Will AI Throw Musicians Under The Tour Bus Or Not?

 At the time of writing it is 17368 days since my first grown up, professional gig, for grown up, professional money. August 6th 1977 to save you the trouble of looking it up. The band was a quartet, sax doubling vocals, piano, bass and me. In some ways it could be said that little has changed, given that my primary working environment these days is a saxophone-led acoustic quartet. As for the vocal doubling may I take this opportunity to assuage any nervousness about Mister PC Records releasing a Simon Spillett vocal album. This is not currently on our to do list.

The reality however is that with the arrival of the soon to be all pervasive presence of artificial intelligence (AI), the potential exists that the industry that I have been a part of for almost half a century will be subject the biggest changes I have ever seen, possibly rendered unrecognisable.

But is that actually the truth? Without straying into cognitive dissonance I believe that it is and it isn't. One of the benefits of my long innings viewing the world from behind the drums is that I can see that change is not always permanent, and that innovation is not always progress.

So, has five decades of incremental change brought us to the point where technology threatens the very existence and creation of music as we know it? Again it's a yes and no from me, as I shall attempt to explain.

My prepubescent urge to become a professional drummer was forged in the analogue early 70s. A time when almost everybody listened to the same music, and almost all of that music was created in the same manner. The BBC delivered music by the truckload, both on television and radio, Strict agreements with the Musicians Union required the BBC to create a significant percentage of their music content in house, and television shows encompassing A list interview programmes, star studded variety bills, and even lightweight magazine shows would showcase musicianship as a matter of course. You could even get featured on the local news if your band had achieved something even slightly notable. I know. I did it several times and the results are available on my YouTube channel.

What you heard on records was created by musicians playing musical instruments, almost invariably in the same place at the same time. The physical format was the only format, and vinyl records (went away, came back) were predominant, with the more portable cassette tape (also went away, also coming back) the emerging rival. At the time of writing there seems to be no demonstrable renaissance of the eight track cartridge, but you just don't know. 

Also back then, the last smouldering embers of the Lord Chamberlain's office were  still in evidence, in so far as our national broadcaster still made the odd attempt at being some sort of moral arbiter. Song lyrics with even slightly violent or sexual content simply would not be broadcast. 'When Christine Comes Around' (Grudge) or Big Eight (Judge Dread) were unlikely to be troubling the airwaves. As a side note there is no documented evidence of anyone being provoked into committing murder after having listened to 'Ella & Louis Again', or 'The Atomic Mister Basie'.

Imagine trying to explain the internet to someone in 1973. AI would have sounded to them like two Yorkshiremen having a discussion, ('Eh? Aye!" in case you are unclear. Readers outside the UK either look it up or phone a friend). Anyway, the records that we bought with our hard earned pocket money had drum parts played by actual drummers, but even then change was in the wind. 

The next decade ushered in a brave new world of innovative technology, whether you like it or not. From relatively crude beginnings the drum machine rapidly became ubiquitous. The nature of the programming technology was such that you could create patterns beyond the scope of most drummers' facility level. This often seemed to focus on highly evolved bass drum parts. The real world retaliated; we got double pedals, we got Dennis Chambers.

The next seismic shift in the popular music/technology landscape was sampling. When I started out a sample was something you took to the doctor. With the development of digital technology it became possible to create entire new works almost exclusively consisting of bits of old recordings chopped up and reassembled. Some people like to refer to this as reimagining. By and large I prefer not to. So the sea change here was all about the rebalancing of the musician's skill set. Being across the new technology often began to matter more than instrumental or theoretical skill. Again, it was a fashion moment, and over time musicianship and technology have to an extent become able to coexist to mutual benefit.

So creating music based on loops and samples was actually foreshadowing the perceived threat of creating content using AI, but with one significant difference. Copyright.

As a record producer, label owner and rightsholder, anytime I register a newly created recording for release I am legally obliged to declare whether or not that recording contains a sample of anyone else's work. To fail to do so would have the potential to land me in very hot water indeed.

The single biggest threat to the livelihoods of musicians, and indeed all the other creative sectors is the lack of protection for our work, and it does seem to be the case that our elected representatives wish to sidestep our copyright protections in order to curry favour with the big tech potentates of Silicon Valley, in the naive hope that forsaking our fundamental rights as creators is a fair price to pay were it to stimulate inward investment into the UK. Given our ruinously high energy costs only an utter fool would grant this frankly absurd proposition any credence. So far, the outlook is bleak, and if there isn't significant change we are all going to get thrown under the tour bus.

The minister in charge of this has had multiple meetings with the tech giants, but to my knowledge has yet to engage in any meaningful dialogue with the creative sector whatsoever. Look at the tax arrangements of a few of these global corporations and that will tell you everything you need to know. Bottom line trumps ethics every time. It's business for goodness sake. What else would any right thinking person expect? Perhaps the minister is playing a self interested long game by not engaging with the creative sector. An eye to the future perhaps? He wouldn't be the first former government minister to go on to some astonishingly well remunerated big tech sinecure after the sun has set on the political career (circa July 2029, at a guess).

So what can we do to protect our work from being 'scraped' (something until now I only associated with Derek and Clive). A good place to start is to think of your intellectual property as though it was a physical object (hundreds of unsold CDs in the garage notwithstanding). You wouldn't leave your precious instrument in full view on the back seat of your car in pretty much any large UK town or city, would you? Treat your precious creative work in exactly the same way. Don't leave it where it's vulnerable. Remember  all that valuable time you invested in mastering your instrument and crafting your compositions. Remember all those hours  spent perfecting those lyrics filled with your life experience. All your 'content' (dreadful expression) is going to be made copyright free for the likes of Meta and Alphabet before you can say Diego Garcia.            

A good place to start might be to consider closing your Spotify Artist Account. It's never going to make you any money, and we all know that 'exposure' doesn't pay the bills. We decline to go and perform without payment, so why put recorded music in a place where people can just help themselves? We all know that the Spotify business model only really works for the music industry globalists, and whilst it might be gratifying to see your stuff alongside them online, or as part of a playlist, you know in your heart of hearts that you are on a hiding to nothing. People won't pay for something if you have made it available at no cost (ask any hooker) and it can almost certainly be safely assumed that Spotify will be the first port of call when it comes to AI harvesting of recorded music.

With a new release out on my label today (Feb 24th) I've even made the decision to put up heavily edited 'trailer' clips on the far more musician friendly Bandcamp platform. This decision was reached when a radio production assistant went to my artist page and ripped two complete tracks while I sat and watched.

Happily this is one of those times when small, independent labels and artists are not being left to fend for themselves. There are a good many good people of great influence in the upper echelons of our industry who are speaking up to good effect. Simon Cowell, for so long the king of manufactured pop in the UK, has, with the advent of AI, seen manufacturing evolve to a stage where it is beyond even his reach, and whilst his intervention is most welcome it is not entirely devoid of irony,        

Is there any hiding place from this pervasive, high tech army of occupation? Will recorded music contain Net Zero actual musicianship by 2030? Will all drums be electric? Every industrial or technological revolution has its casualties. Any one of us who has been around the music industry for any length of time will have experienced this at first hand and adapted as best we can, Usually it is those of us at the lower end of the food chain who get hit the hardest but this feels different. Has the slippery slope that we, all too often in a place of quiet desperation and a dash of self denial have seen fit to ignore, finally morphed into a precipitous sheer drop off a cliff edge? As I said a moment ago, somewhat surprisingly I don't believe this to be the case.

Earlier in this post I reflected upon change, innovation, progress, and how these qualities are not always permanent, nor do they move in a unified direction. Case in point, back in the 1980s when in my late teens and early twenties I was gigging constantly around the West Midlands, people hardly ever booked live bands to play at weddings. The mobile DJ was king. That changed as fashions do.  Optimism being my default setting, I think this big tech threat may leave the grass roots music industry relatively unscathed. I struggle to envisage a circumstance where largely acoustic performances in small, intimate venues could be replaced by a laptop or an avatar/hologram. When the performers are so close that you can actually even smell them (not necessarily in a good way) the idea of that spontaneous, interactive performance quality to be usurped by microchips strikes me as being as unappealing as it is implausible. I hope I am right.

In conclusion I hope that common sense will prevail (although that's another fashion that seems to be distinctly out of favour at the moment) and that the regulation of copyright in creative work will not be sacrificed to satiate the venal opportunism of big tech, big government, and odious, self-serving lobbyists. 

It is my sincere hope that the global music community retains its seat on the tour bus, rather than ending up under its wheels 

If you have enjoyed reading this please feel free to share it but don't steal it!

IT'S ALL KICKING OFF

 

In an interesting week in which I have had to threaten legal action over infringement of the intellectual property rights of Mister PC Records and its artists, a moment of reverie led me to ponder a world in which professional football was more like professional music.

ANNOUNCEMENT PROPOSED NEW SALARY STRUCTURE FOR PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS IN THE UK Following a lengthy period of consultation with senior figures in the UK live music industry, the FA is pleased to announce the following proposed revisions to salary structure and terms and conditions for all players effective from the 2025/26 season. WAGE STRUCTURE Premier League Home match £200 Away match £250 A discretionary bonus of £25 per goal may be available. This is optional and subject to negotiations between team captains and the management of the opposing side. These negotiations to be finalised prior to publication of the fixture list. Championship Home match £125 Away match £150 Note: players should be aware that no refreshments will be offered by the venue hosting the fixture. Players are welcome to purchase meat pies at a 10% discount but we recommend that they acquaint themselves with the location of the nearest branch of Wetherspoon’s. League One Home match £75 Away match £100 Players should be aware that with effect from the 25/26 season team transportation will not be offered. In order to mitigate fuel costs team members are advised to car share. A good source of supply for five year old Mondeos is Auto Trader magazine. There is no reserved parking at match venues except for a single space for the team van. Players may negotiate a seat aboard the team van as they see fit. Players should park their vehicles in the nearest public car park or on street. If you have heavy equipment to offload assistance may be offered at the discretion of the stadium staff, most of whom are volunteers. League Two Home match £0 Away match £50 or a little bit extra if it does well Whilst League 2 home fixtures are unpaid, match officials will pass round a pint glass at half time into which match attendees may place cash contributions at their discretion. Match payments Via BACS within 28 days, all being well Television Rights BBC4 and Sky Arts will be granted exclusive live broadcast rights to three Premiership matches per season. Selection of matches is entirely at the broadcasters’ discretion but will probably always feature the same few teams. Spectators may film entire matches on their mobile devices and subsequently share them on social media. The consent of players, managers, promoters and venue owners is not required. VAR Use of VAR will be discontinued though spectator’s phone footage may be requested in the event of an argument. Club Fundraising At each fixture a raffle will take place before the resumption of play after half time. Prizes to include moderately priced wine, a tub of Heroes and a souvenir programme from a previous fixture, signed by key players. Kit Sponsorship Individual players may negotiate their own arrangements with manufacturers of boots and strip, which will usually result in players being offered products at a discounted rate compared to that charged in the souvenir shop. Players may purchase replicas of their team strip at cost price and may sell them at half time. Acquisition of a card reader is advised. We recommend Sum Up Solo. Players should also note that with effect from season 25/26 they will be required to purchase their own team strip. Wembley Global Football Festival This is to be an annual event which will show case rising football talent from around the globe. A select number of carefully chosen prominent UK sides will be invited to participate, but frankly, the vast majority of you can fucking do one.

JUMPING THROUGH HOOPS

 "You can't put a download on a shelf", a very wise friend said to me when in 2018 I released a drum instructional video package as a physical product (DVD, as it happens, and yes it is still avail able as physical product or digital download from my website.).

The consumption of music has changed beyond all recognition in recent years, not for the better in my opinion, due in no small part to the global domination of outfits such as Spotify, ITunes and all the rest of them. The ease with which 'content' (hate that word in this context) may be streamed or downloaded does, I feel, rather devalue music, giving it a somewhat 'disposable', 'throwaway' quality which with physical product is simply not the case. Whilst having music wherever you go is undeniably convenient, and a blessing when shutting out the modern world is desirable, turntable versus mp3 player can be a bit like comparing a lavish three course lunch with scoffing a takeaway wrap in the street.

 In the room in which I write there are vinyl records that I have owned for fifty years, and a great many (including a large collection of near mint big band and be bop 78s) that have been in my family since long before I was born.

Ah, yes, the joy of vinyl, the sense of occasion, ceremony even, that comes with putting a vinyl record on the turntable. The satisfaction of having completed the bus journey back from Birmingham city centre having parted with teenage gig earnings in the Record Centre (better known as Jazz & Swing because that's what it said on the carrier bags), The Diskery (best for rarities but premium prices) or the by comparison more prosaic offerings of WH Smiths, HMV or Midland Educational, all of whom in fairness had more than adequate selections of the current jazz releases.

Reading the liner notes, studying the photographs, and of course listening to the music. A whole album would be bought just on the back of one track. I remember aged twelve acquiring the seminal Average White Band 'AWB' LP (its rather saucy cover image precipitating raised eyebrows from our dear Mum) on account of the chart success of 'Pick Up The Pieces', only to find that all the other tracks on the album were, if anything, superior.

Of course if funds were tight one could opt for a 45 RPM seven inch single, freely available from your local Woolworths without necessitating a trip to the city. Also I had discovered former chart hits sold cheaply as 'ex jukebox', a viable means of adding to ones collection at a knockdown price.

However, at this point in the 70s the singles market was very much geared to radio play and chart success. Jazz on 45s was undeniably a thing of the past, and many such imprints were among the records we had at home, perhaps most significantly 'Sounds of the Loop' by the Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring a drum solo by Joe Morello which in many ways remains unmatched to this day, 67 years after it was recorded.

You can see where this is going can't you?

In my early years as  a Midlands based professional musician I worked a lot. I was a capable all-round pro player and by my mid 20s had amassed plenty of experience. What the Midlands lacked though was any record industry to speak of. Yes, we had hugely successful bands that broke through at that time: who can forget all the great music produced by Two Tone records, an organisation that did so much good on many levels. No, what the Midlands lacked was any kind of a 'session' scene aligned to the record industry. A small cabal of musicians had all the local ITV and BBC work sown up, but pretty much all the freelance record session musicians were based in London.

So it was the case that in spite of doing pretty well in the Midlands and playing jazz where I could, (again, some really good musicians, a few places to play but no sort of a proper 'joined up' scene) the one gaping omission in my CV at that point was recording credits. My sole efforts on vinyl were 'Starburst', a bit of a curate's egg of an album by the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra and two guest tracks (also with MYJO) on an album entitled 'Radio Leicester Big Band and Friends'.

BBC Radio Leicester had its own big band. Let that sink in. They crop up again later, coincidentally.

It would be three years into my time living in London before I started to get asked to play on people's records. That really was the toughest nut to crack, and it did irk for quite a while. By this time of course, everything was being issued on CD, and vinyl was, temporarily as it has turned out, extinct.

Anyway, that yawning gap in my achievements has been more than adequately compensated over the ensuing three decades, and I have had the good fortune to play on some very good records with some very good people (selected discography can be found on my website if you're interested). Of particular importance were the three big band albums I recorded and produced as a leader. These releases may well be joined by a fourth and even fifth release, but that's for later.

Meanwhile, having ticked such a big box with my own big band recordings, what better a thing to do than to channel that experience into producing a big band record for somebody else, together with the double benefit of playing drums on the session.

With Simon Spillett's fabulous big band (which forensically examines the compositions and arrangements of Tubby Hayes) came the perfect opportunity. Simon had the product, I had the money (ably assisted by very generous crowd funders who covered about 25% of the cost of the project) and in September last year 'Dear Tubby H' was released on CD to thoroughly deserved critical acclaim. Mister PC Records was up and running. What a way to start. June this year saw a limited edition double vinyl deluxe edition of Simon's album, and there are several sessions in the can with others planned for next year.

Amongst this is a session I hadn't intended to record by a band I never planned to form.

Last Spring I had a studio and engineer booked when at the eleventh hour the planned session could not proceed. Rather than throwing in the towel and cancelling everything, a quick phone around ensured the services of A-listers Simon Allen, Vasilis Xenopoulos, Steve Fishwick and Mark Nightingale. I retained the previously engaged rhythm section colleagues Rob Barron and Alec Dankworth (why wouldn't you?) Repertoire was a no-brainer. In my office cupboard live the charts for the Ministry of Jazz, the seven piece band formed in 2015 as a pragmatic measure to satisfy promoters and venues who did not have the budget or square footage to accommodate my big band performing our hugely popular and successful tribute to Buddy Rich. Requests to play that repertoire with half the band left at home were declined, not always politely, but a bit of contemplation resulted in the decision to offer a smaller group featuring entirely different music and different musicians from the big band.

So an album's worth of material resulted from a highly productive day, and a couple of the tracks I felt were quite resonant and commercially viable, so the idea of releasing a single germinated in my customarily ambitious and over active mind.

The A side is a thing called 'Hoops'. Very much in the soul jazz, boogaloo vein it conjures up images of sharply dressed mods and Northern Soul all-nighters. 

Anyway, here comes the Radio Leicester Big Band again. On my eighteenth birthday I was in the unlikely setting of Golders Green Hippodrome, recording a Radio 2 broadcast for the much missed national big band competition. MYJO had triumphed in the youth category, and alongside us were the senior winners from Radio Leicester, including the fabulous Dougie Wright on drums.  Amongst their repertoire on the show was Peter Herbolzheimer's arrangement of Dieter Reith's composition 'Hoops'. I liked it on first hearing, and stored it in my memory, thinking that I might do something with it one day. And so I have.

The 45 RPM single of 'Hoops' is released officially on September 30th, and  a huge proverbial tip of the metaphorical hat is due to percussionist and DJ Snowboy, who on hearing the track some months ago insisted that I release it as a vinyl single. Sound advice as the pre release sales are little short of astonishing.

Over the coming weeks the all important PR campaign swings into action, and if you see a slightly familiar face on television, in the newspapers, or a well modulated voice on radio regurgitating much of what you have almost finished reading, that'll be me. I might even break out one of the seldom seen purple jackets.

Aiming high as is my default position I'm anticipating a nationwide dance craze and being a breakthrough chart artist at the tender age of 61, because if you don't try, you don't get.

I've jumped through all kinds of Hoops to get here, and I'll see you at the BRIT awards.

You can buy the single via Bandcamp or by following the website link at the beginning of this blog post.

YouTube Update

 Hi everyone,

Just a very quicks heads up to let you know that my YouTube has rebranded as Pete Cater Jazz Drums, and you can find it here

There's all kinds of tuition material on there as well as performance footage from over more than forty years, so subscribe today and I'll see you on the tube.

MISTER PC RECORDS PRESENTS 'DEAR TUBBY H', THE SIMON SPILLETT BIG BAND. 11TH SEPTEMBER 2023

 

'One instinctively knows when something is right', or so went the strapline for a popular brand of sherry in the 1970s. A brand of sherry which was, incidentally, favoured by my close to teetotal parents. This abstemiousness is something I have signally failed to inherit, so maybe following the science of DNA isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Anyway, none of that is important other than for the ineluctable fact that on the night of Wednesday October 20th, 2021, at London's famous 100 Club, I instinctively knew that something was right.

The 'something' in question was the Simon Spillett Big Band. A capacity audience took the roof off (so to speak) that legendary Oxford Street music venue. In over forty years playing jazz to UK audiences (and very occasionally beyond) I can only recall a vanishingly small number of occasions when I've experienced such a dramatic audience reaction. Not even enough occasions to half fill the very smallest of hands.

As soon as the gig was over I knew I had to do something, and that something was to set the wheels in motion to record this great music, these fabulous musicians, and to do so to the highest possible standard.

Simon Spillett is a man I consider to be a true kindred spirit in this sometimes rather strange place we call the music industry. Although a fair few years my junior we have much in common. Primarily we are the sons of talented and wildly enthusiastic musicians (Simon, a trombonist, me, a drummer) men who lived to play, if not played to live. In our house (I couldn't presume to speak for Simon) doing the right thing, earning a 9-5 wage and playing on evenings and weekends was the way it was. My young life was only briefly punctuated by interludes when circumstances took my Dad down the full-time musician pathway. I remember him being very happy, if not quite so well off, during this short chapter in the early 1970s.

So, like Simon, I grew up in an environment where the great jazz and big band records of the time were staple fare. Bear in mind that this was a time when big band music was largely contemporary (Buddy, Woody, Kenton, Thad and Mel etc). It was cool music for hip grown ups who were too hip for the hit parade, long before nostalgia became the default position, with middle aged men burping their way through poorly harmonised Miller stocks, and dressing up like the cast of Dad's Army to boot.

Another thing that unites me and Mr S is that in today's industry (certainly our little corner of it) we are, in a manner of speaking, outsiders. Neither one of us experienced the undoubted privilege of a top UK music college education, a sojourn in the ranks of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra back when it was Bill Ashton's personal fiefdom ("Oh hello, are you still playing like Gene Krupa?" not intended as a compliment I hasten to point out) or, certailny beyond my wildest teenage dreams, being packed off to Berklee or somewhere equally exciting. Without access to these pathways you just have to make your own. Do it the hard way, as the song says.

It's been adequately documented elsewhere that my apprenticeship was to say the least circuitous. My trajectory towards the London jazz scene took me to places like Southport, Prestatyn, Weston-Super-Mare, on and off cruse ships, and in and out of provincial pantomime. I made a bit of money, had a lot of fun, and did a few things that not all that many people have had the opportunity to do along the way, but it was a bit like boarding a plane to Islamabad with the hope that you might just get unintentionally rerouted to Los Angeles.

Another thing that I have in common with Simon is a reverence for straight ahead, no nonsense,  exciting, swinging jazz, and this soon to be released album we have created together meets all of those criteria.

So anyway, here's this incredible band playing fantastic arrangements,(and believe you me they are) refreshingly unpretentious, truly evocative, listenable, exciting music, which is in no way likely to feature in the repertoire of the Islington Chin Stroking Ensemble (or are they a Collective? I can never remember which). The band spent much of the Summer of 2022 honing this repertoire on the UK festival circuit. It got tighter and tighter with every show. The insanely talented Mark Nightingale restored the charts to a state of pristine playability, and when we got to Scarborough last September I announced to the band what was going to happen "before the great bandleader in the sky calls the eternal intermission" as I put it at the time.

Records like this don't get made cheaply, certainly not if you want the kind of result Simon and I decided to strive for, and a crowdfunding campaign raised roughly a third of the total production costs. We are hugely grateful to all our contributors but special mention must go to Ray Stephens for his massively generous contribution which has brought my break even point forward by a good few months at the very least.

The music on the record, although at least fifty years old (2023 marks the half century since Hayes's untimely passing) is to all intents and purposes brand new, having never been recorded for commercial release until now.

So in April this year it got recorded, and last Saturday, August 19th we added the finishing touches to the production process. I'm not going to go into detail about the recording process or the fabulous performances, both ensemble and soloists, otherwise when you buy the record (as you will) there will be a terrible sense of deja vu when you read the liner notes.

Here's a brief taste, in case you haven't alrerady heard it, not the final mix but you get the idea.

https://youtu.be/7_0orUpOeCU 

Available to order from www.petecater.org/store from September 6th. 

New Year, New Name

 

No one has noticed but the title of my blog has changed.

The never knowingly underpunned 'Catering for the Contemporary Drummer' has given way to 'Music and the School of Life', part of the reason is that the new moniker is the working title of a forthcoming book, a book which will explore in significantly greater detail a lot of the ground covered by this blog in its six year existence.

More significant though is the abandonment of the c word.

Contemporary.

There's very little about me that is genuinely contemporary, other than the fact that I am currently alive, and whilst I don't do the ever so slightly absurd thing of dressing in period clothes, sporting 1930s round glasses and playing a set of drums that looks like an impeccably curated museum exhibit, the fact remains that much of who and what I am as a musician is rooted firmly in the past.

That's not to say that I reject innovation and progress, far from it. Back when I was teaching degree students I would take huge interest in their contemporary drum idols, and I would be lying if I said that I hadn't stolen ideas from drummers like Chris Dave, Tony Royster, Nate Smith and a whole lot more besides. The difference is though, any ideas I snag from the cutting edge end up being reimagined in the context of my existing approach to drums and music. I shan't be making what I consider to be a mistake, a mistake that I have seen middle-aged drummers fall prey to in previous generations, including one or two who I very much admired. The mistake consists of tearing down much of what has been built up over a lifetime of playing, this can present in the form of abandoning long established techniques concepts and approaches on the instrument. Another commonly displayed symptom is the drum set itself, which overnight doubles or triples in size. I often see this as a rejection of a previous way of being, as though what had gone before was suddenly no longer good enough.

Architects and town planners did something similar to the centre of Birmingham in the 1960s, and it didn't age well.

Some of the greatest drummers we have ever seen, Steve Gadd and Buddy Rich to name but two, got their identities early on, but continued to innovate and develop  (as Gadd still does of course) and there is a consistency as well as strength of identity which is one of the hallmarks of greatness. The big exception to this of course was Tony Williams, whose playing changed so much in the 70s that there is an 'old testament' and a 'new testament' Tony. Both great, but very different. I know which one I favour,

I'm all for a bit of self reinvention, but it should be subtle, and not the main source of attention. Otherwise it's like bad cosmetic surgery, where you notice the facelift rather than the face itself.

So, the bottom line in all this is that there is a very small percentage of what I do as a musician that could be deemed truly contemporary. An ever-increasing amount of what I play could be classed as original, but that's a whole different ball game. This is the seventh decade in which I have been playing drums, so if by this point I was still merely repeating what I have heard elsewhere (which, don't forget, is how you begin to lean to communicate in any language) I think I would be giving myself a pretty stiff talking to.

In short, I am deeply comfortable in my own musical skin. Confidence, along with a good ear, is a quality I feel blessed to have in adequate quantity. If you know where you are, and at the same time know where you are going, take a moment to be thankful, because there are a great many among us who are not quite so fortunate.

Anyway, here's the plug. To mark my 60th year, and 40 years since my big band first took to the stage, I am putting on a couple of special events.

First of which is The Great Drum Show, which is also not contemporary, and will feature tributes to some of the legends of our instrument, and be made up almost entirely of music dating between the 1930s and 1970s. So it's not contemporary, but it isn't pure nostalgia either. Like all the best live shows featuring historic repertoire (of which there is no better example than Simon Spillett's forensic big band investigation of music by and associated with Tubby Hayes) the primary pull factor is the opportunity to hear classic music performed in the moment, in the flesh, with everything that that entails.

There's a try out show in April, details here. After which we'll either go into the West End, or just go west. The likelihood will be somewhere in between these two polar opposites. It's going to be an interesting process trying out and deciding on repertoire, but as I said the other day, you can't beat having things to do.

Visit my website.

Send an email.

Call my agent.

To Do List 2023

 I can't think of any better way of starting a new year than having a list of plans you want to achieve.

2023 kicks off with me staring at a formidable list of entirely self imposed targets, and whilst it would be the easy option to go out and do the gigs I choose, go to the gym every day, and make a small supplementary income from the stock market (more to do with dumb luck and intuition as opposed to knowledge and skill I should stress) I just can't resist a new challenge, or two, or three, or four.

Top of the list is producing an album or two in association with my great friend and musical kindred spirit Simon Spillett.

First off is the Tubby Hayes big band project featuring an absolute A-list team of British jazz talent performing scores by and associated with the legendary saxophonist. We are getting close to nai!ing down the studio date and the end result promises to be something very special indeed. It is also my intention to set up a boutique record label in order to release what promises to be a significant work.

But a record label with only one release on its catalogue strikes me as an opportunity missed, so in addition to the big band I'm planning a release featuring Simon's great quartet, the other fifty percent of course being Rob Barron and Alex Dankworth.  This group has played together so much post pandemic and is on fire to a point where we might invalidate the buildings insurance in one or two venues!

Predictably, big band music crops up several times on my do list.

As restrictions were lifted post lockdown I was surprised and more than a little flattered to be approached by a leading specialist music agency who were seeking to expand their jazz roster.

Coming up with a new format was the next challenge, but it didn't take all that long as it transpired. Having had so much success between 2007 and 2018 in which period the band performed significantly in excess of a hundred concerts featuring music made famous by the one and only Buddy Rich, I began to think of all those other amazing drummers who were the biggest names in the golden age of big bands and jazz.

Names like Gene Krupa, Louie Bellson, Joe Morello, Shelly Manne, Sonny Payne, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams and so many more. The great music associated with these legends includes repertoire from Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and many more besides.

I might even throw in a little seventies rock and funk. Gadd, Cobham, Garibaldi even some Bonham. Hilarity guaranteed.

So I thought it would be a great idea to pull all this together, and the idea of The Great Drum Show was born. I fully expect that in no time at all we will be embarking on an extended run in the West End, 😁 but to begin with I'm going to be doing a few try out dates. The first of the is at the Arc in Winchester on Saturday April 29th, and you can find more details and a ticket link here.

Also given that 2023 marks the fortieth anniversary of the first outing by the Pete Cater Big Band, I do have a plan for one of two 'autobiographical ' shows revisiting past repertoire, in addition to a few old favourites from those great years with MYJO in the late seventies and early eighties.

Not only that but there are plans for a big band drumming audio educational package, a whole lot of other great gigs with great people and goodness knows what elsr.

OK. Time to stop writing and get on with it.

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