Interviews
Percy
Jones
[image from BuckyBall
Records Website]
ABOUT
PERCY JONES
"I
spent a lot of my formative playing years listening to and learning
from British art rock, progressive rock and avant-garde music of the
'70s. I used to comb through record bins and British industry magazines
like "Melody Maker"to find where the "cool" musicians
were playing and what new or spinoff bands they were forming. Bands
like: King Crimson. Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Art Bears, National
Health, Hatfield and the North, along with musicians like: Fred Frith,
Derek Bailey, Jon Hassell, Bill Nelson, Brian Eno and numerous others
used to thrill me to no end. But the band that held sway over me and
influenced my aesthetic more than these was Soft Machine.
Soft
Machine was a band that had an evolving array of members starting
with keyboardist Mike Rateledge, Saxophonist Elton Dean (whom Elton
John took his name from), Bassist Hugh Hopper, and the brilliant Robert
Wyatt on drums and vocals. They were highly experimental and adventurous
combining great composition with free improvisation, noise and gentle
vocals. They could be sonically assaulting and sweet in a matter of
moments and they were always stirring. Imagine my surprise when I
found myself on the bill opening for them with John Cale in Oslo Norway
in 1976!
This incarnation of the band featured: Karl Jenkins on sax, John Marshall
on drums and a bass player that took my breath away named Percy Jones.
He was playing a stock Fender Precision fretless bass with no line
markers and his sound was astounding, exhibiting complete mastery
of intonation and rhythmic execution in a style that was totally unfamiliar
to me. [...more]
-
from Mike's Column, "Percy Jones- The
World's Greatest Fretless Bassist?"
Mike
Visceglia: What was your early musical exposure and/or education?
Percy
Jones: My mother gave me some very basic piano lessons when I
was 9 or 10 years old but at that point I wasn't much interested in
music. A few years later music was on the semester of the grammar
school that I went to but my abilities were apparantly beyond unremarkable;
I remember the teacher saying that I would be better off studying
Russian. It was in the early 60's when I was around 15 or 16 years
old and began listening to R&B that I started to develop a love
of music
Mike:
Musical influences are usually fairly evident in one's playing, however
your playing is so unique that they aren't easily revealed. What were
you listening to and what drew you to the fretless bass as your voice?
Percy:
Well, I started out on a fretted bass. I used to go out and listen
to the bands that played around mid-Wales in the early 60's. This,
of course, was when the Merseybeat thing was in full swing. I can't
really say why but there was something about the bass that appealed
to me, the fact that it had big fat strings and made things shake
was really fascinating. I remember thinking "I'd like to have
a go at this!," so I persuaded my mother to buy me a second hand
Vox Clubman.
I initially was listening to the British electric players but rather
quickly tired of that after going to an Alexis Korner concert in Hereford.
He was using a rhythm section that night consisting of drums and upright
bass and he was doing a sort of interesting hybrid of Jazz, Blues
and Folk; at least that is the way I would best describe it. I immediately
got into this because there was some syncopation and harmonic stuff
going on that I had'nt been exposed to before. Soon after this I moved
to Liverpool to study engineering and began playing with the Liverpool
Scene which initially was a poetry and music band. Adrian Henri and
Mike Evans introduced me to the music of Charles Mingus and I immediately
loved it.
Listening to Mingus gave me an introduction to the other great upright
players of the day and I became more focused on them than on the electric
rock players who were around at the time. This prompted me to think
about switching to a fretless bass since this was the middle ground
between electric and upright. I continued to play fretted for several
more years though there was a lot of experimenting with filed down
frets and using accelerometers as pickups. I eventually bought my
first fretless in 1974, it was a second hand Fender Precision.
Mike: I have this romantic vision of what adventurous
music was like in England in the late '60s and early '70s. What was
your experience of that time and place?
Percy: My memories of this period are still pretty
vivid. The early 60's was a very refreshing time since the Merseybeat
thing was very prominent and it sounded very dramatic compared to
what had been going on before. It was really a different way of playing
music. For instance, the style of syncopating the bass with the kick
drum came out of this period. There was really only one radio station
to listen to at the time which was Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres
which was right at the end of the AM dial. It was broadcast from Luxembourg
so you could only hear it after dark in the UK because of daytime
D layer absorption in the ionosphere. There was the inevitable fading
especially on nights when there were magnetic storms, but everybody
used to put up with this and listen to it because it was one of the
few sources of the great new music that was coming out of the UK and
USA. The only others were the Pirate stations that came and went because
they were under constant threat of closure by the UK government.
The late 60's and early 70's saw some of the American Jazzers putting
together electric bands, Miles Davis just being one example. I immediately
connected with this style of music and wanted to get into a situation
to be able to play it. It was a bit of a challenge because by now
I had moved to London and was working on a construction site which
was'nt doing much for me in terms of me being creative.
Mike: One of the more notable bands that you were
in was Brand X. How did that band form? Did you know Phil Collins
before then? Why did they break up?
Percy: The initial formation of Brand X is a rather
long and complicated story but John Goodsall and Robin Lumley were
already involved at the point where I joined up. The original band
had two guitar players and also a vocalist. The original drummer was
John Dillon. Phil came in later on when we had a contract with Island
Records and this is where I first met him. We had recorded one record
for Island which we did'nt like so we asked Chris Blackwell if we
could do another but make it instrumental. This is where Phil came
in at the recommendation of Danny Wilding who was then an A&R
man. We finished the new record but Island did'nt like it and would
not release it so we took it to Charisma which was Genesis's label
and they put it out; this was "Unorthodox Behaviour".
Mike: When I first heard you you were playing with
the great band Soft Machine. How did that tour come about? Besides
Robert Wyatt, who still records under his own name, I haven't heard
much from the other original members. Do you know what they are up
to today?
Percy: Soft's manager contacted Tony Smith who was
managing me at the time. I think John Marshall and one of the other
guys had gone to Ronnie Scotts' when we were playing there to check
things out. They had a tour coming up and Roy Babbington had left
rather suddenly so they were stuck for a bassplayer for this European
tour. After the Scotts' gig, Brand X had a period of inactivity so
I started rehearsing with the Softs. They did what seemed like a couple
of really quick rehearsals and we all left for Copenhagen. I was still
really nervous because I barely had the material down, but they always
made me feel at ease.
We did this long European tour through Scandanavia and Germany, opening
for Shakti on numerous dates; it ended with a gig in England at Newcastle
University. I haven't seen any of those guys since then. I know that
John Ethridge played with Stephan Grappelli for some time and Karl
Jenkins has gotten involved in Classical music and is having a lot
of success in that area. I don't know what John (Marshall) has been
doing. Having been living in the US now for 20 years I'm rather out
of touch with what's happening in the UK.
Mike: You're a great improviser. Is that as much
an intellectual process for you as it is intuitive? Do you think more
rhythmically than melodically or harmonically?
Percy: I think it's 50% intellectual/intuition. I'm
constantly trying to stay on top of both aspects (harmony and rhythm),
but it's tough, I rarely feel like I achieve that goal. I go through
periods where, for example, I think I'm putting too much attention
to rythm and ignoring harmony, or vice-versa. I'm still trying to
find a balance with that, I don't know at this point whether I'll
ever be happy.
[
image courtesy The
Percy Jones Website]
Mike:
You've had a long, productive relationship with Brian Eno. How did
that evolve? What's your view of him as an artist and a producer?
Has he ever expressed to you why the two of you work so well together?
Percy: Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster did a concept
record called Peter and the Wolf based on the original Prokofiev piece.
They invited guests to play on various sections but used Brand X as
a core as it were. Brian Eno was one of the participants, he apparantly
liked the rythm section and invited Phil and I to play on some stuff
he was working on. His projects were immensely interesting to me,
he knew how much freedom to give everyone to get the best out of them,
he made you feel like you were part of the creative process so it
was always a good feeling at the end of the day.
I haven't worked with him for a long time now but I recently did some
bass tracks for a very interesting singer from Ireland called Clodagh
Simonds. She collaborates with a group of guys in England who have
an ongoing project called Undark. Brian has had some participation
with them and is apparantly rather interested in Clodagh's work. I'm
hoping he might get involved since I know he would bring out the best
in Clodagh's great potential.
Mike: Why and when did you leave England? Why did
you pick New York as the place to go to?
Percy: Two reasons really, my wife is a native New
Yorker and at the time I was playing more over here than I was in
the UK, so it simply made sense to live here. Also New York is such
a diverse place racially, and of course musically, so I thought I
could probably learn a lot by being here.
Mike: One of the truly great things about your playing
is its apparent disassociation of the influence of Jaco Pastorius.
What philosophy or aesthetic do you adhere to that made this possible?
Percy: Firstly, I'm really happy to hear you say
that because I did get some AAA for awhile from certain areas for
supposedly being derivative. I think it's simply a case of being able
to constantly look inside yourself for ideas. At the same time you
can't completely divorce yourself from what others are doing. Off
course this is easier said than done. To try and put this in a nutshell
one could say that it's OK to use others to help you make a rough
template but look at your inner self to fill in the fine detail. There
is a whole community of great bassplayers out there who are contributing
to a common whole but they all have their own unique voice.
Mike: I have an image of you as someone who doesn't
seek the spotlight and certainly doesn't thrive on outside approval.
How close to reality is this? How do you reconcile your obvious creative
commitment with the "business" of making music, or does
this even concern you?
Percy: Well, if someone compliments my playing it
really does make me feel good and conversely, if they say the opposite
I feel really bad. But I try and not take extreme comments too seriously,
whether they are positive or negative. You can make a piece of music
and have one guy say that it's brilliant and another will say it's
total rubbish, and this has happened a few times. In a situation like
this it's down to your own judgement, ultimately. One thing I've always
tried to do is learn from the people who listen to our music. I pay
great attention to what emotions certain sections of the tunes elicit
in an audience. Music is all about emotional communication. The same
way that I pay Verizon for my phone and internet service I would be
happy to pay one of my favourite bands/musicians for some emotional
equivalent. But they would have to do a bit better job than Verizon.
I've never been comfortable with the "showbiz" aspect of
music. I just stand there and play a bass, I don't have any really
good jokes to tell so I usually keep quiet. I was once described as
an "entertainer" on a visa application. I thought "artist"
would have been a lot more appropriate, but there you go.
Mike: How did you practice and perfect your sense
of time? Do you still practice,if so, what?
Percy: I probably don't practice as much as I should,
but if I don't my chops go to Hell. I at least try and keep it up
to the point that I don't lose strength in my hands and fingers, but
I'm certainly not one of these 4 hours a day types. It's difficult
because when I'm writing I'm spending more time on a synth than a
bass and this demands a whole different set of muscles. Or I'm on
a PC working with Logic or whatever, all that does is give you Carpal
Tunnel syndrome.
When I do practice alone, it's often scales or runs that are physically
demanding rather than being musically interesting. I often play along
with something on the PC which is quartz time so you can always rely
on that to be constant and unforgiving. I've been lucky in that I've
played with some really good drummers over the years and there is
no question that helped me to develop my timing. To play with a drummer
who is is using a lot of syncopation will certainly help develop one's
"internal" sense of time.
Playing with a band is probably the best all round excercise, since
it's giving you a physical workout in the most musical context.
Mike: When I first saw you play you were playing
a fretless Precision Bass. I know you had a relationship with Wal
then Fodera. What are you playing today and why? What about amplification,
effects?
Percy: I'm playing an Ibanez Ergodyne 5 string. I
just use the piezo pickups since they have such a high dynamic range
and you can get a lot of dynamics right from your hands. The piezos
are very lively and you have to be mindful of finger noise and indigestion
etc, also the eq is quite critcal. But when everything is set up correctly
they have an interesting sound, truly a hybrid betwen upright and
electric I think.
Regarding amplification, I was using an EAW 18' ported cabinet and
a 2X10" Hartke cabinet with a Crown stereo PA and a Groove tube
preamp, the whole thing is bi-amped. I really like this set up but
it's simply too big. When Tunnels goes on the road we rent a small
van, but it was beginning to resemble a Guinness Book of records attempt,
trying to get everything in. I used to fold up much better when I
was younger. So I recently bought an SWR "Workingman's Combo"
which has a 15" driver in a ported cabinet and a tweeter. I think
the amp delivers 160 watts with the internal speaker. It sounds quite
respectable for it's size and takes half the space of the other rig.
I'll be using it for the first time next week at a gig in Chapel Hill
NC. I've rehearsed with it and I think it's going to be OK for most
of the venues that we do. I don''t use any effects except the occasional
chorus. Its usually a Boss but when we can afford it it's the Tredegar
Male Voice Choir.
Mike: Tell me about your current projects, gigs or
tours?
Percy: We're finishing up a new Nouve Musiche recording
and we're going out on the road with Tunnels next week for some gigs
which are mostly in the South. As I mentioned earlier I recently finished
some bass tracks for Clodagh Simonds but I'm not sure when that will
ultimately come out. We're doing some gigs with Nouve Musiche in March
and also some gigs with Sarah Pillow under here own name which will
be jazz stuff, also in March.
Mike:
What, if any, is your favorite Percy Jones recording?
Percy: I really have no idea, there isn't one that
I can pick out as a favourite. I have to listen to a tune years after
it was recorded to get an impression that's anywhere near accurate.
I recently listened to a piece called Orfeo's Demon which is on Progressivity
and was very happy with it. At the time of writing and recording it
I had grave doubts about it, it just shows you how fickle perception
can be.
Mike: Do you have any advice for aspiring bassists?
Percy:
Try and look inwards for ideas.
Don't listen to destructive criticism.
Watch out for unscrupulous people in the music industry.
Keep healthy.
Enjoy yourself.
Mike:
Do you have a website with contact and gig information?
Percy:
Percyjones.net & Buckyballmusic.com
A
HUGE THANKS TO PERCY FOR DOING THIS INTERVIEW!!
FOR
MORE INFORMATION ON PERCY JONES
For
more information on Percy, please visit the following websites:
http://www.Percyjones.net
http://www.Buckyballmusic.com
