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