Three visiting British Jazz ambassadors sound off

The Julian Joseph Band Trio which has been playing now for some 20 years performed in Lahore and Karachi recently as part of the music element of the Britain is Great cultural festival hosted by the British Deputy High Commission. Say that again, British? Jazz? It was a double bill of curiosity and excitement because jazz is considered as American as Thanksgiving, pot-pies and hamburgers.

“Jazz is completely associated with American culture, but we do have our own tradition annexed to the American one,” said Julian Joseph, the bandleader, one of Britain’s finest pianists and a towering figure for over two decades in contemporary jazz. “If the central spot of American music is New York then many of our tentacles and connections from New York reached London, giving birth to its own scene in the mid-80s. We do have a very strong sense of identity in terms of spreading the wonders of jazz to the world,” he explained.

Talking about the evolution of jazz in Britain, Julian said, “There was a willingness to accept a voice from outside of America. In the 1919, when jazz landed in Britain, Sidney Bechet was part of the Southern Syncopators and when Britain heard him and his colleagues from the US, it was a sensation. In the ’40s and into the ’50s, there was a jazz revival and Humphrey Lyttelton figure-headed this jazz revivalist movement along with John Dankworth and Ronnie Scott, who went to the US and brought back the Bebop revolution from New York. Exchanges of musicians from all over the world took place and sometimes certain artistes couldn’t come unless it was an exchange programme so relationships fostered. Through all of this, an identity was developing in Britain with Stan Tracey and Duke Ellington, Miles Davies, Elvin Jones, and Jazz at the Philharmonic. On the other hand, there has always been an international element present in American jazz.”

What particularly inspires the band’s repertoire? “Many individual voices in the ’80s were influenced by the jazz musicians of the previous generations and all of these influence our band. We reconnect with our own heritages as British West Indians, for instance with Joe Harriott from Jamaica, who had come to Britain in the ’50s. George Shearing went to the US after having a distinguished early career in London. Victor Feldman did exactly the same thing. We are the result of all these voices, some of which have been our tutors. We hold this continuum that we exist in very dearly and hopefully we have been able to share that as we evolve,” explained Julian.

Speaking about indigenous voices on the British jazz frontier, Julian said, “An explosion of jazz was figure headed by many saxophone players like Andy Sheppard, Iain Ballamy, Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson and was part of the whole movement with two big bands, The Jazz Warriors and Loose Tubes. It also had other musicians looking at music in different ways so there was Django Bates, Mark Mondesir, Tony Ramey, Cleveland Watkiss.”

It is said that when African-Americans were calling for freedom, jazz expressed it better than mere words. Is jazz, the music of freedom? “That is a broad-based definition of what jazz might be,” said Julian. “It is one of the greatest forms of music that enables the individual and the group to express a certain kind of freedom and liberation that very few other forms of music can come up to. In jazz, we work with fundamental vocabularies as you do in speech. When we communicate in speech, our vocabulary help us express ourselves with freedom. Sometimes one struggles for a word here, or a sentence there but we have an ability to express ourselves and to clearly put across an idea or thought, even a feeling. So in jazz it is very similar because it has these vocabularies that allow us and enable us to travel through all phases of expression most fundamentally. Jazz is a music that tells you, you can. Since everything is trial and error when you get down to it, it tells you that through failure, you can be successful. So don’t be afraid to fail. Individual voices in British jazz are all about that message. In our Trio, we communicate most freely with each other in a way that allows all of us to either support each other so that whoever is taking the focus can express themselves freely and communicate with whoever is listening. That is how freedom works in jazz.”

Mark Hodgson, one of the most in-demand double bass players on the international scene joined Julian’s Big Band in 1996. He agreed with Julian and described jazz as a ‘sharing’ music. “When we are playing, Julian and I don’t need to know each other, we don’t speak to each other, we don’t necessarily come from the same cultural background, we may not be in the same room possibly, but we can communicate. It is the same as social communication but there is a deeper level to it but it lends itself to a global interaction that does not need words or a language. It is something far deeper than that.”

Although the band is familiar with Pakistani music, it was Mark Mondesir, the third band member who was exposed to classical Indian music in his early teens. Admired the world over for being one of the finest drummers in UK, he discovered the Mahvishnu Orchestra and Shakti and fell in love with Zakir Hussain, T.H Vinayakram, L. Shankar and L. Subramaniam. “It was a time when I was very hungry to absorb all styles within Western music, everything from jazz to rock to blues and then having discovered the pathway into other types of music, I became much influenced by the phrases. Although I am not familiar with the mathematics of it, or the specific formats but phrases mixed with my natural free approach to rhythm is quite a lively source to take from.

“The rhythmic intricacies and nuances dealt with in Indian and Pakistani music go way beyond the norm and interest us very much,” summed up Julian. “We try to use rhythm that brings those kinds of sophistications to our music and it can be very subtle but musicians from Pakistan would understand the integration.”

From being incredibly popular music in the past, it is now seen as a more artistic form, is jazz dying? “It does a rebirth every time, says Julian. “It is just that we have become distant from jazz as a popular music. Jazz has gone through an evolution and different kinds of revolutions. One of the beauties of jazz is that it allows you to exist outside of being ruled by chronological time. The great thing about jazz in Britain is that many styles and expressions exist side by side we as a band, are very thankful that we understand those expressions and are receptive to them.”

But Julian agrees that jazz audiences are aging. “Although, our audiences are also coming from a new generation and are younger. Jazz education has really spread in the UK and it is one of the most exciting and fertile area of jazz music globally because jazz has so much to offer in terms to how we can connect to one another as people.”

And were they looking forward to play to an audience, culturally tuned to vocalists. “The whole world is possibly is driven by the lyrics. We have played in so many different places to so many different people that sometimes I feel it is going to be too much for this crowd but somehow it is that very crowd which enjoys it the most. The energy is attractive, perhaps at a deeper level,” said Hodgson.

“There is an honesty about jazz that people can feel. After concerts people who are not very familiar with jazz say ‘I don’t know or understand jazz but I had a great time’. I always reply, ‘It is our task to understand jazz, your task is to enjoy it’,” said Hodgson.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine October 18th , 2015

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