Martin Taylor: Interview 2

After the duo experience with Ike Isaacs, doing one with the bassist Peter Ind was another thing again. The number one rule, of course, is never to get in the other guy’s way, and whatever he’s doing, to try and complement him. With Ike, it was more arranged—playing in close harmonies and things; with Peter it was a lot more free, and involved a lot more improvisation. Either of us could go off at a tangent; whereas Ike and I worked a lot of things out together. That was more the idea—to get as big a sound as possible with two guitars. We used to do a lot of recreating the Shearing sound with harmonies; we’d even do things that big bands would normally play, and try getting the voicing with them. Certainly, playing with Peter was another great experience for me. In fact, at one point I was working with the two—I was extremely spoilt. I’ve worked with Peter in various contexts—such as the dates with Buddy De Franco. He never ceases to amaze me—and the sound he gets out of that bass is something else. He’s quite a character too.

How do I feel about recording? I don’t like it particularly. I’ve never been in a recording environment that has felt right; it’s always a bit stifled. The only recordings I’ve done that I’ve liked, really, have been live ones—but to go into a studio, I find it very difficult to play. There’s nothing live released—although I did one at the Wavendon Stables for John Dankworth, which may be coming out as a record; I hope it will, anyway. But I never listen to any of my records, because I hear all the mistakes! I enjoyed the “We’ve Got The World On A String” album with Stephane, though—I was happy with that.

You know, it’s funny how things work out. Like, to work with Buddy De Franco recently, I drove down from Scotland; I left at six in the morning to arrive in London at two o’clock—having had about three hours sleep, as I’d gone to bed very late the night before. So I was very tired—and Buddy was very tired as well, when we went on the stand that evening. But it just clicked; by that time I was raring to play, and the ideas seemed to flow the whole time. The same thing happened with that record with Stephane; we’d just come back ffrom Los Angeles, and we’d literally just got off a plane—we just went in and played. And sometimes that can make you feel better than when you arrive in plenty of time, fully prepared, and it doesn’t happen.

I think it’s maybe pressure that makes you work. Yes, you probably make a special effort to rise above it; so it makes you play more. I slept well after recording with Stephane and after playing with Buddy.

Of course, there are always those special nights. But this is where practice comes in. Through practice, you get so that you never go below a certain level. For me, that’s the importance of practising—not to build up any technique particularly, but to maintain that certain level. So that even at your worst your playing is still acceptable.

No, I don’t make up exercises; I just get the guitar out and sit and doodle. I don’t play things from books—I’ve never done that, in fact. I do know a few classical pieces—which I play to please my mother–in– law, because she likes to hear that sort of thing. But that’s another thing altogether.

In fact, I’ve been talking to Hugh De Camelis from Guitar magazine, and he’s going to transcribe some of my guitar solos. The “Old Man River” that I play, when transcribed, is the sort of thing that a lot of classical guitar players would enjoy playing, because it’s got a bass line going through it the whole time, and chords and melody. It’s something that they could handle and read easily enough, but would probably never play otherwise. So I’m looking forward to getting together with Hugh and doing that.

I don’t read music very well—very badly, in fact. I do read it, of course, and I write music—but I don’t sight–read; it’s a slow process for me. It seems to be a thing with a lot of guitar players. I think it’s going back to the history of guitar players in big bands: they just played rhythm, and then one day things did change, to where they had to read single–string lines. Charlie Christian suddenly appeared—and everybody had to go and practise, learn to read. It’s changed a little bit now; you have guys like Paul Curtis and Chris Watson, who both play with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra—they can read anything.

In my case—never having played in pop groups, I think I was really brought up in the older school. I had more of the upbringing that someone would have had in the ‘thirties and ‘forties, maybe, because I never really got involved in that stuff. However, although I’m thoroughly into bebop, I don’t play bebop the way someone would have played it in the ‘forties. I still think that the way I play is contemporary.

But I play on changes—which at the moment isn’t particularly fashionable. I think there’s a big difference between being modern and being fashionable; I’m a modern player, but maybe not fashionable, in the sense that I don’t play too much modal music. I play that way at times—but I enjoy playing on changes.

As for the heavy amplification—that can be a bit of a drag, all that. The trouble with the electrical thing is that unless you’ve got someone of great taste, like Allan Holdsworth—who does incredible things—then it can all go over the top.

People like Allan Holdsworth and Pat Metheny do a lot of things that are very electric, but they’ve got the taste to handle it. You’ve got to be very careful with it; it’s so easy to go over the top—and once you do, it’s dreadful! Yes—it’s hard to get back! The thing is: if you play loud all the time, there’s nowhere to go; you’re on one level, and you can’t take anything up from that. No, you’ve got to play at a level where you can take it down or take it up. Otherwise it just becomes brain damage. It’s World War Three!

I play mainly one guitar—it’s semi–acoustic. It’s actually an acoustic guitar with a floating pick–up on it. In fact, when I record I have a microphone on the amplifier and a microphone on the guitar. So there’s an electric and an acoustic sound—you pick up some of the percussiveness of the acoustic guitar. It’s more of a problem when you play live, because it can be difficult to get a sound man who will balance it right. Sometimes I can get them to do it.

I don’t use any effects, really. Other than the amplifier, I use a slight echo, and I also occasionally use a chorus pedal—but not too often, because it can tend to go over the top a bit if you do. It disguises the sound of the guitar too much. It’s good for certain effects, though; if I’m accompanying someone, it sounds like an electric piano—it makes a very broad sound when you play chords. But it can too easily be overdone; it’s like putting too much salt and pepper on some nice food.

On the quality of guitars themselves—it’s now got to the stage where certain Japanese companies are making fantastic guitars. The ones Aria are making are incredible—they’re better than the big American makes. And the thing I like about that is that when I started to get interested in jazz guitar I couldn’t afford a real instrument—so I had to play on cricket bats all the time! Now, someone who is interested in jazz guitar can go out and buy a good one. When I started, it was practically impossible, because they were so much money and they were like gold dust—there were so few about. On my pocket money, I was unable to get one. That was the biggest bugbear for me—that I just couldn’t get the right guitar and the right sound.

The guitar I play most of the time was given to me by Ike as a birthday present—which was very nice of him. It was made by a guy called Bill Barker in Illinois; he originally made it for a very well–known American guitar player—who then wanted him to give it to him for nothing. So he said: “No, you can’t have it”, and it went through a few people’s hands; then it got to Ike, and before he left for Australia he gave it to me. I also play an Aria, that they made for me. So they’re the two guitars that I play—depending on my moods at the time. The Barker guitar is harder to play than the Japanese one, although it has a more acoustic sound.

I intend to continue with some acoustic playing. On a gig there’s that sound man difficulty, but whenever I record I’ll feature that element. As I say, with this instrument I have there’s the warmth of the electric guitar plus the percussive acoustic thing. Jim Hall does it that way—who is one of my favourite guitar players.

Herb Ellis? I love the way Herb plays. He’s got that fantastic thing that only people from Texas seem to have—they can pick the most ideal tempos. In Texas once, I went and saw a rhythm’n’blues band playing, and they were doing all this rock’n’roll stuff, that everybody here would play at a frantic tempo—Chuck Berry tunes and all that—and taking them very slow. Because they’re very slow– moving in Texas; if you order a drink, it comes along about an hour later. That was an eye–opener for me—they played things like “Johnny B. Goode” at incredibly slow tempos—and it swung like mad. And Herb Ellis has got that—he picks fantastic tempos, and he gets in the groove. One night I was playing at the 100 Club with my trio, and I was enjoying myself up there; suddenly I looked down, and Herb was sitting in the audience—I got very nervous! Since then, I’ve got to know him. I also know Barney Kessel very well.

I do have a feeling for that “country” flavour heard in some jazz—the kind of thing David Grisman does so well. In fact, I was on a record with David recently; the last time we were in San Francisco he asked Stephane and I to go and do a couple of tracks. He’s making a record that’ll have all different kinds of things on it. For instance, he’s including some with a big band, doing Duke Ellington arrangements, but with the mandolin as a soloist. We did three tunes, I think—David, Stephane, myself and Rob Wasserman, his bass player—one was an original of David’s; another was “In A Sentimental Mood”, which was lovely. Another time, a couple of guys in David’s band, Mike Marshall, and Darol Anger, were playing in San Francisco, and I went along and played with them.

Open I like the openness of that music. City music tends to be more closed in, somehow; people who come from the country seem to have a more open feel to their playing. If you hear anyone from New York, you can just tell immediately where they’re from. At one point. . I still do love Kenny Burrell’s playing, but I used to sit and try to play like him. Then it dawned on me one day: that doesn’t really have much to do with me—I’m from the sticks. In fact, meeting David Grisman and playing with him changed a lot of my ideas, and I started to play differently. My compositions also have more country flavour to them. I’m not saying country’n’western—what I mean is a countryside flavour, rather than a city feel. I don’t get the same kind of sound that a lot of jazz guitar players get—I suppose it’s a little bit more acoustic, rather than the very mellow sound. Well, it’s something that I work at; I don’t really see the point in playing like someone else. It’s not because I want to put myself on the map as doing something different—it’s just that if I’m going to play it, I don’t want to do something that another player has already done. Playing with Stephane, it would be silly for me to try to play like Django.

Of course, people always want to put you in a category. As soon as I go and play a solo gig, everybody says: “You play like Joe Pass”. I play nothing like him at all —but they just have to slot you into those boxes. Like, Diz Disley plays in the Django vein—but I don’t really hear Django when I hear Diz play. I hear so much of Louis Armstrong in his playing. He’s very much of that school; it’s his scene, more so than the Django thing. But people will always make parallels with others who happen to play the same instrument—there’s nothing wrong in it, really. All you can do is carry on playing your way.

Copyright © 1983 Les Tomkins. All Rights Reserved.