The Quartet Jazz Standards Podcast
Geoff Gascoyne chats to big-name (and upcoming) jazz soloists as they pick and play their favourite jazz standards and talk about their jazz lives.
A mix of candid discussion, technical insights and spontaneous improvisation, this weekly podcast is a must-listen for everyone that loves jazz.
Geoff is a renowned jazz bass player and prolific composer and producer with credits on over 100 albums and a book of contacts to die for! He is also executive producer of the best-selling Quartet jazz standards play-along app series for iOS.
The Quartet Jazz Standards Podcast
Episode 39. Tim Garland (Saxophone) - 'All Of You'
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Geoff is in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire to meet with the renowned British jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader Tim Garland for a wide-ranging conversation on how a real musical voice is built over decades…not weeks.
We start with the spark: ECM Records vinyl, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and the late Ralph Towner, plus the pull of funk and rhythm that hits you in the chest. Tim breaks down how he learned jazz improvisation by writing small fragments, moving them through keys, and then consciously letting that material go so it doesn’t become imitation. We also dig into composition, jazz harmony, and contemporary classical influences, including how time feel, note length, and cut-offs can change everything you think you know about swing and groove.
Tim tells the near-impossible story of how his music reached Chick, what “Chick boot camp” felt like on stage, and why conversational playing matters more than licks.
Tim treats us to an improvisation of Cole Porter’s 50s standard “All Of You” (accompanied by the Quartet app of course), and discusses Jamey Aebersold play-alongs, favourite records, career highs, nerves, and the harmonic rabbit holes behind a favourite chord. Plus, a nod to his latest project featuring the rare mezzo saxophone with the American jazz pianist Geoffrey Keezer.
If you enjoy jazz standards, saxophone craft, and honest stories from the bandstand, subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review so more listeners can find the show.
Presenter: Geoff Gascoyne
Series Producer: Paul Sissons
Production Manager: Martin Sissons
The Quartet Jazz Standards Podcast is a UK Music Apps production.
Welcome and Guest Introduction
GeoffHello, Podcats. Geoff Gascoyne here. Welcome to season two of my Quartet Jazz Standards podcast. Today I'm in Kings Langley in Hertfordshire, and I'm visiting one of the UK's most successful jazz exports, Mr. Tim Garland. He's a virtuoso saxophonist, a brilliant composer, arranger, and band leader who blends his jazz, folk, and classical influences into a voice that's unmistakably his own. We're going to chat about his early influences, his work with Chick Corea, and about some deep musical conversations. His latest project is a stunning duo record where he plays a rare mezzo saxophone. And it's with the incredible American piano player Geoffrey Keezer, who is a future guest of this podcast. Look out for that. So here we go.
Early Listening and First Instruments
GeoffHi Tim.
TimIt's great to see you, Geoff. How are you?
GeoffYeah, I'm good, thanks. Yeah. This is series two of the podcast.
TimCongratulations.
GeoffSo I'm hoping to do things a little bit different. I've got a couple of other questions which I haven't asked my past guests. But we'll get to those in a minute. Alright. But first, can we start talking about how you got started and what got you into jazz in the first place?
TimI have an older brother, and I was about 14 or 15 when he would bring home ECM vinyls back in the last century. Yeah, well, no kidding. You know, this was like in the early 80s, I suppose, late 70s. And I would hear Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea and John McLaughlin and others, you know. Um, and I was having piano lessons. I already loved certain kind of funk bands and things, you know, it was The Crusaders, for example, the beginnings of smooth jazz before it was known as smooth jazz, Grover Washington, you know, people like that. And I I loved it. You know, things like Spyrogyra, you know, because that was out there, wasn't it? And it was, I could understand it. The the world of ECM really got to me. So when I heard Ralph Towner's music, I absolutely fell in love with the acoustic guitar and was dissuaded from playing it because I'm left-handed. But I've been a fan of the acoustic guitar all my life, and especially to like Ralph's music and how he found all those harmonies. And I started to sit down at the piano and work it out, and then it kind of worked backwards to people like Bill Evans, you know, chronologically backwards. And um, I took up the saxophone after playing the clarinet and doing a lot of classical study and a lot of piano because I just got bored of you know not being spontaneous enough, really. I had an alto and quickly moved to tenor. And after that, I discovered composition and the world of contemporary music, what you might call avant-garde and definitely you know late 20th century orchestral music and stuff, because there was a lot of orchestral music in the family. So I went to the Guildhall School of Music. I'd more or less given up the saxophone again, you know, I'd played it in my teens, and I was deeply into composers like Luciano Berrio, Takamitsu, Saint-Pierre Boulez, Henri De Tio, who's still my favourite composer of all time, I think. So after a year of studying that, something I felt was like deeply missing because it was very kind of hard orchestral, score, academic stuff. And then I suddenly kind of realized, oh my god, the saxophone, that was such fun. So halfway through my course, they allowed me to change again. And the guy at the Guild hall who was running the department said, all right, you can change back to saxophone, but if you don't improve a lot in the first term, we're gonna kick you out. So I studied my arse off. And I would say to this day, a lot of my career has been about different ways of marrying together all of that, you know, how does the world of jazz and the world of sort of contemporary classical music, if you wish, how do they inform each other? So that's how I got started. That was a very long answer.
Learning Improvisation Through Transcription
GeoffThat was a very good answer. So, what about actually learning to improvise? Did you transcribe? How did you learn to actually create the notes yourself?
TimWhilst I was at the Guild hall, one of the things I did is I bought these little pads of manuscript and I would write down, because I was very happy with notation because of all the score studying I'd done, I would write down phrases quite often over two, five, ones or something, uh, of all the people I was listening to. Not your most common things, like Ellis Marsalis, for example, that was a sort of surprise find. It was wonderful, as well as people like Keith Jarrett and Michael Brecker, you know, that's great fun. Because you couldn't get these things like on the internet, then could you? You had to write it out yourself, which of course is really good brain work, isn't it? But I'd never write a whole solo. But what I would do is take maybe four bars and I would practice it in those dingy old rooms at the in the basement of the Guildhall, and then I would try playing it in about three or four different keys. Again, I wasn't thorough enough to do much in all 12 keys, but I would go for all the stickler ones which I found most difficult and um see you know how well I could do all on tenor. So that's that's what got me started, and I'd I kind of still encourage this with students today. So you're learning the vocabulary, and it's rather like you're learning a foreign language, but your ideal is to be able to write a beautiful poem in that language. Uh, but of course, you can't just jump to writing your own poetry, you have to study other people's poetry and the way they use language and all of that, and eventually you get to that point where you may do something innovative, but the assimilation process has to happen first, hasn't it? So I filled two books at least of uh all this stuff, and I would put the initials of the player I got it from. You know, it might be a page or half a page of something, like you know, KJ, for Keith Jarrett, and and probably write the changes over the top. And I remember ceremoniously at the end of my student days throwing them all away. So I was right, okay, that's that over now. It would have been interesting actually to have kept them out all these years later. But I thought, no, you know, I I don't actually want to sound when I'm on stage as if I'm doing all this imitation.
GeoffSo it's a conscious thing to leave that world behind, right?
TimYeah, yeah. And I knew I had done a lot of it. So when people kind of, you know, it's a requirement on these um jazz courses today that we all do stuff like that. And I'm thinking, yeah, I did. I did my bit, you know. I remember doing one Keith Jarrett 251 or something, and I thought, what on earth is he playing? And uh I wrote it down afterwards, and it was an 11-note tone row, so he had used all 11 in a row. I'd like to find that again because I was thinking, wow, okay, this is really cool that he's just found 11 notes out of the possible 12 over a 2-5 on a standard. You know, I learned so much, so I would have been about 22, 21.
GeoffSo your composition was very much in the forefront of your
Composition and Jazz Classical Fusion
Geoffmind as well, right? You were composing.
TimYeah, so I would write things based upon the contemporary music I heard. So I I did my very first album, Points On The Curve. That was named after a Luciano Berio piece, quite an abstract, very contemporary string group. But the music on that album had absolutely nothing to do with that, so that was a good starting point where you could see already that the influences were strong. But the kind of music I was doing was kind of like fusion jazz. So from that point, it was a very slow coming together and uh an amalgamation of these things. But yeah, I was writing, I've always loved strings, so I've written a lot for string orchestra. It's a dark art, isn't it? Learning, for example, learning how to write for harp or guitar, acoustic guitar, that's a dark art.
GeoffI know that myself, actually, from learning it in lockdown, classical guitar, how difficult that is, yeah.
TimIt's so beautiful. Obviously, I've mentioned Ralph Towner, so I knew already that there's a certain magic when you get it right and to study from the masters. Obviously, my piano skills were quite good. I mean they're dead rusty now. Sometimes I wish I'd just stuck with the piano because it's a whole orchestra, isn't it, in itself. But I would listen to say Tower of Power, and there was something about the groove that it would connect with you so deeply, and the only word you could find for it is like truth. There's truth in this groove, and then I would listen to Michael Tippett piano concerto, or maybe something of Stravinsky's, or Ravel piano concerto, or something like that, or moments of Bernstein when he really landed on something, and you think that's truth as well, but with a capital T. And you think, well, I I can't just like join it all together in a big bucket, you know, they don't necessarily belong in each other's worlds, and of course that's is true, isn't it? That the worst is if you're trying to put a funk groove, yeah, with something like that.
GeoffBut you've clearly made your own truth, though, haven't you? You've made your own um path and carved out your own position in you know in the British jazz scene.
TimWell, I hope so by now. It can be a bit of a lonely furrow, can't it? Because you know, you get necessarily you become quite opinionated because when you're refining your own skills, you end up disliking certain things and staying away from certain things um and loving others, and then you have to, of course, sort of broaden out again when you listen to something, which is actually really, really brilliant, but it's coming from a significantly different route
Folk Time Feel and The Lammas Years
Timfrom you.
GeoffWould you say you were um open-minded to many different styles of music?
TimMuch better now. Yeah, I used to be. Well, I think you know, when you're young, very ardent, sort of self-concerned about getting everything right, and and you walk around with little Walkman headphones on all the time in your own little world. Um, but eclecticism has always been part of that because of all the orchestral stuff, and then there was the folk music. Like I got completely enthralled by the fact that if you listen to a really great uh Irish flute player, for example, that someone could stand there and get everyone dancing for hours because their time is so good. There's no backing band or anything, but the whole room is just dancing, and you think, man, that is skill. And I got into listening to sort of Celtic folk music and met Don Paterson in about 1989, and Don is still an extraordinary musician. Now he's an extremely celebrated poet.
GeoffSo wasn't Don in your Lammas band?
TimYeah, Don and I formed Lammas together, it lasted about 10 years, and that was the first time I came across the possibility of fusing together this kind of lovely harmonic vocabulary, which is really straight out of jazz, and again, Ralph Towner, a huge influence on Don and me, uh, Don being a guitarist, of course. And when I listen back now, I mean we were one of the first bands to really do that. There've been quite a few bands now. Some of it is brilliant, most of the best stuff I think is Don's. Everything sounds so perfect on the guitar because he was writing from the guitar. And I remember when I met Chick Corea, he listened to some, but he heard in me this need also to approach, if you call call it the American tradition, more, and I had the opportunity to really grow, you know, with a master, I suppose, with Chick.
The Chain of Events to Chick Corea
GeoffCan you talk about how that came together with Chick?
TimYeah, so um I had met Joe Locke, great vibrophone player, and feels like a member of the family now. Um way, way back I met him at Ronnie Scott's, I think, and it turned out he was a fan of Lammas because he was kind of interested in how jazz can be fused in different ways. I had long been a fan of the vibes, listening to Mike Mainieri with the Steps Ahead Band, and also Gary Burton with Chick. And when I heard Joe, uh it was kind of you know electric, kind of the energy that Joe played with. Uh, so we got on really, really well. And he said, okay, come over to New York and you can sleep on my carpet for a week and I'll introduce you to a whole bunch of people. I was 23, 24, I think. Great, okay, I'll call up this guy called Joe Lovano because I love his playing. I don't know if he's famous. I mean, he was famous reasonably by then, but nowhere near the world fame he's got now. I mean, you think about how old, how long ago that was.
GeoffYeah.
TimSo I had my lesson with Joe, and his house burnt down while I was there. That's another story. I was due to have another lesson with Joe, and uh we got this call, and I ended up standing out on the street when Joe brought down all his stuff, all smelling of smoke and put it out on the street. All these poor motion charts and symbols, and yeah, it was poor old Joe. We've kept in touch ever since, you know. I'd I'd I've I'm a massive fan of Joe Lovano. Yeah. I had just recorded an album called Enter the Fire with Jason Rebello, who's another member of the family, as far as I'm concerned. I know I I can barely remember a time when I didn't know Jason. And it was a kind of it was a wonderful band with uh Gerard Presencer. It was about 1994, something like that. And uh eventually found a way out to be sort of published. And so I brought a copy with me. When I arrived in New York, I was in Joe's sort of midtown Manhattan flat, and immediately he said, Come on, let's put it on, let's put it, you know, listen to it. And so it was just playing in the background. And um, he got this call from another great friend of his, uh Billy Childs. He says, You know, I'm and he lived in the other side of America, so he had travelled almost as far as I had. Billy, where are you? You know, you're in Los Angeles. No, I'm route round the corner from your house. You know, I'm just visiting New York. So, oh, come around, I got this English guy around, you know. So Billy walks in, and my album is playing. Kind of Billy just stood there for a minute. He said, Have you got another copy of this album? There's someone I want to play it to. And I remember I still had my coat on from the airport. And I said, of course I had brought more than one copy. You know, you do if you're going to New York, don't you? And uh that person that it got back to was Chick. It was within half an hour of me arriving at, you know, from the airport with my coat still on, and that connection with Chick had been made.
GeoffWow, that's incredible.
TimAnd so I've kept in touch, of course, with Billy Childs ever since. Yeah. And uh Chick would always mention Billy, or often mention Billy and me in the same sentence, you know, as basically composers who used an instrument rather than an instrumentalist who also composed. I quite liked that because that felt honest to me. Because I was writing before I was playing. And Billy would say the same about himself. And one reason I'm sure Chick and I got on so well is because we used to talk about composition so much.
GeoffSo when did you start working with Chick?
TimWe met in 1999, I guess. He was listening to some of the orchestral things I'd done. So I went on to work on and off with him for about 17 or 18 years, doing about four or five different projects. We all know, of course, he did loads of projects with so many musical geniuses, you know. So I was very lucky to be sort of part of that clan and you know, end up meeting other guys, John Pattitucci and people I've kept in touch with, Gary Burton, of course, Marcus Gilmore. And it was great because it was a really good ass kicking in every respect. And so you know the years leading up to meeting with Chick, obviously, you know, I had that break with Ronnie Scott, so I was only about 23. It got me practicing fast tempos, and so I ended up, you know, being able to do it to a certain extent. I really admired Ronnie's playing because he managed to find a way of making sense of those fast tempos. It wasn't all just kind of fly shit and fast notes and just play as fast as you can.
GeoffDid you ever get starstruck? Did you ever get sort of overwhelmed by what you were doing, or did you was it kind of something you just took in your stride?
TimWell, first of all, just a little bit, yeah. I kind of did inside my heart, I felt ready. So I remember the first time I played with Chick, it was with Avishai Cohen and Jeff Ballard. And there was something about the energy the three of them had together, which was so crisp. And I'd felt something similar with Jeremy Stacy and uh Jason Rebello, like a kind of a partnership. Um, obviously, Mick Hutton was great, he was working a lot at that time, and actually the three of them together, it was like, whoa, this is on another level, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it. I've you can hear other times, there's a Julian Arguelle's album where Martin France and John Taylor also seemed to have that same psychic connection in a different way, but it was deep, you know, and so I kind of did feel ready uh for it, but I was slightly star-struck. Yeah, one thing, and other people will I'm sure resonate with this, if you play with someone who's super famous, they're already familiar to you, their playing, because you've listened to loads of albums, so it's only they who's got you get too used to you, you know, because of course I've I knew Chick's playing.
GeoffOf course, yeah.
TimIt was just like it wasn't on recording anymore, he was right there. It was just wonderful.
GeoffWhat a thrill.
Rhythm, Time Feel and Cut-Offs
TimOne thing about his time was it felt so strong that it had its own gravitational pull. So if you were standing next to the piano when Chick was playing, it was almost like you were being physically pulled towards the instrument because uh his time is so strong. And he would say things like, um, I consider it's a rhythmic event when I lift my finger from the key. So the ceasing of a note is a rhythmic event. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's deep. And also Joe Lovano said this uh and probably still does, is you know, cut-offs. How long is your note? What about duration? Yeah, don't just hit the note and let it die. You know, when you put the tongue back on the reed, when is it going back on? Yeah, you know, and all those years with Willie Herman and others, I love it because it wasn't as natural, like if I sit down with Jason Rebello, it's the most natural thing in the in the world for him to come from a deep sense of rhythm first. And I learned that probably first of all from Jason. Me coming from my bookish, you know, oh, I've got a score of Stravinsky under my arm, all that stuff, that was also very valid. And listening also to Duke Ellington and you know, all those voicings and um Bob Brookmeyer, my god, when I discovered him. But the actual playing and keeping the groove and being deep in the groove, that's been a lifelong lesson for me. And uh I'm kind of glad that I didn't find that so natural because it's probably it's kept me involved in trying to get better.
GeoffSo I have to ask you about Chick's comping. I've always struggled a little bit with Chick comping from a listening point of view.
TimRight.
GeoffIt's not a traditionally, a jazz pianist way of comping, is it?
TimUm it's conversational, is the best conversational, yeah. Yeah, and I think that's probably the number one reason why we got on well. Because when we were playing in a situation where perhaps the rest of the band dropped out and it was just him and I, I play best when I'm in conversation.
GeoffOkay, so you have something to to bounce.
TimYeah, yeah, and this new thing with um Geoffrey Keezer, uh, which is just about to come out, Mezzo, um, that really is a series of conversations.
GeoffRight.
TimAnd I kind of never had a problem with it. There was a a couple of times, more than one occasion, when some of the other horn players would say, well, they would build up the courage to ask Chick to play less. And then he might drop out altogether, of course, which is you know, in another way, kind of quite scary. Though I've heard Chick in situations where it hasn't actually worked because both people were doing the same thing
GeoffAt the same time?
TimYeah. Yeah, Gary Burton and Chick. They worked out a perfect way of playing because Gary's also, you know, he played a lot, but there was something about it they they're like MIDI'ed together, beautiful sense of flow. So again, I'm going back to like age 15 or 16 when I heard things like Crystal Silence and stuff like that. So I was coming from that um conversational. Uh I remember, you know, when I first started to work with Guillem, it was so effortless because he also came from that deep listening conversational vibe. I used to listen also to People like John Abercrombie and Jim Hall, and I would think these guys aren't about the licks, they're about the sound and the conversational aspect. As much as I also loved the people, you know, Brecker, who couldn't love Brecker being the age we are, you know. It's like, is that even possible on a saxophone? You know? So it was all gorgeous. Yeah, and again, a long answer, but I never had a problem with all that information that was pouring out of Chick. No.
GeoffFabulous.
Choosing “All Of You” to Play
GeoffBrings us around to my apps and um play -along. I asked you to
Timpick a tune to have a little play on today. Okay.
GeoffUm I've I've introduced you to my apps. Which tune did you did you pick?
TimUh was it All Of You?
GeoffAll of you? Yeah, okay. And why do you like that tune?
TimI like the fact that the pedal notes involved, it allows you a great mixture of freedom. Um, but you can play bebop on it, of course, but you can also just sing melodies over it, you know, it's beautiful.
GeoffSo, what you'll hear is two choruses. Okay, there'll be a brief introduction, which is the last eight. Here we go.
TimOkay.
Aebersold, The 90s and First Records
GeoffKilling, killing. Did you ever use the Jamey Aebersold records?
TimI did, I had a couple of records, and the most memorable was the Wayne Shorter one, where I loved uh This Is Albert. I used to play over that quite a lot. I loved the way the harmonies moved, and it it was a funny way into the music of Wayne Shorter, wasn't it? To learn via an Aebersold recording. But of course, I I then got into Wayne in quite a big way. Yeah. Um it feels like a long time ago. It was a long time ago.
GeoffIt was a long time ago. It was the 90s, I believe, you're talking about.
TimUh this would have been the yeah, early 90s. Actually.
GeoffWhich is when we first we first met.
TimAnd a lot of changes were happening, weren't they? I mean, CDs were just just coming out. So when I made my very first C D, um, I didn't have a C D player.
GeoffUm and it's the same now. No one has a C D player.
TimYeah. I know, we saw the whole thing through, didn't we?
GeoffIt's come full circle. No one has a C D player. So we first met in the 90s, didn't we? The reason I remember this is my twins were born in '95. Okay. And that was the year I made my first record as well. Wow. Which you played on at the Royal Academy.
TimOh, yeah, okay.
GeoffYeah. Wow. That's what the days, yeah. Okay, so I've got some questions now.
Favourite Albums and Finding Your Path
TimI'm gonna get quite nervous about that.
GeoffNo, no, no. Okay, so we're gonna start with the first question is what's your favourite album?
TimOh man. I guess I'd go back to one of those I mentioned in the teens, you know. I really couldn't cut it down to like under about five, but
GeoffGive us a few then.
TimUm I remember Belonging, Keith Jarrett, and although I uh loved Jan Garbrecht to bits, it was Jarrett that I was really listening to. Pools, uh that's what's the that's the Steps Ahead album with Pools on it. That's it's just called Steps Ahead, isn't it? Yeah, not only the composition,
GeoffThat's all that Don Grolnick.
TimDon Grolnick, yeah, uh, and not only Brecker's insanely good and accurate playing, but I'd fall in love with the vibes sound, just as I did with um maybe there's Wayne's Native Dancer, but what's the duet album with Chick and Gary, which is called Native something? Um, that came out in the 90s as well, '91. There's a Joe Lovano album called From The Soul with Dave Holland and Michel Petrucciani, I believe. Um these albums I would never want to be without Solstice Sounds and Shadows, that's a Ralph Towner album, again with Garbarek on it. And I did love Garbarek, actually, that was a kind of an early influence. I love the fact that when you had Garbarek put in a situation, say when he was with Keith Jarrett and he was kind of pushed into playing changes and playing more, uh, like that album New Dance and stuff like that, where he was being challenged as a changes player, because he would find ways in his own way, and in the same way as like Kenny Wheeler would find ways, you know, they weren't beebopers, and I loved that the improvisation could be not restricted, you know. When you're a saxophone player, you kind of you want to measure up against a lot of these greats, and why not, you know, because it is an amazing instrument for all of that, and you do want to understand the American greats, Coleman Hawkins or John Coltrane, you know, the list goes on, but then isn't it a great thing to find your own way of doing something? And it takes quite a lot of courage because
GeoffI I had a really good conversation with Stan Sulzmann about that, yeah, and he was talking about finding his own place in the music, you know, with John Taylor and and Kenny, yeah, and how they almost had their own language, yeah. And in fact, talking about playing standards, and Stan was not confident playing standards, surprisingly.
TimYeah, he didn't. I I remember I only really had three notable saxophone lessons. I know I had more really, but uh like John Harle and
GeoffHe's a classical saxophone player,
Timand he was the guy uh at the Guild hall who just joined as a kind of quite a junior but very good young teacher there. And uh that was during the time when I just changed over to saxophone first study and was told I'd get kicked out unless I improved very quickly. So John was great in just getting the technique together. I had one lesson from Joe Lovano and I had one lesson from Stan Sulzmann. And I remember Stan even then saying he didn't immediately know loads of standards to play. And this was at the time when the Marsalis brothers were doing their thing and there was a bit of a comeback for acoustic stuff. Yeah, and so we were all expected to know all of these standards, which was interesting because that wasn't the world that Stan was in.
GeoffNo, completely the opposite, in fact.
TimYeah, and I really in my dotage now I really appreciate that. I appreciate John Surman.
GeoffBut that can be hard, you know, if you're not going with what people expect, that can be hard to make your own path, can't it?
TimYeah, yeah. So I I found that, you know, with the early band with Lammas and other things, we weren't approaching standards at all. But there was this other thing which was pulling at me like you're a saxophone player, goddammit. You know, you need to learn the language and the building blocks. And, you know, if if there's something of Stan Getz you like, look into it. If there's something, you know, of late Coltrane, then look into the early Coltrane and see how he got there. And then before you know it, you know, you're down that rabbit hole. And it actually paid off, of course, because working with Chick, you know, you go through what um Patitucci calls the um the boot camp, the Chick boot camp, you know, you go through that, you learn how to play with a backbeat, but you learn how to play, you know, great swing feel and all that, or as good as you can make it. It's taken this long, probably. I think any really serious art that you're into, you don't really want to be hitting your peak in your 30s, and then forever onwards people were saying, Oh, that stuff you did 10, 20 years ago, that was amazing. As if, oh, I can't do it now. You know, I'd I want to be improving all the time. I'm sure you do this.
GeoffWell, I'm I was just about to say that. Yeah, you you go have phases. I I don't know about you, but I've had definite phases of of my career and development, and you just have to be adaptable, don't you, as you go along. Yeah. And keep keep open to stuff.
TimOh, definitely. Well, there's a uh a sort of a core values thing that doesn't change. So I'm always attracted to people who, as I say, are very sort of conversational in the way they play, and that has stayed the same.
GeoffYeah.
TimBut oh yeah, I mean, listening to some of the people who are out there now, Tigran, you know, is one, Shy Maestro, just there's a couple of piano players for a start. On any instrument, there are people who are really stretching the boundaries, and it's fantastic to hear them.
GeoffIs there a musician alive or dead that you would like to play with?
TimAgain, so many. I really enjoyed playing with Marcus Gilmore, and I'd love to play with him again, because that has been about ten years since I played with Marcus, and I felt he was getting something so exciting together. And I was right, because he has got something incredibly deep in his playing, and that's wonderful.
GeoffHe's a drummer, right?
TimYeah, Marcus Gilmore , the drummer, but I'd you know to play with Herbie, of course, would be amazing.
GeoffYeah, yeah. What is the highlight of your career so far?
Career Highs and Musical Weaknesses
TimThese are too hard. I will never forget doing an outdoor gig in Washington Park, New York, and we were on a stage which was elevated, of course. It was packed, and the band was absolutely killing. It was great. And I remember I looked out and I could see the World Trade Centre towers in the background. You know, that kind of dates it, doesn't it? And I just remember getting that kind of elation of just hearing Steve Wilson and I, so he's the alto, alto alto player. Um, we were standing by the side of the stage, and Chick was absolutely burning it up with um Abishai and Jeff Ballard, and it's like we were looking at each other, knowing that one of us had to follow, and it's just like you go first. No, no, you go first, no, you go first, like that. And it was just so much fun because that sense that you've arrived with a family that you're really proud to be part of.
GeoffAmazing.
TimSo that felt great, but there are several others, uh, you know, working with the Lighthouse Trio, just doing a couple of those gigs where you'd been working a lot together, and it felt as if you'd dived into a big swimming pool and you realised you could swim underwater and breathe underwater. It's like you couldn't go wrong, it was you were just being held. Yeah, you know, isn't that great? Yeah. And it it comes from just knowing and playing with the same people for a long time.
GeoffI'm I'm a bit like that with Sebastiaan de Krom, actually. We play together probably every week for 30, 25 years. Yeah, yeah. All right, question number three: what would you say is your musical weakness?
TimAgain, I can name several. Sometimes the perfectionism can get in the way because if you do a lot of composition, as much as you love all of throwaway spontaneity, you're always kind of dabbling to try and refine. And sometimes that need to refine can stop the freedom and the truth from just pouring through. It's my own playing. It kind of feels if you just just let it go, you know. I I would say that's one thing, and I know that comes from you know, all that orchestral upbringing of you know, studying scores, etc.
GeoffYeah.
TimAlso, I'm quite impatient. So if there's like something I have to learn really, really well, you know, I some people are just so methodical, and I'm always trying to learn from methodical people.
GeoffHave you got a good discipline? Have you a good self-discipline?
TimMuch better now. I did practice ever such a lot when I so I guess that was discipline. It didn't feel like discipline because it's all I wanted to do.
GeoffYeah. What about motivation for getting new things together and
TimI love deadlines, and if there isn't one there, I'll make one for myself. Uh and I like a bit of pressure. Actually, I work quite well under pressure.
GeoffYeah, I'm the same.
TimAnd that does you know, if you suddenly have to appear on stage and it's live TV in Spain or something, that can actually be quite good. Because you think that there is just no option, is there? You just do it and there's not much
Nerves and Making Any Note Work
Timthought.
GeoffSo that leads nicely on to the next question, which is do you ever get nervous on stage?
TimYeah, um, not so much now, but it's a shame that how nervous I used to get. I remember notably, I suppose, with Chick. Also, I remember doing something many years ago at the Albert Hall with John Dankworth, and I remember kind of losing the the beat, you know, and I thought, oh my god, you know what's going on here? And it was just nerves. How strange. I I'm glad I experienced that. I was obviously a lot younger, but once again, to understand nerves, it makes you a better teacher, doesn't it? I d I I don't suffer from it now so much. Um actually, one of the most nervous I've ever got was playing a Bach oboe concerto with the Northern Sinfonia because every note of that is famous, and it was an oboe concerto, obviously, as well, so I had to circular breathe, which I can do, but it's not that natural for me. Other people, you've met plenty of saxophone players who circular breathe brilliantly, because I've got quite a hard setup and the reads are quite tough. Circular breathing is a little harder for me, but I did it for that, and I was so scared because you can't mess up on Bach.
GeoffClassical music is another level, isn't it? That is ridiculous.
TimI'm so glad I did it, but I remember thinking, I'm not sure if I want to do that again. I'm so glad I did.
GeoffI mean, it's so different with jazz, isn't it? I mean, you can you can play any note and make it work, can't you?
TimYeah, yeah, when things are working, you're absolutely right. And that's actually a great skill, isn't it? To make any note work and to turn it into an opportunity. Again.
GeoffWell, that's why we're jazz musicians, isn't it? That's why we love it, isn't it? That's that's the whole point.
TimIt's dialogue. It's to me, it's you know, conversational dialogue, communication, and finding something in the spontaneous.
Quick-Fire Favourites and Touring Life
GeoffWhat's your favourite sandwich?
TimOh man. Okay. Now you're asking this because it's feels like a touring musician's sort of question, isn't it? Because we're on the go so much. Yeah. I think something with smoked cheese and walnuts in it.
GeoffOh, but you gotta be a sandwich.
TimYeah, yeah, but you've got to be careful, it doesn't all fall out. I'm just trying to think of, you know, when you're traveling a lot and you think, right, I'm gonna make something up for myself to go. And um, turkey is really good. If it's good quality turkey. Right. And I've been through many stages of being vegetarian, but I'd really need the protein, so turkey is a good way out.
GeoffSo one of those. Very American, isn't it? A good turkey sandwich. Do you have a favourite movie?
TimGroundhog Day, I keep coming back to. Um yeah, thank you. Um sometimes the art of a movie, uh, when it's so brilliantly made, and sometimes you might not even agree with some of the sentiments and the you know the victimhood of a movie, the overall message, but you can't get away from how brilliantly that it's made. And that stays with me. You know, uh powerful messages like Blood Diamond, that's Leo DiCaprio, and think of another.
GeoffWhat's your go-to genre if you're searching for a movie?
TimI like movies that deal with time, so that yeah, like Groundhog Day.
GeoffAnd Back to the Future?
TimYeah, yeah, yeah. I'm of that age, yeah. That and other ones that mess around with time. Isn't there one called About Time? Is that Richard Curtis? That's that's great.
GeoffYesterday, the one the Beatles one of that one.
TimIsn't that great too? I saw that recently. I remember seeing The Imitation Game on a really big screen. Uh again, I just thought it felt really well made. The soundtrack, the way that it had been mixed and dubbed, that's uh the cracking of the Enigma variants. Yeah, with um um Benedict Cumberbatch. Yeah, thoroughly enjoyed that. There would be others, but I'd I'd have to think about it for a second.
GeoffIs there a favourite venue that you particularly like to play in?
TimAgain, it's always a case of just getting it down to one. Uh I really enjoyed my last couple of nights uh times at Ronnie's because of the history there. Yeah. Um, working in Ronnie's band, you know, when I was 23. Yeah. And I knew all this stuff because because I was in Ronnie's band, I just got in free all the time. And it was wonderful. And it was it was such a funny, very good for my ego when the star finally changed and I just tried to get in, and no one would let me in because you know, but you know, very good for me that.
GeoffYeah. Knocks you back down to Earth. Yeah. Um, okay, window or aisle.
TimOh, window. Unless it's like really a long flight, because then you've got to get up on the floor.
GeoffUh cats or dogs?
TimCats now, used to be dogs. We've had dogs in the past. Cats are much less bother to look after. And when you when you get to know cats, you really see how different their personalities are. And they're so full of themselves, it's hilarious, you know. Dogs are adorable, but I would worry that I wouldn't be able to give them what they really need.
GeoffRight. You know. Yeah. Yeah. What's your most used app on your phone?
TimOh, there's the the train one that gets used a lot. Oh, I suppose Instagram more and more. I got dragged slowly into the 21st century. So I'm way behind many people, but I I've come to see it as a potential, it's like money, isn't it? It can be used for great evil and time-consuming nonsense. But the amount of great wisdom teachings that are on Instagram, I'm very much into meditation and what you might call a sort of non-dual teaching of a spiritual nature, and I can see the way that that joins up with music and art. All of that, it's all these bite-sized chunks, you know. Yeah, it's probably Instagram at the moment.
GeoffOkay, lovely. The last question is what's your favourite chord?
Favourite Chords and Writing Starts
TimOkay, I had so many great fun times, especially with Guillem, chord of the day. And then we'd have to outdo each other with ridiculous chords.
GeoffYou're welcome to play it at the piano if you want to.
TimI don't know, I love things like this. Okay, I'm now moving over to the piano.
GeoffThat sounds like Bartok is or Stravinsky.
TimIt could be, yeah. I don't know, it's the uh well, yes, all of those. That's kind of essentially D over and E flat. D over E flat. But it's uh all that the double diminished stuff is fantastic as well. I'll tell you what, one thing which I love, and which I think is very key to sorry, pun not intended, is when you take the Lydian, but you take you turn it into two Tetras instead. Oh which is actually really, really natural. Because you've just got it twice. Yeah, you know, and um there have been quite a lot of musicologists, uh Gunter Schuller, actually. Gunter Schuller was the guy who he did a lot of orchestration, he played French horn on Birth of the Cool. There are you know, loads of other people who have done a lot of research into the understanding of that, it's it's it's a tetrachord, isn't it? What you call that that that group of four. When you get into that as a consonant, you know, so in other words, you don't just hear playing a C and then a C sharp like it was a wrong note. You hear the beauty in it, then it opens up a portal for listening to altered harmonies and hearing it as beautiful. So you listen to Henri de Tia or Takamitsu or you know some of the more kind of outlandish wonderful harmonies, it could be Martinu, but there's a whole load of jazzers as well out there. Bob Brookmeyer again, and it suddenly becomes beautiful. A lot of that music and a lot of this harmony was being played and written and appreciated a hundred years ago. So when we find more advanced harmonies which go into the realms of atonality almost, it's not new anymore. It's just something that our current culture has sidelined, you know. So jazz musicians I think should, and many of they do, appreciate harmonies which take us into pan tonality, you know. Ritchie Beirach, you know, R.I.P. You know, and many others. Anyway, I could go on for ages.
GeoffSo when you compose, what's your starting point normally?
TimDo you have modes or do you have melody or bass lines or how does it well all of the above, but quite often, because I love the piano, and that's why I invested in a nice piano, to sit at the piano and to suddenly find the juxtaposition of two harmonies, or a fragment of melody. Um sometimes, you know, I've got a manuscript next to my bed and I might wake up and just write quickly down a fragment of melody, and then you know, or you might be practicing on the saxophone, so this will be linear, obviously, and there's a particularly tricky line, and it's like, oh damn it, I can't do you know, I can't play that line. Right, I'll turn it into a tune. Yeah, you've done it too, yeah.
GeoffAbsolutely.
TimYou know, yeah. And um, so the starting points are many, yeah. But I don't
GeoffI thought you would say that, but I thought I'd ask you anyway. Fabulous. Well, Tim, thanks so much for your time. It's been uh wonderful spending some time together after all this all these years.
TimYeah, absolutely. And um let's do some playing together.
GeoffDo some playing sometime, sure. Thank you very much, and bye for now.
TimBye-bye.
GeoffBye.
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