Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne is an incredible jazz pianist from England. In addition to his unique solo shows incorporating samples and electronics, he leads the bands The Electric Dr. M; Bourne, Davis, Kane; Dr M and Distortion Trio as well as playing in Dan Berridge's Broadway Project. I was fortunate enough to see Matthew live two times at this summer's Vancouver Jazz Festival and both times I was totally bowled over. He has monstrous abilities, he's a brilliant improviser with a great aesthetic and, unusual for free jazz, he's very funny and engaged with the audience.
From energetic attacks on the piano's innards and dense waves of dissonant tone clusters to wickedly funny accompaniments to kitsch samples and such Dadaist gestures as playing with his feet or swatting the piano with a towel and then rubbing it apologetically, Matthew is a dynamic entertainer and certainly one of the finest new players in contemporary jazz.
I saw you for the first time at the Vancouver Jazz Festival first with Peggy and Jesse and then your solo performance the next day. Both times I was totally blown away!
The first show was a trio free improvisation and the second show featured you playing alone to loops that you triggered and adjusted throughout the set. Are those loops roughly the same from show to show or do you pick a new set for each performance? I'm curious to know how important those specific loops are to the performance?
Firstly, may I say what an honor it was to have the chance to play with such beautiful musicians as Peggy and Jesse, Vancouver is very lucky to have them…
That gig put me in the right mood for the solo gig. I always try to use a different set of samples for each solo performance. I never like to use the same ideas twice. However, the gig in Vancouver was the first in a series of concerts occurring close together, so this had to be compromised slightly. Ideally, I’d only like to do a maximum of 3 solo gigs a year (in this last month I’ve done about 8 in two weeks!) so that I have time to gather new ideas and piano textures.
Do you organize the loops as you're improvising or do you have an order in mind of what will go where beforehand?
The samples are usually chosen a few days before the gig, so that I don’t have too much time to fix specific ideas in my head too early – I’ve found that the less spontaneous the ideas, the more tired and contrived they appear. Once the samples have been loaded into the sampler, I experiment with various combinations and layers until I find things I like.
Usually I write out a list of samples just before the gig, and I’ll have a rough idea of where to place them within the framework in my head. Although this can of course change depending on the situation…
Do you choose the loops specifically for their lyrical content or their musical qualities? As I listened to you improvise over the repeated loops I found that the content was gradually stripped from the loops and they become pure sound objects.
All of these things. I love Japanese language and cinema at the moment, so dialogue from the films of Takashi Miike (I LOVE this guy!), Akira Kurosawa and Suzuki Seijun join forces with the work of French directors Jean Luc Godard and Alain Resnais (Hiroshima mon Amour). There is something very beautiful about their films and the way that the language is delivered. A certain emotional resonance presents itself through the various sample combinations and the resulting imagery is quite personal, and even if audiences are unaware of the origin of some samples, they still bring their own experiences to the performance, and interpret whatever is going on however they want.
The improvising to the rhythm of looped spoken word samples is quite a recent idea and have so far, only used T.V. and Film fragments from Hector’s House, Spaceballs, Airplane and The Simpsons to varying degrees of success!
I couldn't find any references to you having released any albums. Do you have anything coming up? Have you done any recordings with other artists?
I have recorded with a number of people with whom I play with in the U.K. These include the bands Broadway Project, Bourne Davis Kane, Distortion Trio, The Electric Dr M, and a duo project with French saxophone genius Christophe deBezenac.
As for commercial ventures, Bourne Davis Kane have just recorded a studio album, so we hope to get that out there somehow and The Electric Dr M already has an album out on ‘Sound’ records (SoundCD1004), available from Amazon.co.uk and AMD (alternative music distribution in the U.K.)
Sadly, I don’t think there will ever be any commercial records made of the solo work with samples. There are too many copyright infringements for any record company to clear. I have a large number of solo and other recordings that I send to people for free, if anyone asks. So please include my email address somewhere here, as I’m more than happy to send the music to anyone who wants to hear it…
Are you involved in any other collaborations?
I’ve been asked to write a composition for the Italian Instabile Orchestra, touring the U.K. in November. I also work with Dan Berridge (AKA Broadway Project).
You have a number of projects, some of them more in the electronic vein but I’m curious to know if they are about improvisation as well?
Yes, all of them are improvised (I apologize for the website being terribly out of date – I am getting it sorted, so watch that space…!). The Electric Dr M is a completely improvised project (Guitar, Bass, 2 Drum sets, lots of electronics, analog synthesizers and a Fender Rhodes). We are actually in the stages of mixing the results of a tour we did last year with Springheel Jack.
Distortion Trio is really the darker slut-sister of The Electric Dr M, with just Drums, Guitar and the above keyboard setup; dark, horrible and very, very loud.
What are some of your influences?
This is very difficult for me; I think a list would be the best way to go, so here goes some of them:
Glenn Miller, Lionel Richie, George Formby, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, Quincy Jones, Morton Feldman, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Gyorgy Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Laura Nyro, Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, Spike Jones, Gerald Finzi, Frank Bridge, Cooper-Moore, Slayer, Napalm Death, John Zorn, Jimmy Durante, Mike Osborne, Mike Westbrook, Harry Beckett, Norma Winstone, Bill Kinghorn, Salvatore Sciarrino, Barre Phillips, Jack Jones, Takashi Miike, Mike Figgis, Cassette Boy, Paolo Pasolini, Akira Kurosawa.
There was a strong element of physical comedy, and a sort of Dadaist performance art humor, most especially on the first day with Jesse and Peggy – playing with your feet, slapping the piano, gestures, etc. I found it refreshing.
I’ve always been aware of these elements and they just seem to naturally creep out of whatever is going on musically. Since I began attending concerts I was always frustrated about the gap between the audience and the performer, psychologically and physically, and have always looked for opportunities to bring the audience closer to the music and the artist in both these ways.
It’s working!
Sometimes audiences don’t want to get any closer to anything and some are very receptive. If I have a really attentive audience I’ll stop for a chat or some commentary (Recently, at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway, I had a whole conversation with the audience about all the standards I didn’t know and couldn’t remember – and proved it by blundering through the opening few bars of Stella, Autumn Leaves and Solar). It really is the audience who makes the best music, for me anyway.
You had just met Peggy Lee and Jesse Zubot for the first time that day and then went into a full-length show together. Was there a plan for how the set would unfold or was it 100% improvised?
Yes, it was 100% improvised, and as I said before – beautiful musicians, beautiful people. I hope that we can get together to do it again sometime. Maybe someone could give Manfred Eicher a call and we could all meet up at Rainbow Studio in Oslo…
Great idea! What's ahead for you?
At the moment, I’m trying to finish my PhD commentary ready for submission in September.
Here's Matthew's email if you want to hear some of those recordings fraught with copyright issues: mattbourneix@hotmail.com
