February 2010 issue - Jazz Singers.com

put patterns on them and they repeat and you could
play over these patterns. Most of it comes out of musical
curiosity on my part and some of it, musical stupidity.
I don’t know it’s caused a lot of trouble with
the jazz police, particularly through the synthesizer
era when, you know, you just weren’t supposed to do
that sort of thing. For me, regarding the things that
the critics haven’t been too comfortable with, I’ve always
looked to see what my fellow musicians thought
about it and if they were comfortable than I thought,
‘That’s alright, I can hang in with that.’
JI: Will you be having a polka album coming out
soon?
JS: [Laughs] You never know, you can’t say no to
things.
JI: Do you ever worry that the consumer will be put
off by not knowing what to expect when they pick
up a John Surman disc? Are you running the risk of
branching out too far?
JI: Yeah, I think that’s a distinct problem. Nobody
knows what reference box to put my albums in but
I just have to take that with the territory, you can’t
have it both ways. I can’t be what I am and then be
something else at the same time. That’s the way I am,
so you have to go along with the ride. Sure, life would
have been a lot easier if I had settled for one path, but
it wouldn’t have been as much fun.
JI: Once upon a time, solo projects were quite rare but
nowadays it seems everyone’s doing them. Unfortunately,
many of these projects seem self-indulgent and
are not able to sustain a full CD’s worth of interest.
You’ve made a number of outstanding solo recordings
utilizing multi-tracks to add instruments on top of
each other for great effect. I think your compositional
and playing style gives you an advantage over most
artists. Would you comment on your solo projects?
JS: They grew out of the ability to do this multitracking.
I did Westering Home I suppose in 1970,
and up until that time we recorded in mono and
then living stereo came. Suddenly, I’m in a studio
and there are eight tracks and I wondered what eight
bass clarinets would sound like. And what eight bass
clarinets sound like with eight people playing them
is one thing, but what they sound like with the same
guy playing them with the same tone quality and
meshing together is different and that intrigued me.
I thought wow, what if I improvise something and
then come back and play on top of it and layer it in
different ways? So that’s what started me in that interest
and then along came synthesizers which gave
me another texture to work with and which I could
also do live as well. I got a lot of experience in doing
this in the 1970’s, which, by the way, was a tough
time for jazz musicians. There was a lot of fusion and
confusion at that time about the music and I was at
that time in the Paris Opera between ‘73-’79, having
consistent work, consistent payment and the opportunity
to work with electronics. A lot of the solo
stuff got developed there, although I didn’t know it
Comments about John Surman
Jack DeJohnette (drums)
He’s an extraordinarily sensitive, lyrical and highly
creative improviser with a very unique sound on
soprano, baritone and bass clarinet. I’m also getting
him to play some tenor in an electronic project
called Ripple Effect. He’s a talented composer,
a deep listener and we have a rapport rhythmically
and dynamically. He’s just one of those rare musicians
who’s just very broad. He’s not in one kind
of genre; he’s into electronics and acoustic music.
He writes choral music, music for strings and for
brass. It’s a pleasure to know him and make great
music with him. He’s a beautiful human being.
Han Bennink (drums)
He had a great trio with Barre Phillips and Stu
Martin. He’s great, he’s a great musician, man.
Howard Johnson (baritone sax, tuba)
I met John when I was in the Navy and our ship
came to Plymouth and I was 20 and he was 16. He
was already a really fine player on a terrible instrument
and I was kind of a cultural collision for him
because I was the first American he had ever met,
the first black person he had ever met, the first
baritone sax player he had ever met and the first
jazz musician that he had ever met and I might as
well have been from Mars, as far as he was con-
at the time. So there was all this work that I’d done
that was waiting. Then when I got around to doing
something with Manfred [Eicher-president of ECM
Records] I said, ‘What about some solo things’ and
that led to the series of solo albums.
JI: How important has the relationship with ECM
Records been for you?
JS: Undoubtedly, it’s been very, very important for all
European jazz musicians, whether they were actually
on the label or whether they weren’t. It changed the
way that jazz was recorded and also it changed the way
that jazz labels treated the musicians. Before them it
was the same old thing, the three year contract. You
make the first album and there’s a lot of brouhaha.
The second one, yeah, maybe people buy it and the record
company realizes that it’s not a hot item, it’s not
gonna sell 50,000 off the shelf immediately so by time
the third album comes, they’ve lost interest. Then you
have to find another company and your albums are
deleted. Manfred came along and said, “Once you’ve
recorded it, it stays on catalog.” The other thing he
said was, “Let’s record this stuff so that we really hear
what’s happening, let’s hear detail, let’s record it in a
way that you would record chamber music.” So for
those reasons alone, ECM was important.
JI: ECM has used the motto - “The most beautiful
sound next to silence.” The label is famous for recording
gorgeous music, much of which has an ambient
quality to it. Before you record for ECM, is there any
discussion about expectations on what the music is to
cerned. He was playing this old beat up saxophone
that he still managed to play very well. I let him
play my brand new Selmer Mark VI and that was
the first time I ever heard someone say, “Blimy!”
John Abercrombie (guitar)
For me, playing with John Surman is sort of
similar to playing with Kenny Wheeler, although
Kenny is Canadian and lives in England. There’s
something about the English, maybe because I’m
Scottish. There’s something about John’s tone, the
kind of tunes he writes, the way he improvises. It’s
not bebop at all, yet it’s as aware of harmony as a
good bebop musician or even more. It’s a different
way to phrase, a different way to put your ideas
together. I think I relate to him very well that way.
I think it’s a good match. We share a similar aesthetic,
like I do with Kenny. We play differently
but there is something similar there and I’ve often
wondered if it had anything to do with the British
or that part of the world. I think I first met
John at a recording session I was doing with Jack
DeJohnette and Dave Holland, somewhere near
Stuttgart, and I remember John came into the
recording room while we were listening to a playback
and started yelling his approval at what he
was hearing from the speakers. I just sort of felt a
kindred spirit.
sound like or is it just understood that you’ll conjure
up a fitting sound?
JS: I never had that discussion with Manfred. In
their early days, the recordings were based in either
Ludwigsburg or in Oslo with Jan Erik Kongshaug.
I knew Jan Erik before I went into the studio with
Manfred because he’s a really good guitarist and was
with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, something
that very few people know. You see this name Jan
Erik Kongshaug on so many albums but actually, he’s
a really good guitarist. I think that’s an old slogan
of theirs, one which they paid the price for over the
years. When you listen to the output of what Manfred’s
done, everything from the Art Ensemble of
Chicago to Evan [Parker] and a lot of free music, his
label is quite broad, really. He said from the beginning,
he recorded who he wanted to. And why not,
it’s his label. As a producer, I find him really outstanding.
There are very few that actually want to
get involved in the music and Manfred likes to be involved.
And in the solo things, he was indispensable
in a sense because the whole process became much
quicker with somebody you could trust in the box
who could say, “Yeah, that was a good take,” or he
would say, “Do the second baritone part again, the
first one is fine.” When it comes to mixing, he has
this really good retention about what’s happened in
a session so he’s able to point out the best take immediately
and 99 times out of a 100, I could never
disagree. In fact, at the end, I didn’t even bother to
check because he was right.
Continued on Page 52
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