PAUL BOOTH - Presenting The Bansangu Orchestra
Saxophonist, Paul Booth has made quite a reputation, and a well deserved one at that, as one of the UK's leading tenor players. Versatile and conversant in just about any musical setting, Paul has played with a wide variety of artists from Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Chaka Khan, Will Young, Petula Clark, Craig David, and is currently playing and touring in the Steve Winwood Band.
His jazz credentials are as equally impressive, playing with Geoffrey Keezer, Ingrid Jenson, Jane Monheit, as well as Michael Janisch’s Paradigm Shift, Ryan Quigley Quintet with whom he recorded for Whirlwind Recordings. In addition he has recorded five solo albums and also runs his own label, Pathway Records.
If this wasn't enough, he has now formed the Bansangu Orchestra with fellow conspirators, Giorgio Serci and Kevin Robinson, so just where did this idea for the big band come about, and what about the name of the orchestra? "Well the story comes from the Brazilian guitarist José Neto with whom I’ve been touring with for the last 12 years in Steve Winwood’s band" explains Paul. "José recounted a a story of when Airto Moreira would come off stage after a particularly great gig and tell everyone “'the band sounds good' expect with his strong accent it sounded more like 'ban san goo'. As soon as I heard it I was like 'that’s a wicked name for a band' and the rest is history. "
For those who are not familiar with the history, the band was originally formed in 2014. Taking up the story, Paul says "This orchestra was born on the road, at least the idea was. Giorgio, Kevin and I were touring with the wonderful Polish singer Basia. Giorgio had a dream one night about a big band based in London but playing world music. He told me about it the next day and I’d actually been thinking about a similar project at the time so it was meant to be. Kevin had already been in projects of a similar nature and once we told him he was like 'yes I’m in'. From there we set about creating a list of people of extraordinary talent whom we thought would want to be part of this project from the beginning. Creative people that although are based in the jazz community, have interests and experience in playing and writing music from multiple genres. The result is what you hear on the album."
Continuing, Paul adds, "After being together for a while and putting a decent pad of music together we knew the next logical step was to make an album and get the music out there. The difficulty was getting the core members of the group together in one place. As you can see from the list of band members, it really is the who’s who of the session musician scene in London, not only that but many of these amazing musicians are artists in their own right who record and tour their own music. I picked generally the quietest time of year for musicians, the first week of January and luckily enough i managed to get everyone together, including people like Alex Wilson who doesn’t even live in the UK anymore. It was a joyous occasion, two days spent at Dean Street studios. Aside from the music it really is a collection of friends and I hope that can somehow be heard on the album. We chose music from the pad we felt best represented the band at this particular time but we have a lot more music to be heard, the live shows coming up will demonstrate this."
His jazz credentials are as equally impressive, playing with Geoffrey Keezer, Ingrid Jenson, Jane Monheit, as well as Michael Janisch’s Paradigm Shift, Ryan Quigley Quintet with whom he recorded for Whirlwind Recordings. In addition he has recorded five solo albums and also runs his own label, Pathway Records.
If this wasn't enough, he has now formed the Bansangu Orchestra with fellow conspirators, Giorgio Serci and Kevin Robinson, so just where did this idea for the big band come about, and what about the name of the orchestra? "Well the story comes from the Brazilian guitarist José Neto with whom I’ve been touring with for the last 12 years in Steve Winwood’s band" explains Paul. "José recounted a a story of when Airto Moreira would come off stage after a particularly great gig and tell everyone “'the band sounds good' expect with his strong accent it sounded more like 'ban san goo'. As soon as I heard it I was like 'that’s a wicked name for a band' and the rest is history. "
For those who are not familiar with the history, the band was originally formed in 2014. Taking up the story, Paul says "This orchestra was born on the road, at least the idea was. Giorgio, Kevin and I were touring with the wonderful Polish singer Basia. Giorgio had a dream one night about a big band based in London but playing world music. He told me about it the next day and I’d actually been thinking about a similar project at the time so it was meant to be. Kevin had already been in projects of a similar nature and once we told him he was like 'yes I’m in'. From there we set about creating a list of people of extraordinary talent whom we thought would want to be part of this project from the beginning. Creative people that although are based in the jazz community, have interests and experience in playing and writing music from multiple genres. The result is what you hear on the album."
Continuing, Paul adds, "After being together for a while and putting a decent pad of music together we knew the next logical step was to make an album and get the music out there. The difficulty was getting the core members of the group together in one place. As you can see from the list of band members, it really is the who’s who of the session musician scene in London, not only that but many of these amazing musicians are artists in their own right who record and tour their own music. I picked generally the quietest time of year for musicians, the first week of January and luckily enough i managed to get everyone together, including people like Alex Wilson who doesn’t even live in the UK anymore. It was a joyous occasion, two days spent at Dean Street studios. Aside from the music it really is a collection of friends and I hope that can somehow be heard on the album. We chose music from the pad we felt best represented the band at this particular time but we have a lot more music to be heard, the live shows coming up will demonstrate this."
Between the inception of the band and the recording of the album, some four years have elapsed. Once again Paul explains this seemingly long delay, "Some artists and bands like to record first and then go looking for gigs but we really wanted to test the water first therefor a few rehearsals were the first step. The results were very exciting so we started to get word out there was a new big band in town. We managed to do some nice gigs including Spice of Life as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, Canary Wharf Jazz Festival, The Hideaway and more. Once we started to get a sound and realised our listeners were responding favourably we knew we had something special. The next stage was to record the album and even though we recorded it live over two days, there were edits and some overdubs to add on later. This didn’t take too long but the big problem was finding the time between touring and gigging, not just for me but for all the composers who had a big part to play in the creation of the album. But hey, we got there in the end and we are delighted with the very positive response we have been getting from the press and radio." Laughing he adds, "I promise the next album won’t take this long to release!"
One of the most striking this about the Bansangu Orchestra is that on paper the orchestra looks like a conventional big band, but in reality sounds like anything but a traditional big band. So I ask the saxophonist if this was this a conscious decision, and is there a musical policy or agenda for the Orchestra? Pausing to consider his reply, Paul says "I’m glad you asked this question. We consciously steered clear of the traditional sound and tried to create something unique. A lot of that came from the compositions themselves and we specifically decided to not play any swing. We wanted to firstly explore our writing using rhythms from around the globe. Once these rhythms started to make their way into our compositions the next decision was timbre. Despite using the traditional big band horn format of four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes I think where we make a difference is in the rhythm section. We use a 5 piece rhythm section and where you start to see some timbre changes is in the use of tabla, udu, bata and some more folkloric percussion played by our regular percussionist Satin Singh and our guest percussionist Edwin Sanz on Alex Wilson’s track Currulao Cool. Guitarist Giorgio Serci also played Oud and Nylon String on some the tracks. The final ingredient was adding our very special guests Seckou Keita on Kora and Jonathan Mayer on sitar. These masters transformed the sound and feel of the traditional big band."
One of the most striking this about the Bansangu Orchestra is that on paper the orchestra looks like a conventional big band, but in reality sounds like anything but a traditional big band. So I ask the saxophonist if this was this a conscious decision, and is there a musical policy or agenda for the Orchestra? Pausing to consider his reply, Paul says "I’m glad you asked this question. We consciously steered clear of the traditional sound and tried to create something unique. A lot of that came from the compositions themselves and we specifically decided to not play any swing. We wanted to firstly explore our writing using rhythms from around the globe. Once these rhythms started to make their way into our compositions the next decision was timbre. Despite using the traditional big band horn format of four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes I think where we make a difference is in the rhythm section. We use a 5 piece rhythm section and where you start to see some timbre changes is in the use of tabla, udu, bata and some more folkloric percussion played by our regular percussionist Satin Singh and our guest percussionist Edwin Sanz on Alex Wilson’s track Currulao Cool. Guitarist Giorgio Serci also played Oud and Nylon String on some the tracks. The final ingredient was adding our very special guests Seckou Keita on Kora and Jonathan Mayer on sitar. These masters transformed the sound and feel of the traditional big band."
Again what is immediately apparent when listening to the album is that while the compositions on the album come from a number of different writers from within the Orchestra, they all retain a flavour and sound that give the whole set a very cohesive feel. I guess that all the writers will arrange and write with the specific feel of the Orchestra in mind, or has this collective sound coalesced from playing together on a regular basis, I inquire? "It’s good to hear that despite the difference in style from piece to piece that the listeners feel the album as a whole. I can’t say this has happened from playing together on a regular basis but it’s more a case of have seventeen people in a room of like mind. We share similar tastes in music and have the common goal of creating something together and with a certain collective energy. With this in mind I really feel as though the sound of the band was suddenly just there, despite the varying styles we were tackling."
So, is it difficult to maintain this collective sound and a stable personnel with many of the band members having busy careers and commitments away from the Orchestra? "This will always be a problem and there’s no realistic way of having the same personnel on each gig when the members play with so many amazing artists and do their own projects", admits Paul. "However, the Bansangu is more a collective of people that reaches many more than seventeen names. We have an amazing pool of players that want to be involved and share the common goal of making new, fresh and exciting music."
As always with a such a large ensemble, the inevitable and ugly question of opportunities to play crops up. "Do we have many opportunities to play? The simple answer is 'No', Paul advises with a degree of resignation in his voice. "It’s unfortunate but with such a large orchestra clubs and festivals don’t always want to take on the risk of paying the fees for a band they like the sound of, but don’t necessarily have a 'name' or following. This usually leads to us having two choices, not playing live or playing for very low fees. We decided to take some time out of playing live in order to make the album, that time out gave us the opportunity to not only complete the album but create a buzz around the album when it came out in August. Since the release we have had a significant amount of radio play and every single review has been amazing. Our patience is already paying off, as we have done two very nice gigs. First up was the Margate Jazz Weekend in September where we opened the festival. Our most recent and very exciting booking was headlining our own night at Ronnie Scott’s on the 8th October. To make this event even more special we had two guests joining us, the incredible Claire Martin OBE and singer/songwriter Oli Rockberger, who featured on our album with his song 'My Old Life'. We have also decided to get cracking with our second album and aim to release this by the end of 2019.
So, is it difficult to maintain this collective sound and a stable personnel with many of the band members having busy careers and commitments away from the Orchestra? "This will always be a problem and there’s no realistic way of having the same personnel on each gig when the members play with so many amazing artists and do their own projects", admits Paul. "However, the Bansangu is more a collective of people that reaches many more than seventeen names. We have an amazing pool of players that want to be involved and share the common goal of making new, fresh and exciting music."
As always with a such a large ensemble, the inevitable and ugly question of opportunities to play crops up. "Do we have many opportunities to play? The simple answer is 'No', Paul advises with a degree of resignation in his voice. "It’s unfortunate but with such a large orchestra clubs and festivals don’t always want to take on the risk of paying the fees for a band they like the sound of, but don’t necessarily have a 'name' or following. This usually leads to us having two choices, not playing live or playing for very low fees. We decided to take some time out of playing live in order to make the album, that time out gave us the opportunity to not only complete the album but create a buzz around the album when it came out in August. Since the release we have had a significant amount of radio play and every single review has been amazing. Our patience is already paying off, as we have done two very nice gigs. First up was the Margate Jazz Weekend in September where we opened the festival. Our most recent and very exciting booking was headlining our own night at Ronnie Scott’s on the 8th October. To make this event even more special we had two guests joining us, the incredible Claire Martin OBE and singer/songwriter Oli Rockberger, who featured on our album with his song 'My Old Life'. We have also decided to get cracking with our second album and aim to release this by the end of 2019.
For more information visit Paul Booth Music - Bansangu & Pathway Records
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Click on the album cover to read our review
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