Hello, this is Krystle Frey with a new blog post for you. (Incase I haven’t properly introduced myself yet, I am a university student from the United States here in London on internship at Grand Union. Needless to say I’m enjoying every minute!) Anyways…
Grand Union Orchestra began rehearsing this week for ‘Trading Roots: a musical journey across borders’! Tom Lancaster and I dropped into the Grand Union studio yesterday to meet and observe the rhythm and horns in action, and to talk to some of the musicians (Being new to Grand Union I’d never met them before). We were lucky enough to meet and chat to Tony Haynes (piano/composer), Dave Adams (drum kit), Andy Lafone (bass guitar), Gerry Hunt (guitar), Claude Deppa (trumpet), Paul Jayasinha (trumpet), Chris Biscoe (alto sax), Tony Kofi (tenor sax) and Louise Elliott (tenor sax).
Monday and Tuesday saw musicians from Grand Union come together with the BBC Concert Orchestra concertante musicians for the first time, who will be performing with Grand Union in the first set of the show, and also leading the different sections of the ful BBC Concert Orchestra in the second half’s piece “The Golden Road, The Unforgiving Sea”
We wanted to find out what the challenges faced by both Grand Union and the BBC Concert Orchestra musicians are in working together, coming from very different musical training. This collaboration between world class jazz and classically trained musicians is a new venture for Grand Union and a new experience for many of our musicians. During a well earned tea break I chatted to Tony Kofi and Gerry Hunt about the different approaches to performance between the disciplines specifically about the challenge improvisation (a key feature of Grand Unions performances) poses for classically trained musicians.
Tony K - “I’ve been working with quite a few classical musicians and they always say to me, ‘how do you improvise?’ I always say to them, can you play a major scale? A C-major scale. If so, then you can improvise; because improvisation is all about scales and core tones.”
Gerry chimes in - “Just like what we’re doing at the moment, it’s language and you just mix around with it and you make mistakes and go oh, that wasn’t such a good term or phrase.”
Tony K – “…And start to get a vocabulary together! This is what I said to this lady that asked me the same thing this week. When you’re talking to me, you’re asking me all these questions, have you got a script you’re reading from? No, well, that’s what music is like – jazz improvisation. You’re doing it on the spot, you’re not really thinking too far ahead. You’re doing everything basically for the moment. “
Gerry – “I think what it is, is that they’re worried about making mistakes! Whereas if you’re like me, I’m really good at making mistakes and I repeat them, then you’re only a semitone away from a good note anyway. “
Tony K -“…And then there’s no wrong notes either. It’s only wrong if you anticipate it.”
The was a general air of excitement and anticipation about how the collaboration is going to turn out in the finished performance on March 6th. I tried to find out how the musicians were feeling about the collaboration so far.
Andy Lafone “They (The BBC musicians) were very flexible in trying new things, which is good! It’s great for me to be playing with strings, usually its just brass. I’m hoping it will be a permanent feature!”
Louise Elliott “I met some of the musicians yesterdayand they are obviously very good at what they do and quite sensitive in trying to come towards what we do. They’re improvising and listening for the phrasings, I think altogether it will be very interesting. I’m still looking to myself to see how it actually, physically comes together and we all fit on the stage.”
Claude Deppa “We had two rehearsals and they were on top of it. Glad to say everybody’s feeling all right, we’re feeling like contemporaries, and no ones looking down on anybody going you should do this. We’re working well together, we’ve come out on top.”
Tom and I had a great time meeting and interviewing the musicians. We put together this little video to share with you the delights and comical moments of Grand Union in rehearsal. Enjoy!
Just as we were leaving the musicians to continue with the afternoon rehearsals Tony Haynes pulled out a caricature of himself that his friend, artist Romi Behrens, had recently drawn of him. He is quite proud of the drawing & we are adopting it as his bloggin profile picture!
This drawing got both Tonys talking about photography. There’s a photo of Tony Haynes hanging on the wall in the studio, that Tony Kofi took a few years back. As well as being the phenomenal saxophonist we all know, Tony Kofi is actually also an accomplished photographer and has had his work exhibited many times, including at the London Jazz Festival! I learn something new everyday.
Romi Behrens has a free exhibition going on now at the Illustration Cupboard called, ‘Toucan and Friends’. http://www.illustrationcupboard.com/exhibition_details.aspx?eId=158&ePage=1 Do catch it if you can.
Wishing you all a great weekend. More blogs from myself, Tony Haynes and the Grand Union musicians next week.
Over and out!
