Tag: Theo Travis

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Composition famine…

I’ve not written any new music for quite a while. It’s not a problem – most areas of music tend to happen in terms of flurries of activity followed by plateaus, whether it be technique, concepts, composition or whatever. And right now, I’m working on arrangements of other people’s tunes – something I’ve done very little of as a solo player. I used to do a short version of ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ to finish gigs, and these days do ‘People Get Ready’, and now have just worked out a lovely solo arrangement of ‘What A Wonderful World’. I’ve also been working on a version of This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody), the Talking Heads track, which sounds great, but is really hard to play!! I need to make sure it’s well hammered into my skull before I attmept it live. It involves some pretty tricky looping (well, tricky for me…)

So I’m having fun with other people’s tunes (and maybe I’ll finally get round to having a go at ‘The Fish’ – something I’ve had a number of people nagging me to do for a while (yes, you, Catherine Street Team and California Bob!)

And as an off-shoot, I’ve got the beginnings of a new tune. It might end up as a solo piece, or maybe in one of the collaborations. This Monday and I met up with a fantastic drummer called Andrew Booker. Andrew has his own duo/trio (recorded thus far as a duo, now have a guitarist as well) called , whose CD is really cool (bass and drums duo, with Andrew singing like a less-heliumed John Anderson).

Anyway, he plays a tiny electronic kit, and adjusts really well to the slight imperfections of my loops, so we’ll hopefully be launching said trio on the listening public before too long – playing the tracks from Open Spaces with a drummer certainly took them into a very different space…

So, despite the famine, much creative noodling is taking place, and many new avenues are opening up…

Soundtrack – , ‘Ghost Town’; , ‘Slow Life’; , ‘Live’; , ‘Stones’; , ‘Polarised’.

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Two gigs – one played one watched

A two gig day, but I only played at the first one.

It was the lunchtime gig at the RFH Foyer, with the mighty , and it went very well. Well, I wasn’t in the PA for the first couple of tunes, due to me plugging the DIs into the wrong outputs on my mixer (doh!), but with my rig, it didn’t really matter… :o) After that, we sounded marvellous! This duo just keeps getting better and better, and one of the improv/goo things we did today will no doubt end up as a new Travis/Lawson tune. Good stuff.

Here’s a piccie, taken by Jude on her phone cam thingie –

Then tonights gig, which began with a lovely surprise – I was going to see and anyway, but I walked down the stairs at the Borderline to the unmistakeable sound of ‘s pedal steel guitar! He was playing in a duo with a singer/songwriter called Laura Stark, and doing a mighty fine job of it too!

After that was Duke Special – Pete’s a great performer, and a truly delightful person. If you ever the chance to go and see him, please take it.

And Juliet, she just keeps getting better and better. Her voice was on top form tonight, the new songs she was playing sounded fantastic, Brian and the-keyboardist-whose-name-I-didn’t-catch were both playing and singing marvellously, and Brian Kennedy made a guest appearance. A truly wonderful night out. They are coming to the end of the tour, but if you’re in Gloucester tomorrow night, or Swindon on Saturday, please go and see Duke and Julie do their respective thangs – gig dates here.

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A timely reminder.

Was rehearsing with this morning for the couple of gigs we’ve got coming up over the next two weeks, and was reminded once again how much fun playing with Theo is! It really is the simplest most immediately effective musical hook-up I’ve ever had, and I’ve had quite a few others that were pretty painless. When we were trying to remember how ‘Flutter’ goes (the opening tune from For The Love Of Open Spaces), we actually played the first minute of the tune twice in a row – that’s the most work we’ve ever had to do on anything!

Anyway, we were sounding just fine, and it gave me renewed impetus to get more gigs with Theo. He’s a fantastic musician and a top bloke. If you haven’t got his new CD, Go here to get it.

And now I’m listening to – those of you in the US will probably have heard her (she was on Letterman recently), those of you in the UK might have heard of her if you keep up with David Torn-related news (he produced the record), but she’s pretty much unknown on this side of the pond at the moment. She’s a solo acoustic guitarist, in the Hedges/Forcione/Roche/Ross school of playing, and is magic. Writes great tunes and is a great performer. I’m hoping to bring her over for some gigs together this coming summer. ‘Til then, check out her site and buy the CD on-line from the states!

Soundtrack – Kaki King, ‘Legs To Make Us Longer; Steve Lawson and Theo Travis, ‘For The Love Of Open Spaces’; , ‘Matthew Garrison’.

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Festive Fives Pt 1

OK, here’s the first of a few top 5s of this year –

Albums of 2004 (in no particular order)

Julie Lee – Stillhouse Road
Tom Waits – Real Gone
Sarah Slean – Day One
Matthew Garrison – Shapeshifter
Theo Travis – Earth To Ether

…

oh sod it, I can’t just pick 5!!

The Low Country – The Dark Road
Calamateur – The Old Fox Of ’45
Todd Johnson/Kristen Korb – Get Happy
The Cure – The Cure
A Marble Calm – Surfacing

Feel free to post your own festive fives over in the Forum.

Soundtrack – Talk Talk, ‘Spirit Of Eden’.

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Happy Christmas, blog-readers!

Right, I’m just off to do my christmas shopping, and just have time to wish y’all and very happy and blessed christmas. Please don’t spend too much, eat too much or drink too much – there’s something deeply perverse about celebrating God coming into the world as a homeless refugee by overindulging in everything. Instead, be thankful for your family, tell them you love them, and spare a thought for those who are alone. If you can, invite someone over who’ll be on their own.

Thanks for reading this year – I must congratulate you on your superb taste in trivial reading matter. :o)


Soundtrack – Jonatha Brooke, ‘Steady Pull’; Theo Travis, ‘Earth To Ether’; Talk Talk, ‘Spirit Of Eden’; The Pixies, ‘Doolittle’; The Works, ‘Beware Of The Dog’.

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A questionaire…

I quite often get sent mini-interviews by students studying music who are doing a project on solo bass. Here’s the latest one – feel free to add to it over in the forum…

1) What is the biggest problem with young (18-30) bass players? What is the main obsticle that hinders young players from becoming well rounded musicians?

I think the biggest single factor is the shift in the west towards a culture of immediacy. Closely followed by the cult of celebrity. Becoming a ‘well rounded musician’ requires years of dedicated and focussed practice, a lot of unglamourous work, crappy gigs, rehearsing, jamming, mistakes, expense, lessons, books etc. Before you really get anywhere. There are no shortcuts, and there’s no ‘secret’ to it. It just takes effort.

Couple that with the tendency with the entertainment industry to value celebrity over integrity, fame over talent and exposure over experience, and you’ve got yourself an uphill struggle to ignore all the millions of distractions and do the work required, then keep doing it, never stop learning. That’s tough.

2) What do you see as the future of solo bass?

I think the music made on bass will continue to develop as more people see past the restrictions of the ‘function of the bass player in a band’ and see it as an instrument full of unexplored potential. The bass guitar has very few fixed physical properties in terms of what’s possible design-wise with the classification ‘bass guitar’ – and those limits are always expanding. I think we’re going to see a lot more hybrid instruments that go beyond the standard divisions between guitar, bass and other stringed instruments.

3) When you pushing the musical envelope on bass, are you thinking musicality or “is this even possible to do on bass”?

The purpose of pushing the envelope is to find the music that’s behind the limitations… pushing limitations is fun, but unless the quest is meaningful music, it doesn’t really hold that much interest for me. I love working on new ways to access sound, process sound and peform music on the bass, and seeing what new textures, sounds, ideas, and compositional processes are facilitated by that exploration.

4) What is the average time you put in per week for practicing?

Not enough. I guess it ranges from about 6 hours up to about 20 hours, depending on what else I’ve got going on…

5) Who has been the single most influential player for you musically?

Michael Manring. As much conceptually as sonically. The feeling of reading an article by someone who was able to articulate a lot of the thoughts I’d had and was already forging ahead exploring that territory gave me a lot of encouragement to head down a similar path. Our music doesn’t really sound all that similar, but the thought process behind it shares a lot of territory.

6) Why do you push yourself musically? What drives you to expand your musicality?

All sorts of things – boredom and frustration are great motivators, as is the need to come up with new material for different projects. Hearing new things that move me and trying to conjure up the same emotions in my own music is a big one for me. Lots of things outside music inspire me to play – nature, cities, people, relationships, faith – big things, small things. There’s a corresponding soundtrack to most of life’s events, and I’m perpetually exploring that space.

Soundtrack – Paul Simon, ‘Hearts And Bones’; Paul Simon, ‘One Trick Pony’; Bill Frisell, ‘Blues Dream’; Wheeler/Konitz/Holland/Frisell, ‘Angel Song’; Theo Travis, ‘Earth To Ether’.

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Busy musical friends…

Thought a quick update on what various musical chums are up to would be pertinent –

First up, Theo Travis is on tour with his quartet at the moment. He’s got a new CD out that’s fantastic, and the tour is playing lots of tunes from that – click here for tour dates – he’s all over the UK.

Singer, songwriter and Burning Shed records main-man, Tim Bowness has got a gig in London on Monday – he’s very good! Click here for details of that.

Solo bass singer-songwriter, John Lester is on tour in the UK over the next couple of weeks – Click here for his gig details – one not to be missed, for sure.

Singer/songwriter Martyn Joseph is on tour throughout November and December – Click here for the dates – Martyn’s a hugely compelling performer, and well worth seeing.

And before he comes over here for the tour with me in a couple of weeks, Michael Manring is playing at a festival in France. So if you’re in France, go see him! check out his gig list here…

Soundtrack – Matthew Garrison, ‘Shapeshifter’; Miranda Sykes, ‘Don’t Look Down’; Show Of Hands, ‘Dark Fields’.

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Another fine gig with Theo

This afternoon, Theo and I had a gig in the Royal Festival Hall Foyer – which, dispite being in ‘a foyer’ is actually a really really nice gig – big audience, lovely atmosphere, perfect for big spacious loveliness.

The setlist included a handful of tunes from For The Love Of Open Spaces – Flutter, Uncle Bernie, In A Place Like This and Lovely – one each of our solo tunes (I did Grace And Gratitude) one arrangement each of a tune we’ve written (Amo Amatis Amare with Theo on soprano sax, and then All I Know from Theo’s Heart Of The Sun album), and a couple of big spacey improvs.

All in all a top gig – the sound was great and we played very well indeed. Very positive reaction from the audience, and we’ve already been booked to play there again. Good stuff.

Theo’s one of the easiest musicians in the world to play with – an expert looper, and an amazing listener, he slots in around what I’m doing and directs the music in very subtle ways. It’s great being on stage with someone who is such a fine melodic improvisor and does textural ambient stuff as well. A real treat.

I’ve been listening to Theo’s new album, Earth To Ether, a lot over the last few days – it’s a hugely diverse representation of most of the things Theo’s been up to of late. There’s stuff with his quartet, a solo flute-loop thingie and a couple of songs with Richard Sinclair (70s prog-pop stalwart, out of Caravan/Hatfield And The North etc.) Richard’s voice is a little disarming at first – mainly because it’s so rare to hear jazz sung with an english accent. Richard avoids the trap of brit singer trying to sound like they grew up in New York, but he’s SOOO english that it takes a bit of getting used to it. But I’m used to it now, and really enjoy it.

There’s a strong pastoral, rural feel to the album – Theo seems to be inspired by open space a lot (hence the title of our CD), and it gives everything he does a very warm feeling. The other brit saxophonist I’ve been listening to a lot recently is Ben Castle – another superb musician, and every bit as eclectic as Theo. His is an urban eclecticism that provides a fantastic compliment to Theo’s broad sonic vista. Ben’s stuff also sounds like he’s playing whilst smirking a lot of the time – lots of very comedic stuff, but he always makes you feel like you’re in on the joke. Very clever stuff, hugely enjoyable. I strongly recommend both CDs – Ben’s is called ‘Blah Street’.

Soundtrack – Matthew Garrison, ‘Matthew Garrison’; Theo Travis, ‘Earth To Ether’; Ben Castle, ‘Blah Street’; Jackson Browne, ‘Looking East’; Sheila Chandra, ‘Moonsung’.

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More stress that I really needed yesterday

So I couldn’t find my passport. Anywhere. I turned my room upside down, turned the living room, bedroom and kitchen upside down. Even got to the point of finding out about waiting times for replacement passports. Asked friends to have a word with the Man Upstairs on my behalf, turned my room upside down again. Finally gave up. And just before I went to bed, checked a small bag of what I thought was litter next to my bed, and it was in there!! Hurrah!!!

That palpable sense of stress lifting is a remarkable feeling. It really is like a physical weight being removed. So my thoughts of ‘what will I do if I can’t get my flight on Friday?’ are all gone, thank God.

Back to planning my roadtrip with The Cheat…

Soundtrack – Belly, ‘Star’; Iona, ‘Journey Into The Morn’; Sarah Slean, ‘Night Bugs’ and ‘Day One’; Theo Travis, ‘Earth To Ether’.

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Recent new CD roundup.

Got a few new fab CDs lately, so here’s a quick summary –

The Low Country – The Dark Road. The Low Country is Rob Jackson‘s band with singer/songwriter Emily Barker. Coupled with a sensitive understated rhythm section, that make downbeat miserable alt.country as though they’d been born and bred in rural Tennessee, not Newcastle and Australia respectively. Rob’s one of my favourite guitarists around, and the marriage of his gorgeous tone and open tuning with Emily’s moving songs and emotive voice is magical.

Julie Lee – Stillhouse Road – more country stylings. I played a load of gigs with Julie a few years ago, and have seen her play loads of times, and enjoyed her self-produced Cds for ages. Now she’s released her debut big-budget album, with a bunch of friends from Nashville… friends that include Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Colin Linden, Dave Pomeroy… Nashville A-listers one and all. It’s beautiful as you’d expect. Perfectly played, though I do miss Julie’s fantastic srawling rambling guitar playing – if you’ve ever seen her live, you’ll know what an original sounding guitarist she is and sadly there’s not much of her playing on here, but if you’re going to replace her with anyone, it might as well be Colin Linden! A gorgeous CD.

Pierce Pettis – Great Big World. Another long term fave chez Stevie, and someone else I’ve played with in the past. One of Nashville’s finest and most respected songwriters, and a stunning singer and virtuoso guitarist to boot. Pierce was on Windham Hill back in the 80s, and has more recently released a string of fabulous CDs on Compass. This one’s as good as the others, with the added bonus for bass-heads of Danny Thompson appearing on a few tracks on upright. Particularly on the song ‘Leonardo’, the pairing of Pettis and Thompson is inspired.

A Marble Calm – Surfacing. A Marble Calm is a project assemled and revolving around Peter Chilvers, gentlemanly bassist and piano/keyboards whiz from Norwich, and part of the Burning Shed family of artists. Peter and I have duetted a Norwich looping/improv gig and he opened for Rob Jackson and I in Cambridge recently with a lovely ambient piano ‘n’ sampled strings looped improv thingie. This album is in a similar vein, only with some fantastic special guests adding to Pete’s own ambient wash – Rob Jackson, Theo Travis, Tim Bowness and Sandra O’Neil all make fabulous contributions to this haunting and engaging ambient singer/songwriter CD.

Todd Johnson/Kristin Korb Trio – Get Happy. Todd’s been one of my favourite bassists ever since I first saw him playing with Jimmy Haslip in a two basses + drums trio at NAMM a few years ago. Gifted with a remarkable chordal vocabulary and a technical facility that allows him to simultaneously comp chords and play swinging bass lines on his six string bass, he’s worth at least two players to any band he’s in. And this is him in a trio with double bassist/vocalist Kristin Korb, and drummer Kendal Kaye. How Kristin manages to sing and swing at the same time, I’ll never know – her vocal phrasing is amazing, and she plays walking lines like Ray Brown. The CD is a collection of a great vocal standards, with a couple of originals thrown in. Lovely lovely stuff.

So there you go, get shopping!

Soundtrack – all of the above.

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