Ronnie Scott 6

RONNIE SCOTT

Jazz...it's never been healthier

A personal angle
No grumbles
The Club and I
Frith Street
Overheads
Jazz...it's never been healthier

Talking to Les Tomkins in 1979

What do you feel about the general state of jazz today?

Well, as far as I can see, it’s never been healthier. There are more guys playing—and playing good.

I won’t say there are more jazz clubs, but there are more venues that are using jazz. I know, when I go on the road with the group, we play a lot of places that you’d never think would have jazz—but they do. A lot of discotheques up and down the country will have a jazz night once a week, once a month or whenever, which they never used to do. Not as many as I would have hoped, but some universities occasionally have a jazz thing; whenever we’ve played at a university thing, it’s always been very successful—I don’t know why they don’t have more than they do. But, in general, there’s certainly more venues; sometimes we’re away for ten days or two weeks with the quintet, doing one–night stands up and down the country, working in all sorts of places. Which is something that didn’t exist twenty years ago; you were lucky if you did two nights a week in London. And really, London was the only place where there was anywhere to play jazz—there were very few other places in the country.

Also, guys are finding a lot of work on the Continent; they couldn’t do that twenty years ago, either. So, all in all, there’s no argument that it’s a much healthier scene than ever before.

It is sometimes said that in European countries they tend to look upon jazz more as a parallel art form with classical music, whereas it is not really regarded that way in Britain. Travelling on the Continent as you do, do you find this?

I don’t know; I’ve never found audiences on the Continent any better educated, if you like, as far as jazz is concerned, than British audiences. In Germany, I find that, as a general rule, they’re not interested in anything really unless it’s violently avant garde. I’m not too sure that they know what they’re listening to anyway. I honestly don’t think European audiences are any better. As a matter of fact, jazz audiences in England, on the whole, are the best in the world. I mean, I’ve been in clubs in America, and, to a large extent, the audiences are not very with it. They think they are —but much of it is a pose. A lot of people are far too swayed by what critics write; they let the critics be their guide—which is not a very good idea.

Musicians like Johnny Griffin, who have settled in Europe, obviously find something in Europe that they don’t find in the States.

Yes—I think what they find is much more work, and much less of a hassle—a much more congenial wav of life. I’m sure that Griffin or any of the American musicians living in Europe, if things were better in the States, would be just as happy, and probably happier, working in the States. And why not? That’s their native country. But things are tough for them over there; it’s a rat race. I don’t think they’re over here because the audiences are any more knowledgeable, or anything like that.

Running the club here is bound to anchor you, of course, but have you never had any thoughts about spending a period working in the States? I believe you’ve had offers at times.

I have. But I like to visit America maybe once or twice a year, listen to what’s happening, and get around. I don’t really have any great desire to live in America. Maybe if I was seventeen years old, or something like that. It’s a marvellous school—hard, tough, competitive—if you’re a young musician, then there’s nowhere really better. But I’m not mad about the kind of way of life over there.

How about the British jazz scene in itself? Sometimes there has seemed to be a sort of a British sound. Is there such a thing?

No, I don’t think so. Jazz is an American music; it’s the music of the American Negro, basically. If you’re not going to play in that idiom, then you’re making some other kind of music; which may be perfectly valid, but it isn’t jazz music. That’s why I don’t think there’s a British sound, or a Portuguese sound, or whatever. It’s like—you can get a Chinaman playing Flamenco guitar, but there’s never going to be a Chinese Flamenco sound, because that can only be Spanish music. I mean, there may be a British jazz sound, where guys somehow sound European; but that, to me, is not as good as the Americans are. The Americans are the best, and it’s perfectly natural that they should be the best. It’s their music, in the same way as the Spanish are the best Flamenco guitarists.

But, of course, players like you can stand alongside Americans, as you’ve done many times, and play to the same technical and creative standard . . .

Oh, it’s not to say that a British guy can’t play jazz, or a Chinaman can’t play Flamenco. But you were talking about a British jazz sound. It’s either jazz or it isn’t—and jazz is an American sound, an American art form. A musician can have his own sound, certainly—sure, that’s the idea, to develop that. He doesn’t have to ape one of the American jazz musicians, note for note, sound for sound. Of course not—but he’s got to play in that idiom. If he’s outside of that idiom, then he’s making a different music.

Your own playing always sounds very good to me. That was a beautiful album you made—“Serious Gold”.

Thank you. Well, hopefully, it evolves. I can’t find it in myself, I don’t have the capability of forming a set style, and preserving that, as it were, in aspic, and that’s it, that’s me. I hear all sorts of things; some I take in, others I reject—consciously or unconsciously. But whenever I think I’ve done something that’s okay, all I’ve got to do is listen to somebody like Coltrane or Rollins—or, apart from them, young guys like Mike Brecker, Bob Berg or Larry Schneider. Then I know just how far there is to go. I just kind of keep trying.

This is a natural musician’s lack of self–satisfaction, isn’t it? You’re always striving for something else.

Something like that—obviously, nobody is ever self–satisfied about their playing; otherwise, they would just stop. But, I mean, some guys do hit on, or evolve, a kind of set style. To me, I’ve never had that; I can’t hear it in my playing—it’s always in a constant state of flux. Which has its good and its bad points—but there’s nothing I can do about it. Of course, as every musician will tell you, there are ups and downs; the downs are usually ninety per cent of the time, and the ups, such as they are, are maybe ten per cent—if you’re lucky. That’s the story.

Has the soprano added a lot to your playing, do you feel?

I’ve sold it. I haven’t played the soprano for about two years, because I found it very difficult to play it the way I would like to. After I bought it, I realised that you don’t just pick up the soprano and play it—at least, I don’t. It required a lot of work, and I found that it was interfering, to some extent, with my tenor saxophone embouchure. And I love the instrument; I’m terribly envious of those guys who can really play it—that knocks me out. As things are at present, I’m not ready for that. Maybe later on in the year I’ll get another one and try and work on it—if I back a winner.

What I tend to feel about a lot of players—even Phil Woods or Zoot Sims—if they double on the soprano, they’re only duplicating what they do on their normal instrument; so they might as well stay on that.

That’s a natural thing, I suppose—you don’t change your musical way of thinking because you’re playing another instrument. The way you think is going to be transferred to anything you play. But it has a different sound; it’s a completely different feeling from playing the tenor or the alto or whatever, and that can tend to give you a fresh outlook on some things; that’s why guys play it a lot. I used to like playing ballads on the soprano.

Was clarinet the instrument you started on originally?

No, I never started on it; I used to play the clarinet a little, when I was working in dance bands, and it was an obligatory double. Now, in dance bands and in the studios, you’ve got to double on the clarinet, the flute, the bassoon, the oboe, the cor anglais, the piccolo—you know, it’s out of sight now. I have enough trouble with the tenor. But I was maybe the worst clarinet player in the world. Maybe—I’m not sure. Certainly, it’s also a marvellous instrument, when it’s played right.

Obviously, you’ve never had eyes to do session work.

It hasn’t worked out that way. On the very rare occasions when someone’s asked me to do something in the studio, I’ve always enjoyed it. I find the occasional things where you play with an orchestra very challenging and enjoyable. But apart from all the doubling, those studio guys are marvellous readers—which I’m not. I’ve done very little reading for years now; I suppose I could get back into it. I enjoy playing in a saxophone section very much.

I suppose you haven’t done that often enough, since the demise of the Clarke/Boland band?

Not at all—that’s what I enjoyed really about that band, playing in that section. Yes, it is a very sad loss. I used to like playing with Derek Humble—I thought he was fantastic. That band had some marvellous moments, really. At its best, it was almost as good as any band I’ve ever heard—with the possible exception of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, maybe. Oh, yes, I think you could put it up there with the Jones/Lewis band. Their music was a little more complex than ours; our band was a little more down–to–earth, I think. When it was at its peak, that Clarke/Boland band was something else.

As for recordings—you don’t seem to make any of your own that often.

Well, you know—I hate making records, really. I envy those guys who can’t wait to get in the studio and make a record, and get it put out. It’s such a personal thing, playing, that to have it on a record I find disconcerting. Once it’s there, I know that three months after I’ll hear it and say: “Christ, I can do better than that now”; it’s not really what I want to put down on a record.

So I don’t like doing it; to me, I enjoy just playing in clubs—I’m not mad about concerts. As long as I can play with guys I know, that I like working with, in a club—that’s enough for me. If I’m going to make a record, I prefer it to be a live thing, rather than in the studio. I just can’t play that way: when the red light goes on, you’ve got to turn it on. I wish I could be like the guys who have such a consistent standard that they can go in and turn out good stuff to order. If it happens with me on the stand, it’s more luck than judgement. As a general rule, I prefer to hear live recordings; you don’t get the sound that you get in the studio, but you usually get better music. Not always.

But I’ve found that when I was present when a live recording was made—such as in the club—when, later, I heard the record, somehow it hadn’t quite captured the feeling I got on the spot.

Yes, I know what you mean. That’s largely, I suppose, to do with the actual technical production of the thing. But, in any case, to me it’s hard to capture these things on record. Jazz is essentially a music of the moment; when it’s gone, it’s gone. Even if you get it on record, it loses something through you not being there and it happening at the moment. There’s something else, apart from the actual notes and the sound of the music—some kind of communication that happens momentarily. This is not to say that there haven’t been very many great jazz records; of course, there have. But I can imagine it must have been marvellous to have been in the studio when they were happening, and listened to them live.

Do you do a lot of listening to records?

I hear a lot of music in the club, and, as I said, I prefer to hear it that way. But there are records that I play a lot—perhaps not as much as some people.

Is the listening you do restricted to jazz, or do you spend time on other forms as well?

Sometimes I listen to other things, such as some opera—I like Italian opera. And there are some classical writers that I like: some of the impressionists Debussy and Ravel, people like that. Also, Chopin’s music I find fantastic—I can’t believe it. I’m assured by people who have had a classical music education that Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are the ones. Brahms I can listen to, but Bach and Beethoven I haven’t got to yet. I’m sure there’s so much music there that I’m not ready for. I’ll probably get to it, hopefully. Yes, I do like the melodic aspect. That’s why I like Italian opera so much, because of some of the tunes. When I think that a guy has sat down and written those melodies, I find that fantastic. That really moves me.