ANDY SHEPPARD - Connecting The Sounds
Interview by Chris Baber
To coincide with the release of Andy Sheppard’s new album, Romaria, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity ask the saxophonist some questions prior to the release of the album. Well, the reality was that I emailed some questions and Andy’s wife, Sara, read them and sent us back the recording of their conversation. She made an excellent interviewer and Andy gave some thoughtful and thought-provoking answers. The interview began by asking how the quartet had developed since the release of Surrounded by Sea a couple of years ago. “I think just by virtue of having played a few more gigs together and understood more the centre of this quartet, i.e., what we’re trying to achieve collectively, what kind of atmosphere, what kind of music we’re making together, that the music we’re playing is more mature. I wanted to continue the atmosphere of Surrounded by Sea and write music which would bring out the wonderful musicality of Eivind, Seb and Michel and also make the core a little more robust, with more of an emphasis on groove and energy than the last album.” This, and the previous album, works with a group that expanded from trio to quartet and I asked how this affected his approach to composition. “There is a big difference between Trio Libero and what I’m doing with the quartet. But that was a conscious decision because Trio Libero was quite a free-wheeling, improvising trio, hence the name. Also the premise on which I wrote music for that band was very free-thinking. It’s well documented that I recorded the band in its initial meeting – recorded all the music we played over a few days and then went through and extracted full compositions from those improvisations. Then I harmonised them, re-organised them and then they became part of the band repertoire. In the quartet, the music is pre-composed and brought to the table. Then as we sit round the table and eat the food, we figure out the best way to present the music collectively. It’s a different process.” As Andy has said in a previous interview with Jazz Views, “I wanted to take what I was doing with Trio Libero and add the harmonies that I can hear in my head when playing with just bass and drums. Eivind is an amazing ‘orchestral’ voice with exquisite taste – the perfect choice for this role.”
Indeed, a lot of space in the music is created (and filled) by Eivind Aarset’s guitar and effects. “I find Eivind is purely a genius. He is kind of a wizard with sound and because he has knowledge coming from different worlds – he didn’t start out as a guitar player in a Big Band or playing Wes Montgomery style (at least, I don’t think so). But what he has is this uncanny ability to create stuff in real time, live, multi-textured with effects pedals and computer etc., and on a guitar which is a six-stringed beast of an instrument that has fret noise and all kinds of buzzes and hisses and scrapes. The sound comes from the fingers, from the brain, and from the heart. I love it, man. He’s great. So, what can I say? He just makes the right sound at the right time. That’s the beautiful thing about having a band because you know how Eivind approaches the chord sequence, the colours, the kind of sounds he produces. So you have that in mind when you start to write the tunes. But there’s always interplay in everything we do. Sometimes to the casual listener it might not be so obvious, but every sound that everyone makes interacts with every other sound. Because as a musician, your whole premise is to have your ears open so you listen to what is going on around you and you react and you provoke and I’m reading into that very, very tight kind of zooming down inside the minutiae so that every breath, every sound has a connection with every sound around it.”
To coincide with the release of Andy Sheppard’s new album, Romaria, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity ask the saxophonist some questions prior to the release of the album. Well, the reality was that I emailed some questions and Andy’s wife, Sara, read them and sent us back the recording of their conversation. She made an excellent interviewer and Andy gave some thoughtful and thought-provoking answers. The interview began by asking how the quartet had developed since the release of Surrounded by Sea a couple of years ago. “I think just by virtue of having played a few more gigs together and understood more the centre of this quartet, i.e., what we’re trying to achieve collectively, what kind of atmosphere, what kind of music we’re making together, that the music we’re playing is more mature. I wanted to continue the atmosphere of Surrounded by Sea and write music which would bring out the wonderful musicality of Eivind, Seb and Michel and also make the core a little more robust, with more of an emphasis on groove and energy than the last album.” This, and the previous album, works with a group that expanded from trio to quartet and I asked how this affected his approach to composition. “There is a big difference between Trio Libero and what I’m doing with the quartet. But that was a conscious decision because Trio Libero was quite a free-wheeling, improvising trio, hence the name. Also the premise on which I wrote music for that band was very free-thinking. It’s well documented that I recorded the band in its initial meeting – recorded all the music we played over a few days and then went through and extracted full compositions from those improvisations. Then I harmonised them, re-organised them and then they became part of the band repertoire. In the quartet, the music is pre-composed and brought to the table. Then as we sit round the table and eat the food, we figure out the best way to present the music collectively. It’s a different process.” As Andy has said in a previous interview with Jazz Views, “I wanted to take what I was doing with Trio Libero and add the harmonies that I can hear in my head when playing with just bass and drums. Eivind is an amazing ‘orchestral’ voice with exquisite taste – the perfect choice for this role.”
Indeed, a lot of space in the music is created (and filled) by Eivind Aarset’s guitar and effects. “I find Eivind is purely a genius. He is kind of a wizard with sound and because he has knowledge coming from different worlds – he didn’t start out as a guitar player in a Big Band or playing Wes Montgomery style (at least, I don’t think so). But what he has is this uncanny ability to create stuff in real time, live, multi-textured with effects pedals and computer etc., and on a guitar which is a six-stringed beast of an instrument that has fret noise and all kinds of buzzes and hisses and scrapes. The sound comes from the fingers, from the brain, and from the heart. I love it, man. He’s great. So, what can I say? He just makes the right sound at the right time. That’s the beautiful thing about having a band because you know how Eivind approaches the chord sequence, the colours, the kind of sounds he produces. So you have that in mind when you start to write the tunes. But there’s always interplay in everything we do. Sometimes to the casual listener it might not be so obvious, but every sound that everyone makes interacts with every other sound. Because as a musician, your whole premise is to have your ears open so you listen to what is going on around you and you react and you provoke and I’m reading into that very, very tight kind of zooming down inside the minutiae so that every breath, every sound has a connection with every sound around it.”
Photograph courtesy of Sara Da Costa
Talking of making the right sound, the drumming of Seb Rochford on the album, like the musical explorations of Sheppard, has shifted to a place in which the smallest sound is being made to do a lot of work. I asked Andy if the two of them had arrived at this point independently or whether there is a common ambition in their approach to creating music. “Well, I think every musician is on a path and the idea is to get better through diligent practice, and gathering life’s experiences, everything goes into your music so that it has more profundity. Of course, Seb and I, we don’t always play with such delicacy. I mean I played in George Russell’s band for a long time where I was a ball of energy and fire and vigour and thousands of notes and screaming through the horn - because that was what that music needed. That was my role in that band. When you start working more on your own music, you find that there are other areas that you want to explore. I knew that Seb is fantastic at playing the room, and at playing all dynamics. Even his dynamics will change within a bar which I find really refreshing in a drummer. His drums breathe. So, yeah, I’m sure he’s on the same path. We’re all on the same path, we’re all trying to get better, and to play in a way that enhances the music we’re playing at that moment in time to best effect.”
The opening track on the album, ‘And a day…’, has a deeply moving, melodic bass line from Michel Benita that throughout the tune has a conversation with the sax. “I think you’re talking about Michel’s solo. When you write music for jazz musicians, you write the melody, the chord sequence, the groove, the indication of rhythmic feel but the whole thing is bringing that tune to the band. And then, of course, you write for musicians that are going to play the music.”
The set’s title track is Renato Teixeira’s beautifully sad ballad ‘Romario’ and I wondered if there was a particular version of this tune he had in mind when he arranged it for the quartet. “I first came across it because my beautiful wife played me the wonderful version by Ellis Regina, which of course I fell in love with immediately. For me, it also ties in with our recent relocation to Portugal, land of sunshine and saudades, two things that I hope the listener will find on this recording. This is a really beautiful melody, like a folk song. My wife said you could play this really well. And I love discovering these kinds of tunes. I took it to the band and I said let’s play this. There was some scepticism at first, I feel, but we did one gig and played the tune as an encore. Everyone loved the tune, of course. It’s all about trying to play a melody and making it have some kind of, making it deep…it’s being inside that melody and playing it with feeling. I just love that tune and it’s one of those tunes that the band really took hold of and it slotted straight in there.”
The opening track on the album, ‘And a day…’, has a deeply moving, melodic bass line from Michel Benita that throughout the tune has a conversation with the sax. “I think you’re talking about Michel’s solo. When you write music for jazz musicians, you write the melody, the chord sequence, the groove, the indication of rhythmic feel but the whole thing is bringing that tune to the band. And then, of course, you write for musicians that are going to play the music.”
The set’s title track is Renato Teixeira’s beautifully sad ballad ‘Romario’ and I wondered if there was a particular version of this tune he had in mind when he arranged it for the quartet. “I first came across it because my beautiful wife played me the wonderful version by Ellis Regina, which of course I fell in love with immediately. For me, it also ties in with our recent relocation to Portugal, land of sunshine and saudades, two things that I hope the listener will find on this recording. This is a really beautiful melody, like a folk song. My wife said you could play this really well. And I love discovering these kinds of tunes. I took it to the band and I said let’s play this. There was some scepticism at first, I feel, but we did one gig and played the tune as an encore. Everyone loved the tune, of course. It’s all about trying to play a melody and making it have some kind of, making it deep…it’s being inside that melody and playing it with feeling. I just love that tune and it’s one of those tunes that the band really took hold of and it slotted straight in there.”
Across the pieces on this album, and on many of Andy’s compositions, there are solos of such lyricism that they seem to have the phrasing of speech. Indeed, he has previously talked of ‘singing through the saxophone’, so I ask if he imagined the pieces with words. “I don’t usually think of words when I’m playing. I love to play in a horizontal way, to try and find a line that moves through chords that has a melodic sense. And I try to make every note count. But I don’t really know what goes on. I mean you practice and you kind of develop. You keep opening your ears more and you just play. You try and play the best way for the sounds that surround you at that moment in time, on that structure and you create a new melody, a new feeling in the music. I mean that’s the problem with some Standards, or Broadway hits or Cole Porter songs or all these wonderful tunes: the melodies of those tunes are so fantastic and the chord sequences are great to improvise on, but the actual tune is so great that it is hard to better than with a solo because the melody is so fantastic in the first place. But I guess the idea of soloing is deconstructing it, is infusing it with energy, is communicating what is this thing ‘music’ to your audience and to your other band members, and this magic thing can happen in that moment in time which is the unfolding of somebody’s solo.” Given his proficiency on both soprano and tenor saxophone, I asked whether, when writing, he had a specific voice in mind for the tenor or soprano saxophone. “You know if this tune is going to be a soprano tune or a tenor tune. Because they’re different colours and have different feeling altogether. Although sometimes I experiment and I think, you know what, maybe if I change the key of the tune, put it on a different horn a wonderful thing would happen. And usually I go back to the first horn. I mean you kind of, you write for instruments and musicians. I guess I try to write to put my sound, my instrument in the best possible light. I’m trying to write for myself to make myself sound better than I am…” At this point, Sara interjects, "I bet that’s not true".
Speaking of continuing improvement, Andy has worked for many years with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow and I wondered whether they assumed roles of mentors for him and what important lessons he’d learned from them. “It’s always an inspiration to take the stage with Carla and Steve. You know you’re in the land of giants when you play with musicians such as this. Carla’s writing is so original and so inspiring, and Steve Swallow likewise, and also his bass playing is Rolls Royce. So, I’m very fortunate to have become part of the kind of musical universe of Carla and Steve. It’s always an inspiration, and a great honour to be asked to play this music. I mean Carla’s music is timeless. It will be played by many different musicians in many contexts for years and years to come because she is a true composer / arranger who writes wonderful tunes, pieces, concepts, ideas and they’re open to interpretation. I’m just lucky because I’m the guy who is getting to play them at source, especially in the trio where she is writing music specifically for that combination, for myself and Steve. It’s a real honour and it’s not easy because of the pressure of getting it right and enhancing this incredible music and making it right and playing in tune and in time and it’s part of the musician’s daily struggle. But wow, I’m very lucky and very honoured.”
As this is his latest release on ECM, and as he’s previously called the label his spiritual home, I asked what is was about the ECM sound that inspires him. “It’s the history of the whole ECM archive and what Manfred has done, what he set out to do in the beginning, what he’s continued to do is very inspiring for a musician like myself, who has devoted their life to making creative music which is called jazz. That’s why I call it my spiritual home because that’s where I always wanted to record, because I love the music that was coming out of that record label. But it’s not the record label, it’s the musicians who make the music. But Manfred is kind of like the conductor.”
Speaking of continuing improvement, Andy has worked for many years with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow and I wondered whether they assumed roles of mentors for him and what important lessons he’d learned from them. “It’s always an inspiration to take the stage with Carla and Steve. You know you’re in the land of giants when you play with musicians such as this. Carla’s writing is so original and so inspiring, and Steve Swallow likewise, and also his bass playing is Rolls Royce. So, I’m very fortunate to have become part of the kind of musical universe of Carla and Steve. It’s always an inspiration, and a great honour to be asked to play this music. I mean Carla’s music is timeless. It will be played by many different musicians in many contexts for years and years to come because she is a true composer / arranger who writes wonderful tunes, pieces, concepts, ideas and they’re open to interpretation. I’m just lucky because I’m the guy who is getting to play them at source, especially in the trio where she is writing music specifically for that combination, for myself and Steve. It’s a real honour and it’s not easy because of the pressure of getting it right and enhancing this incredible music and making it right and playing in tune and in time and it’s part of the musician’s daily struggle. But wow, I’m very lucky and very honoured.”
As this is his latest release on ECM, and as he’s previously called the label his spiritual home, I asked what is was about the ECM sound that inspires him. “It’s the history of the whole ECM archive and what Manfred has done, what he set out to do in the beginning, what he’s continued to do is very inspiring for a musician like myself, who has devoted their life to making creative music which is called jazz. That’s why I call it my spiritual home because that’s where I always wanted to record, because I love the music that was coming out of that record label. But it’s not the record label, it’s the musicians who make the music. But Manfred is kind of like the conductor.”
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