we say spiritual, because I don't know if they were particularly church-based musicians. There is that feeling in the music, and that is a big part of my childhood and my musical identity.

I'm a sucker for melody, and this album is strong on that too. I'm a big fan of Clark Terry - he's one of my top five trumpet players; and he is almost the ultimate melody weaver. The way he approaches it is great. His sound, his phrasing, his articulation, wasn't like anything I had ever heard before. My main influences when I started the trumpet - or when I got into jazz, shall we say, at around 15 - were Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. Clifford Brown's got a very distinct double-tongue and triple-tongue technique, and an amazing range. Miles'

34 Jazzwise ■ November 2024 range is not maybe as big, but his sound is crystal clear. And lesson one in trumpet playing is, 'It's all about sound'. I couldn't sit down and get anywhere near imitating Clark Terry! I thought, 'What's going on?!" And that drew me in. It's because he uses the doodle- tonguing system, to be technical. When I heard it, that was the first thing I noticed. Because that's not the way that most people from a classical background train. So this album resonated for me because of all that Having encountered it, I went into a deep dive of Clark Terry, and came to understand his whole system, and it blew my mind - it's so personalised. I'm a big fan of Thelonious Monk, too - one of my all-time favourite musicians. I really took on how he approaches composition. How Monk accompanies Clark Terry has really influenced me a lot too. When you hear it, you go: 'That's Monk!! I wanted that for myself - people to recognise something as me. Those things immediately hit me when I first put it on. Clark Terry is a very happy. joyful uplifting spirit. Monk is quite serious, maybe somewhat misunderstood, full of contrasts.

Anyway, the two personalities come through. They're very different and there's beauty in there; and that resonated for me. This all happened when I was just applying for Trinity College Of Music and it was a pivotal moment in my life where I thought trumpet - or music - was the direction I was going. It was, 'Right, I'm going to get serious about this, I'm going to pursue this. So for me, particularly at that time, this album reinforced the importance of personality, which was a big thing: 'Whatever I do, it has to have my personality.

When I was approaching my first album, and everything I've done since, has been trying to get across through the music what's inside me. This was the album that set me on that path.

I bought it on iTunes so that I could have it on all my devices. I'd listen to the album pretty much every day at one stage; and I've always come back to it. However I'm feeling, I can put on this album and it makes me go: 'Yes - that's why I'm doing it!', Mark Kavuma play the Parabola Arts Centre as part of the Cheltenham Jazz Festival

• IN ORBIT
• CLARK TERRY
• THELONIOUS
• MONK

Clark Terry with Thelonious Monk In Orbit

Riverside (1958)

PERSONNEL: Clark Terry (flhn); Thelonious Monk (p); Sam Jones (b) and Philly Joe Jones (d).

TRACKS: 'In Orbit', 'One Foot In The Gutter', 'Trust In Me', 'Let's Cool One', 'Pea-Eye', 'Argentia, 'Moonlight Fiesta', 'Buck's Business, 'Very Near Blue' and 'Flugelin' The Blues.

Nubya Garcia

Odyssey

Concord Jazz 726261 (CD, 2LP, DL) ★★★★ EDITOR'S CHOICE

Nubya Garcia (ts) plus various personnel including Joe Armon-Jones (ky), Daniel

Casimir (b), Sam Jones (d), plus strings. Rec. date not stated

This new album from the multi-award-winning tenorist, bandleader and composer, Nubya

Garcia, which follows her 2020 release on Concord Jazz, Source, represents an inspiring sonic leap forward. As well as pulsating modal workouts ("The Seer'), there's real melodic beauty, too, from 'Set It Free' (featuring London-based vocalist and trombonist Richie Seivwright) and 'We Walk In Gold' (featuring US vocalist, producer, and songwriter Georgia Anne Muldrow) to the ethereal beauty of the instrumental 'Clarity'. Garcia also reveals some lovely arranging touches the way in which the Chinekel strings and guest vocalist esperanza spalding introduce album opener 'Dawn' in free time, while the core trio of Joe Armon-Jones, Daniel Casimir and Sam Jones slowly introduce pulse in a gradual fade in; the dramatic strings only coda appended to the epic title track; the fabulously rich string pizzicati which drive 'Water's Path' ever onwards; plus strings and sax ascending together in the all-too-brief 'Clarity (Outerlude). Peter Quinn

Peter Quinn speaks to Nubya Garcia:

The album blends your regular band with the wonderful strings of Chineke! What was it like working with them, and using strings?

It was an absolute pleasure working with Chineke! It has been a long-time dream of mine to work with strings and to work with them in particular. They have been championing diversity in the orchestral world for a while, and having grown up in orchestras that weren't diverse, this is extremely close to my spirit. To see them making palpable change and inspiring young people to see themselves represented and having a place in that musical world, it brings me so much joy. As for me writing and arranging for strings for the first time, it's been such a fulfilling experience! I feel incredibly proud to have pushed and challenged myself to create something in a way I have never done before. It's hard for me to actually put it into words, but yeah, I feel really happy to have achieved that vision.

Were there any particular challenges you faced in balancing these different musical elements, and were there any specific jazz-with-strings albums or artists that influenced your approach?

I'd say a challenge was at points trusting I would get it to where I actually wanted it to sound. I think doubt can play a huge part when you're doing something you've never done before. I didn't listen to any 'jazz with strings' albums whilst writing, maybe in an attempt to not mimic anything. I listened to more orchestral works, as I have done for years, went back to my favourites and tried to actively listen with different ears. One that I go back to, and have done since I was about 13. is Elgar's 'Cello Concerto in E minor'. Also, Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending', always!

If you had to name your favourite orchestrator or arranger, who would it be and why?

I have many for different reasons, but I'd say the ever-beautiful works of Duke Ellington and his long-time collaborator and arranger/orchestrator Billy Strayhorn. Their collaboration spans three decades! And they created incredible music that has remained timeless and ever emotive. Another favourite has to be Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, he has arranged in so many styles and for so many artists, he is undeniably brilliant and inspiring. The beds of sound and the worlds he creates with his string arranging are truly beautiful. I'll never forget the first time I heard his arrangements live, he was conducting Suite for Ma Dukes at the Barbican in 2016 and I was just transported and in awe of the luscious, rhythmical tribute to J Dilla.

esperanza spalding is one of your collaborators on the album. Can you tell us about the creative process of working with her and how her unique style contributed to the album?

Working with esperanza was absolutely wonderful - I have been listening to her for so many years that when I wrote this piece, I heard her on it. It was amazing to witness her lyricism and storytelling, her openness to my thoughts and feelings, and to continue to build this story together. I composed the melody and the rest of the tune in such a way that having her weave in these incredible lyrics felt so organic and like everything melded together perfectly. Her attention to detail and her unique musical sensibility was inspiring! Writing lyrics is incredibly new to me, and seeing how she weaves a story together, shares and delivers it so it sits right within your spirit, I am truly honoured to collaborate with her, the first of many, I hope.

As both a sax player and composer, how do you feel your instrumental voice informs your writing, and vice versa? Are there any specific pieces on the album that highlight this relationship?

I think they continue to weave in amongst each other and inform each other greatly! Me exploring my compositional voice further on this album all comes from my instrumental voice, after all composition is improvisation slowed down, tweaked, etc! I think all of the pieces on this album demonstrate that, to be honest. I want you to be able to sing a melody, that's something that's always in the back of my mind.

Jazzwise October 2024 ■ 41

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