Music and its associations – it’s all in the mind

Posted by on Mar 7, 2013

After a recent Interplay gig a friend of about my age asked “Where does this stuff come from? It sounds like those cool American detective series from the early 1960s”. He was expressing pleasure both at the music and at how it connected him with something else he really liked. It’s lovely that people attribute the same music with such widely varied associations. If the music is mine these are often ideas I have never even thought of! Of course the suggestive power of music and its ability to fire the imagination is one of its greatest qualities. But it still knocks me out – and makes me smile – when I hear comments like this. “Really? If you say so” I thought, then I started to ponder. I certainly remember as a kid thinking the theme music to ‘Hawaii Five-O’ was pretty exciting. There was another series though, with Bill Cosby and someone else (was it Robert Wagner?) as ridiculously cool plainclothes cops, and they had some hip music too. Anyone remember that series, what is was called, or how the music went? If so please let me know. Stuff I liked and still remember comes from a bit later – ‘Taxi’ and ‘St. Elsewhere’ were two series with great music, by Mike Post if I recall.  But do I think about any of that when I’m writing for Interplay? Not a bit, although many years ago I did write a big band score titled ‘Bullet-Proof Vest’…. By contrast another example comes from a very different age-group. The band is booked to appear at LAMP, Leamington’s new music venue, which is run out of a social enterprise to engage young people through music and related activity. The PR for the venue (young, naturally) has written up our music as reminding him of the sound track to a well-known computer game. He tells me this is because he really likes that music and ‘his’ public will relate to it. Brilliant! I can describ  e our music to our typical audience, but would never have thought in a million years of talking to young people about it in such terms. (And it might suggest a different outlet for our music...

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‘The Music Lesson’ – Victor Wooten

Posted by on Dec 31, 2011

I’m indebted to Interplay drummer Dave Balen for sharing this with me, and I want to pass it on. Many people agree that Victor Wooten is one of the greatest bass guitarists ever – that title seems to undervalue both the instrument and its contribution to music in general and in his hands particularly – nevertheless it’s his preferred term. In this book Victor sets out to describe a transformation in his musical approach and understanding that has made him the creative artist  he is today.  He offers his discoveries with disarming modesty and self-deprecating humour recounted in a readable and economic style that makes for genuine entertainment.  Nevertheless without it becoming pretentious the message  is substantial and all-embracing as the narrator (Victor) encounters the synergies between Music (capital ‘M’) and Life (capital ‘L’). There is a quasi-mystical aspect to the book that some may find hard to accept.  The teacher and his associates appear to live a mysterious and non-material life that nonetheless renders them exactly at the right place and time to interact with Victor in extraordinary ways.  Those of us who remember Carlos Castaneda’s account of his experiences with Don Juan, the Yaqui Shaman in the Mexican desert, will appreciate Tony Levin’s reference on the book cover. However that was in the 1960’s, and Wooten’s narrative is far more inclusive and benign, and free of dependence on mind-altering substances.  I don’t need to resolve whether his narrative is true or a device – either way it’s a leap of imagination.  What I take from the book is what it says about music (and Music), musicianship and creativity.  The routines and rules we lay down for ourselves and adopt from others are capable of becoming the bars of a musical cage.  The criticism we give ourselves and the goals we set can be the same. Victor Wooten started playing at two years old by his own account, and as he grew up he became more distant from his instinctual musicality.  At the start of the book he describes himself as a struggling bassist, not getting enough work, worried about paying his rent, and anxious about his standing in the musical marketplace.  I suspect many of us can relate to this. Victor’s journey as retold here is one of re-connecting himself with the innate knowledge of Music that engaged him and drew him on as a child –...

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A Grand Re-Union

Posted by on Mar 27, 2011

A Grand Re-Union

‘I went down to the demonstration…’ (March for the Alternative, London, 26th March) but instead of abuse I was delighted to find myself in the company of Tony Haynes and members of the very wonderful  Grand Union Orchestra.   Imagine busking in the street with such luminaries as Claude Deppa, Chris Biscoe, Byron Wallen and Louise Elliott and you will appreciate my excitement! If you haven’t had the pleasure, Grand Union is a magnificent assemblage of jazz and world musicians – literally from all over the globe.  Under the creative leadership of Tony Haynes the Orchestra performs concerts and music theatre of astonishing cross-cultural richness and ingenuity.  Over 30 years Tony has investigated and engaged with many cultural traditions, producing original works on themes as diverse as the enslavement of African people in the New World, to the history of the Silk Road.  The Orchestra has also delivered ambitious and memorable participative community and education projects that draw directly on the musical practice of the Orchestra and its musicians. Tony and I first met circa 1984 when as Director of an Arts Centre in Oxford I was keen to encourage music  improvisation among schools in the area.  I remember going to see the Orchestra performing in a Sports Hall and being blown away by the diversity, audacity and vitality of the music.  I was not alone, as the hundreds of students responded alike. Over the next few years we worked together extensively in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire schools, youth organisations and with local musicians including jazz and rock, Bhangra and orchestral players.  The finale ‘If Music Could’ involved 200 young people and adults and subsequently went on to be developed in two other Grand Union residencies. I have learned a massive amount from Tony and the other musicians about how new music can be inclusive so as to reflect and respect different cultural and musical traditions.  They also enact the sheer power of music to engage people in participation who may not have had the opportunity to undergo the  formalities of conventional training. And that brings us back to the march and the reasons for being there.  Masses of arts educational activity is going to disappear in the coming months and years as a result of current government policies, including outreach projects by organisations like Grand Union.  In the scale of all the hardships that people will experience this may not...

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