SOFT MACHINE
recent Soft Machine with John E on the left, courtesy of Moonjune Records
John Etheridge on his legendary & recent SM years + his extensive solo work
Interview by Dr. Gary Gomes, Part 2
(April 2025)
When we concluded our first part of the John Etheridge interview, we had learned of his early years all the way back to his musical beginnings to his professional career and, finally, his initial joining of Soft Machine. In this final episode, we hear of his career as a member of that band, time with the legendary musicians violinist Stephane Grappelli and classical guitarist John Williams, Andy Summers, his teaching experiences and his return to Soft Machine, among other exploits. John is a truly legendary player and true master musician. Now (with acknowledgement to the late Vivian Stanshall), read on...
PSF: Well, this is just a personal interjection. The first time I heard you, was when I got a collection of Soft Machine albums, and I said, "Oh, Holdsworth was pretty damn good." And then I heard you, and I said, "Wow. Who the hell is this guy? He's great. So everybody spoke so highly of Holdsworth.. And who's this John Etheridge guy? He probably can't be as good." But, believe it or not, I was more impressed with you.
JE: You're now, you're my friend for life. Gary, that's fantastic. Well, I mean, of course, I think, I think at the time, both of us were known in England, but nowhere else. But then, of course, Alan went to America, and, you know, I never did, but no, I mean, taking over from him was a big challenge.
PSF: He's a really, unique musician, yes,
JE: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And it was a big challenge to take over. But I think I kind of, you know, I did okay. It was very, very demanding. I found it challenging, is the right word. I mean, it really was, I really had to be on my mettle because I had to promote the album that he made, Bundles. And so I had to promote, and I had to play the tunes that he recorded. And it was lucky for me that I had my own way of playing, because probably, if I'd been a capable imitator, I'd have copied him, but I couldn't do it. I had my way of playing, which was in technical terms, just much more picking, much more with the right hand than him. And so I sounded different, not miles away, but I sounded different from him, and that was probably a good thing, because it gave me some sort of individuality. But, you know, that was a pinnacle, and it's one of the reasons I've stayed. I guess we'll get onto this, but it's one of the reasons why I've stayed with the Soft Machine thing is because I really can play in a way that I can only play with the Soft Machine, and I really like doing it and the current Soft Machine. I mean, this is jumping ahead, but the current Soft Machine is just fantastic; it, really is. So it's been 50 years on and off anyway. So that's how I got into the Soft Machine. So I think that there's another question I can see coming up here.
PSF: All right. So we had this a discussion of, what about Ollie [Halsall] not being really appropriate for the group? He was an exceptional talent but didn't fit the band as well as you did. You had an extensive relationship with (legendary jazz violinist) Stephane Grappelli. Could you tell me about this?
JE: Yes, I will. Basically, I mean, what happened was out of the blue in late '76, I got a call from Diz Disley, a well-known player and well known for being Stephane Grappelli's accompanying guitarist. And I got a call, "Hello, It's Diz Disley here. I want to come round and see you." So Disley appears at my door, and I say, "what's going on?" He said, "Well, we're looking for a new guitarist, and you've been recommended!" and I'd been on the television with Soft Machine the night before, and a friend of his had seen it. He was looking for a young guitar player. And his friend said, "Well, I saw this bloke last night. He was really, really good, you know, why don't you try him?" So, I mean, I was playing miles away stylistically from Stephane Grappelli, but fortunately this guy recommended me.
So Diz appeared at my front door, and he hadn't got a guitar, which was par for the course, I later found out. And he said, "Oh, have you got a guitar?" So we got a couple of guitars out. We played "Sweet Georgia Brown" because I knew that. I knew the repertoire from my Django days, you see. And he went, "Oh, that's all right. No, no, okay, come to Hamburg, and we've got a television show with Stepane Grappelli, and if he likes you, we've got a world tour." I didn't say anything because I was with the Soft Machine, but I said, "okay, I'll come to Hamburg." So we went to Hamburg and we did this TV performance, and it started off very badly. A rehearsal was arranged in one of the hotel rooms, and Stephane came, and he wouldn't speak to me-and everything I did started to do wasn't right. And I thought, "oh my god," because I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't even have an acoustic guitar. I had to borrow an acoustic guitar, and everything was kind of wrong. And I thought, "well, you know, I won't be doing this anyway. So never mind. I've had one gig with Stephane Grappelli, and I can talk about that with people, and it's been amazing to meet him. You know, Django's violinist." So it wasn't going very well. And then he called out a tune he wanted. He wanted to rehearse a tune which was " You Are The Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder.
And he motioned to me to do a solo. I hadn't done a solo. I did a solo, and I sort of got some reasonable 70s stuff in you know, I played my bit, played my stuff. So then he looked at me and went, "Oh, baby, I like that." He says, "that's fast business. It's good. It amuses the tourists." He decided I was alright. So anyway, we did this TV show on Hamburg television, and it was over, and then Diz said, "well, Steph likes you. We've got a world tour starting February, March, April, May, June." It was basically February until July. Anyway, I said, "but I can't do it this. I'm with the Soft Machine." And I didn't mean to play hard to get I was just going, "well, you know, I'm in a group." Diz said, "Are you turning down Stephan Grappelli for the sake of a pop group?" I said, "Well, I suppose I am !" But anyway, that luckily made him more keen, and he was very keen to have me. So I think Stefan said, "Well, I like him, you know." And he couldn't believe that I was going to turn it down. So rather than, thank God, just give up and go and get somebody else, he hung on for a bit, and I thought about it, and he was offering me loads of money. And I went to the Soft Machine. I said, "Look, I've been offered this three month, three, four month world tour," and they didn't have any particular number of gigs lined up. So they said, "well, go and do it." So I did it. Meanwhile, for the couple of gigs, they got Alan Holdsworth to do it. And I went around the world with Stephan Grappelli and Diz Disley, and we used to get bass players wherever we went. And it was, I might have to say, one of the great, great periods for me and my playing. I didn't make any effort to play like Django. I had an Ovation guitar, and I guess I played my way, the way I played with the Soft Machine on acoustic guitar. And I really didn't know a lot about music theory or jazz, so I was playing by ear. Diz knew all the tunes, so he would play the chords, and I played the solos over the top, and became the kind of featured side man. And once again, everybody was like, really, really nice to me, and I got great reviews. And Stephane really liked it, really liked me, and was very keen. And it was great, you know? And he was incredibly encouraging. He's Django Reinhardt's righthand man. So if he's giving you praise, you really feel like, "oh my gosh, I've really made it," you know?
So it was brilliant -particularly that first year or so was absolutely brilliant. And the attitude to music making, which was so joyful. And I don't mean joyful in inverted commas, it's just that Stephane, once he had the violin in his hands, he was supremely relaxed. He was a very anxious person off stage, but with the violin, he was extremely confident. It was an antithesis to the sort of people I've been playing with who might be quite relaxed in the pub, but when it came to the music, it all got very competitive and, you know, navel gazing and fraught and tense. But this was the opposite. I mean, Stephane was really quite a neurotic person off stage. But once he got the violin, he was absolutely at home. Because he was so relaxed, he made everybody else feel relaxed, and you just played. And he played this music. It was simple music in its own way. We hardly ever rehearsed. We played "How High the Moon" and "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Crazy Rhythm" and, you know, and he'd nod to you to do a solo, or nod to Diz to do a solo, and that's what we did. And because he was so great, it was a terrific show. And with the guitars, it reminded people of Django and the Hot Club. It was incredibly popular. Popular in America. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. It's one of the few bands I've ever been in that actually was increasing its popularity in America. Certainly it was never popular in England.
But in America, we used to go and we'd do two tours every year, and they got bigger and bigger, and bigger, and he got more and more popular, and they sold better and better and better, because it all fitted really well. It was exactly right. It was charming French, legendary jazz musician, the Django Reinhardt connection. So I got to meet all the guitarists. You know, they all turned up. I mean, Les Paul came and played, and Barney [Kessel] would be there, and Larry Coryell played. And every guitarist wanted to join in, because it was Stephane Grappelli who played with Django, you know. So it was a wonderful period. And, you know, that was a long relationship. And as I said we went all over the world for long periods. So it was quite deep, you know. And that sort of finished around '81. Those periods, the Soft Machine, and Stephane were, really, early peak for me. And then there was a sort of later peak which we'll come on to. Okay, so basically, I can finish this off by saying, you know, it all came to an end with Stephane around '81. It was probably time to go anyway, and then I was kind of stuck. It was a strange period because the whole progressive rock thing was completely over. I was now known in the jazz world a bit from having played with Grappelli. So I started playing on the British jazz scene. It just started happening. And people would offer me gigs, would phone up because of the Grappelli connection. And I really didn't know anything. So I started teaching. Coincidentally, I started getting offered a lot of teaching workshops and things. And I didn't really know anything. So, in my early 30s, I came to studying music theory and jazz theory, and I got to understand it very, very well. I've got a good mind conceptually. And I really got to understand totally everything about bebop and Modalism and things. And this was great. This was a great period where teaching was really creative for me, because I was being asked questions that I then had to quickly research. Somebody would come to me and say, "Oh, John, would you play the altered scale on that chord?" And I go, "Oh, blimey." And I'd rush off and find out what the altered scale was, and then, you know, work it out. So I got to know a lot in this period, I say in the early '80's.
The good thing about this period for me, which was pretty chaotic in a lot of ways, was that I was really learning and understanding music theory. It did mean that my playing was no longer, sort of, as natural. I think I started to really want to be a good bebop player, for instance. And I really kind of worked hard on that, and that's not really necessarily what you want to be ultimately- but I was so intrigued by it. I'm fascinated by parameters and rules and things.
I like to break rules, but I like to know what they are. And you know the post hoc rules of Charlie Parker music are quite clear, and so I absorbed them. So, through the '80's I was playing really hundreds and hundreds of sort of small time jazz gigs. People said to me, "oh, you should go to America," you know, but I had children. I didn't want to leave my kids. I could never have coped with that. And, you know, people said, "oh, there's only one place for you now," because this was still the point in time where America was the place you needed to be. And of course, Allan had gone in '83 and everybody said, "Well, you should go to America." Probably, if I'd gone to America, things would have obviously been different. But I stayed in England. Really, to sort of sum up the whole period, I was playing with practically every recognized jazz musician in Britain. And that was very good for my learning, you know, and understanding music. Not so good for my profile or my bank balance or money or anything. But then I see that your next question is, you know, is talking about John Williams and Andy Summers? I think really, I'd say this period lasted from '81 right through to the recording of Ash (1993), which was my first album as a leader.
It was In the '80's, when I started forming my own bands, and I had my own group with Steve Franklin, keyboards, Henry Thomas, Nick France, drums, and I started focusing touring with my own group, rather than just playing with random people. And at the beginning of the '90's, we made an album called Ash. It's, it's quite an eclectic album, but I still like it, and I was the leader. I wrote quite a few of the tunes. So this was me coming into something a bit more coherent, I think I would characterize the early '80's period as sort of scattered, fragmented. And this, this was beginning to get coherent. And then then one or two things in terms of playing with major people started to happen. The first one was Nigel Kennedy. Played with him from around '92, something like that. At the same time, Andy Summers and I started recording an album.
So the '90's, things started looking up in terms of sort of having projects that were identifiable. So I was with Nigel Kennedy on and off for quite a long time. That was, you know, a real side man gig. I mean, he was the boss, obviously. Andy Summers and I had our duo, and we toured the world in '94-'95 and that was also very interesting, because we worked hard to find a repertoire.
And we did one album called invisible threads, and it's a pretty attractive album, I don't do any of my sort of stuff, you know, my Soft Machine stuff in it, we meld together. And I do like albums where you can't tell who's playing what. You know, if there are two guitarists, I think it's great if you can't work out. I was listening to Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang, who played the first and some of the greatest guitar duets in the 1920's and you're not sure who's playing what. Because, if I look it up on YouTube and see the comments, people are slightly unclear who's playing what. And I like that. It means it kind of melds. And Andy and I tried to meld together. In fact, we used the same gear, the same delay pedals and the same amp. And I think instinctively, our idea was to blend two guitars to make it sound like one. And that was what I liked about that gig. Particularly, I mean, Andy is a very, very good kind of chord man. He knows how to come up with exactly the right chord in the right place, and he's got a very good, subtle mind for music. So that was the strength of that duo. And we went all around the world in '94, '95, '96 and literally played everywhere.
And at the same time, there was the Nigel Kennedy thing coming and going. That was much more a sideman gig . Nigel was absolutely the main man. And that was a bit like saying, "right, I'll be a side man for this, because I do like that." I like being in charge, but I also like cooperating- as long as I get to play! You know, I do get to play with Nigel, not a huge amount of soloing, but there was enough, and the band was lovely, a lovely sort of thing. And then, towards the end of the '90s, I started hooking up with John Williams. There again, something very, very different. You know, I had this experience. John sort of called me up and said, "I want to do something, come around and talk about it. We'll have lunch and talk about it." And I thought, "you know, I can't play with John Williams. John Williams is the greatest classical guitarist ever. How can I play with John Williams? And I hope he knows what I do. I hope he knows enough about me. I hope he's not expecting me to play classical guitar duets with him." But luckily, he had a pretty clear picture of what I could do, what he wanted me to do and how we were going to fit together. We did a lot of talking, and basically, after a lot of talking, he decided that he was going to put a band together. John Williams, myself, an incredible multi-instrumentalist called Richard Harvey. Chris Laurence on bass, Paul Clarvis is on percussion, and it was playing African music. The idea was basically with African music. And, interestingly enough, I had no handle on this at all, no clue. I mean, I'd heard bits of African music, but I had really no clue what the position of the guitar was in this or anything. So I thought, "well, perhaps none of us have a clue, so we'll all start researching this together."
And very interestingly, my role in the first group, which was the five piece group, was more or less to play very repetitive, rhythmic riffs. Now this was absolutely not my comfort zone. It's extraordinary. There are some people who are born for that sort of thing.
And there are some people who aren't inclined to play exactly the same motif for 20 minutes. For some people, that's heaven, you know. Some people go "yeah, mate." You know a proper rhythm guitar, somebody who's born to be a great rhythm guitarist would think, "great, fantastic." But I found it really challenging, in a completely different way than I found, you know, the Soft Machine challenging. This was really challenging in a completely different way. Of course, people who came to the gigs would say, "Well, you're not doing anything." And I would say, "Yeah, I know I'm not doing anything, but it's a very demanding 'not doing anything!" And then something happened later, actually, probably two or three years later- it just all clicked into place, and now I would be very happy playing a repetitive thing. It's something in the body, some feeling you get. It becomes a sort of physical feeling, and you're going with it rather being in your head when your fingers are in your body. So you start feeling it in your body. And that's when you start playing with really good time. So this was another really useful late kind of lesson for me. So anyway, that folded up. John said, "let's just do a duo." I was really flattered. I thought "this is great." But the first thing was John, being a man with nerves of steel, said "we'll do the first gigs at the National Guitar Festival in Dublin, at the National Theater, and we'll record that. That'll be the live album, and that'll be our album." And I'm going, "what?" And so I sort of panicked and quickly put in three or four warm up gigs. And we had a piece by Ben Verdery to rehearse--an absolutely avant garde piece to which all he sent was a score. No sort of sound, no CD to show me how it sounded or anything, just the score, very, very classical. So I'm trying to figure out what my bit is, and I work really, really hard on this, and we do a lot of thinking to put a duo thing together. John is such an intelligent person, and he, rather than try and get me to play a certain way, or him try and try to play jazz or something, he played to his strengths, and I played to mine. I mean, we played acoustic guitars and things. So it wasn't, it wasn't like a wild electric thing. So we made this live album in in Dublin. It was totally live, no separation on the instruments. So, I mean, it was extraordinary, nerve wracking, but in the end, it comes out good because it's a very exciting record. You wouldn't think that me and John Williams would make an exciting record, but I think it is, if anybody wants to check it out, it's called Places Between- Jonn Williams, John Etheridge, live in Dublin (2006), and the opening track, a brilliant bit of writing by John Williams, because it's, it's a Bach Prelude, but he extends the bars. And by extending doubling the length of the bars, it motors along like rock and roll! It becomes really relentless, like a pile driver. My part was a sort of picked ostinato, sort of a harmony played with the pick to blend with his classical arpeggio part.
So I'm doing this kind of complimentary part, and it really sounds good. I mean, it was a really good piece, but God, I was so exhausted at the end, because, you know, it was properly live. Anybody reading this and knows about recording, knows that even if you're recording live, you capture the instruments on separate tracks, so that you can manipulate them later. But we were just live, you know, like miked up in the hall, and it makes me exhausted even thinking about it. But we did it, and so then we toured as a duo for, oh, that was 2006 or about 2007 vigorously; from 2006- 2013 we toured everywhere as a duo. We were all over the place. You know, that was a brilliant time. In fact, I would look back on the period between 2001 and 2008 or 2009 as a second heyday, because I was doing, you know, that thing with John Williams and the Soft Machine Legacy. Soft Machine reformed in 2004. I was playing a lot of solo concerts. I had my band Sweet Chorus, which I put together when Stephane Grappelli died in 1998, as a tribute to him . We were playing Hot Club music, but we, we had our own spin on it, but it was a tribute to Stehpane. And I used to tell stories about Stephane Grappelli during the show, using my French accent. It was fun!
There was a writer (Rob Palmer) who was doing a biography of me, and he said, "in 2006, you played with 19 different outfits, not just one offs, but actually played in19 bands!" Zappatistas. So I was like playing the whole time, playing different things. But, you know, the John Williams thing was one of the major things, and we were touring. That was the one I was touring the world with. So we go to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America, Europe, you know, England. But the only place we didn't go was Japan and China, but we went everywhere else. And John is a fantastic bloke to work with. He's the greatest classical guitarist, and he's a really, really straight guy, you know, a really good guy. No sides, no nothing. We had good fun. We used to tour the United States, driving ourselves around America, And I did the driving, he did the navigating, and we went all over the place, it was terrific. This was a sort of second pinnacle, I think that period.
But then he started retiring from international work about 2013, 2014. We then had a brief period where we added another guitarist called Gary Ryan. We played as a trio, but he would only play in England. That finished as soon as COVID appeared. John said, "Right, I've been thinking about retiring. This is it. I'm retiring now." Since then, we have played the occasional concert, but basically, he's retired. But it was a fabulous 20 year period being associated with him, because it's so great to work with somebody who's not only an incredible musician, but also a really good person.
PSF: There you go. So, how did you rejoin Soft Machine? And how was the recent tour?
JE: So now this starts in 2004. I joined Soft Machine, apparently on April the 25th I think I actually joined probably about April the 15th, 1975 and my first gig, according to our tour manager, was April the 25th 1975 so that went on (of course, I had that Stephan Grappelli thing) but that really went on 'til the end of the '70's, and then it petered out. Now, most progressive rock bands petered out at the end of the '70's, beginning of the '80's. Very interesting, actually. I mean, we all hated the '80;s. Obviously, for me, that decade was horrible on every level, personally, politically, musically, professionally. But I got through it. And I mean, people like Hugh Hopper were driving taxis. I got through it in the jazz world. Nobody was interested in us, nobody was interested in our '70's music. And of course, at the time, it's very painful. But now, I hate the 80s music. I can't stand any of that music, but I rather admire the way the people from the '80's, you know, the big bands, absolutely wanted to have nothing to do with us. They wanted to do their own thing. And, you know, the '80's was the last time when there was a recognizable, strong musical movement, and it was all nothing to do with us. Hardly any guitars. People used to say to me, "what are you going to do now the guitar's finished?" You know, there weren't any guitars anymore. At the time, I hated it. I thought this is it was just awful. I mean, the '80's were awful.
Then the '90's started getting better, and people of my generation started getting a bit more respect again. And Soft Machine was very late to reform. Caravan reformed about '96 Colosseum '95-'96 and these bands started getting together again, but the problem had always been with Soft Machine had a not very good personal chemistry. So people involved, you know, John Marshall, myself, Elton Dean, people like that, were kind of doing okay on their own anyway, but it was Leonardo Pavkovic, who is a very inspired impresario. He decided he wanted to put together a group. It started with Allan Holdsworth, but Allan dipped out. So it's Elton Dean, myself, John Marshall Hugh Hopper, and we could have called it Soft Machine. And in fact, Elton Dean wanted to call it Soft Machine. Hugh was, for some reason, against that, and it had to with Robert Wyatt. He felt they always had a kind of guilt thing about Robert, you know, because they felt they kicked him out of his own band, and he thought, "well, we can't assume the name," so we called it Soft Machine legacy, and it could easily been called Soft Machine with Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper, John Marshall and myself but they decided to call it Soft Machine Legacy, which possibly created some confusion. In fact, a lot of the promoters in Europe used to leave the Legacy off. You know, they put Soft Machine on the poster. So, in a sense, it was a reformed Soft Machine right from the start. And that is just had its 20th anniversary now. October 2004 was the first gig in Turkey. And so we've had, you know, various personnel changes due not to people leaving, but people passing on, . But, I mean, it's been a long period of pretty consistent recording, working, and we dropped the Legacy thing around 2017 which we should have done way before, way before that. And all I can say is that now with the new lineup, it's fantastic. Let me quickly take you through what's happened in terms of line-up.
Elton passed away in 2006 so we got in Theo Travis, Hugh passed away in 2009--very tragic. And Roy Babington, who'd been with us in the old days, rejoined. So we had Babbington, Marshall Etheridge from the '70's with Theo Travis. And that went on until about 2018, I think, when Roy got trigger finger, which is a well-known syndrome, is a genetic syndrome where your fingers cramp up. So he couldn't really play. He can only play for about five minutes. So he's on the last album Other Doors (2003) as a guest. But he went. And so we got Fred Baker, who's one of our oldest friends, who's played with all sorts of Canterbury people. And then John Marshall, you know, dear old John. I mean, what an incredible man- he went on till basically he couldn't hold the sticks. And he passed a year ago, but his last recording with us was two years ago on Other Doors, which is the last time he actually held the sticks, and he plays beautifully on it, and that was his last outing. Great, great drummer, great person. We had a few choices, but we got in Azaf Sirkis, who's a monumentally great drummer, and the lineup now is really blistering, and we've been doing a lot of touring. We've just done as we speak now, we've just come back from a US-Canada tour about three weeks ago, which was musically, very successful.
I mean, financially, perhaps not so, but musically, oh man! it was a very grueling tour, I have to say, in all honesty, an extremely difficult tour. And the thing that held it together for me was that the band played just so well and this is a fantastic band. It's best band I've been in, actually. And I just hope I can keep going, you know?
PSF: I hope you can make it over again, hopefully I'll be able to see you next time.
JE: We played at the Tafetta Music Gall in Lowell, Massachusetts area we that was where we were touring. And we were up and down the U.S., and then we went to Canada, and it was marvelous. And we don't get the other thing is that the problem with the Soft Machine in the USA is that there was a tour in '68-'69 supporting Hendrix. There was one quick tour just before I joined in 1974, then there was nothing until 2018 so the presence of Soft Machine in America is very slight, but the people who turn up are really enthusiastic. And, you know, playing in America is very special. There's a special atmosphere with the audience. The way people actually want you to play. They actually they want you to go for it. It's very difficult to describe, because you're used to it. But quite often, when you play in England, particularly, you sometimes feel that the audiences don't really want you to go for it. Well, having said that, the Soft Machine audiences always want you to go for it. So, I mean, on the musical level, it was a very, very enjoyable tour, but I'm not sure that we'll be back. I mean, sure the tariffs will probably [stop it] because I have to say, Gary, you're probably not aware that the visa costs are ludicrous. So there's already a tariff up against us, an enormous one, which is not reciprocal. You know, American musicians can come here very easily and play in small clubs. You know, obviously the big guys can go to America and the big guys can come here, but little guys can come and play in our clubs. And it's very hard for anybody who's not a big name to go to America and play. It's really hard because, you know, I think our visa costs were enormous. So, there you go. Got any more questions?
PSF: Could you tell me more about your other recent music? You had an organ trio.
JE: Yes, yes. I mean, recording wise, in the last few years, I made a lovely duo album with a great singer called VImala Rowe, who I almost discovered, but I didn't really. I mean, she discovered herself obviously, but she wasn't doing much, and I kind of heard her sing, and I'm not really one for singers, but she's so great. And so we did an album a few years ago, called Out of the Sky (2016), and we're doing another one at the moment. My organ trio, which I've loved, we've actually been together for years and never recorded. So we put out this album, Blue Spirits Live this year, and I'm very pleased with it. I really do like it. I mean, you know, it's like, I like all my albums, every most of the albums I've done, I can listen to, but a lot of them, I think that's quite nice playing, but I don't really identify with it. But with Blue Spirits, when I hear I go, "Yeah, that's how I play. That's me. That's me playing." You know, that's how I feel with the Soft Machine. So, of course, have been plenty of Soft Machine albums, so I suppose at the time. I mean, I'm playing slightly less projects than I would have done 15 years ago. I mean, I'm still doing solo gigs. I'm doing a big tour next year alongside a guitarist who's very well known in England, probably not in America, Gordon Gilttrap, and we do two solo sets and then play together. I do like playing solo.
PSF: I have heard of him but I've never heard him.
JE: Yeah, he's always played solo. I enjoy playing solo, actually, on, you know, for different reasons than I enjoy playing with the band, and I'm quite happy to do solo gigs, but I'm sort of easing up. I'm easing up in some ways. I do the Soft Machine gigs, and I do other gigs that come up. What I don't do now is proactively hustle for work, and really, I'm sure it's the same in America, if you're a jazz musician, all the jazz musicians are actually hustling. You know, in other words, they're looking for gigs all the time. And I don't do that. So I do the gigs that come in. I'm very happy to do as many Soft Machine gigs as I can do. And we'll be doing another album, I'd say in February. So we'd probably record February next year, probably be out at the end of next year, because we still got mileage with the Other Doors album that's been out. I'm doing this album, another duo album with Vimala Rowe. And that's another challenge. You see, I like playing solo because I like the freedom. But, of course, you are on your own, so you never really get that righteous feeling. Duos I enjoy, but I find that there's a terrific responsibility in a duo to the other person. You know, that's quite the challenge for me in a duo, particularly playing with a singer, you know, you've got to play the slightly wrong chord. You put them off, you know. So, so you can't get lost, you know. If you get lost when you're playing with a bass and drums or a keyboard player, you know, somebody will play, play the chord for you to go, "oh yeah, that's where we are." So all these, all these situations, have challenges.
So the trio, one with the organ and drums and the guitar, what's particularly important to me in that is that the guitar is like the vocal. So I'm very conscious of playing melodically. And clearly, because I am the vocalist as it were, yeah? And of course, when I play with the Soft Machine, Theo's got a saxophone, and he's got keyboards, and also we've got the context of the Soft Machine. So the audience will have some idea in their mind of the sort of music they're going to hear. So I'm less aware of it with the Soft Machine. But when I'm playing with my trio, I am the singer on guitar, so I quite often find I play with more effects, but simpler, you know, less lines, less fast, and because I just I can always put my mind, into the mind of the listener. I can always do that and I can do that when I go and see somebody play, you know- I'd go and see Pat Martino playing say, for instance. And I met him. Mesmerized. But I look around and I can see that the women in the audience are going, "Oh, okay." And I'm always aware of that. You know that somehow, and Stephane was aware of that, you've got you without going to compromise yourself. You're not going to be slavish in what you play, but you're gonna reflect what you feel from the room- I have a good nose for what the how the room is responding to what is happening if I'm the leader. I have a good nose for what's happening in the room. And, you know, as I say, I don't sort of suddenly change direction like a maniac, but, you know, I can go with it whereas, but I don't just turn up and go, right? This is what I do. This is it okay? I mean, I admire people who are like that. You know, say Pat Martino.
You know, if Pat Martino turned up and sort of played, started strumming chords and stuff, you'd be devastated, wouldn't you go "what's happened?" So, you know, there's a sort of awareness, awareness for me, and so I've played all sorts of contexts, and that if you can say anything to sum up about me, I get it. I've played in all sorts of contexts, and without being a session man, I've looked to blend my sense of self with the sense of the music. Yeah, that's the most important thing. I think it's not like the classic jazz musician has a style that he brings to every context, and those are the ones that people think of, because they're always the same in every context. Well, I've never really aspired to be that, and I'm not really that, and I've enjoyed my life as a musician playing in all sorts of contexts, and I'm always myself. I can always recognize myself, but that self is adapted to fit the environment, you know?
So, we'll finish now here, but just to sum up, you were talking about free improvisation. Now I played with some great free improvisers. And the thing about free improvising is it's the absolute instinct when to play, when to stop, when to go along with what somebody's playing, when to be counter what they're playing as a statement. And all the time it's like a sophisticated dinner party where everybody knows when to put in an opinion. Everybody knows when not to put in an opinion.
And this is what I aim for. I mean, so many of the so-called great stylists of jazz would just come into the dinner party and do a sort of monologue, you know. But to me, the essence of being a responsive musician, which is highlighted in free music, is to know.
I was very, very impressed recently. I saw a trio with Kurt Rosenwinkel and Tim Motzer and a drummer playing electric kit. And I was what I was really impressed was that Kurt Rosenwinkel, who's a bit of a star, could become part of it and not dominate. He flowed in with the whole project. And I was really, really impressed with that, because it wasn't like, "okay, it's Kurt with a couple of guys." It was like a real thing, a real group. And I thought that is really good anyway, Gary, I think that's okay, yeah.
PSF: And just one final question for you to ruminate about. And this occurred to me as you were just talking. Have you ever thought about doing, let's say, like internet or virtual musical experiments?
JE: What do you mean? Well, having a channel and playing on the internet?
PSF: Not necessarily, just collaborating with musicians digitally.
JE: Oh, well, I'm not averse to it. If anybody suggests it, I wouldn't mind. I mean, to answer your question, I mean, I'm so behind when it comes to the internet. I mean, I'm so 20th century when it comes to working the internet, I find it all really, really difficult, but with musicians digitally.
But I finally got the YouTube channel, and I think it's only got one slip on it, but I did have this idea because of, I mean, this is my practice room that I'm sitting in of doing a sort of channel where I get a friend in. Do a few tunes and do a bit of chat and sort of do that every week and put that on my channel. I thought that might be quite nice. Might be quite fun. Oh yeah. I mean, that could be quite good. I mean, I don't know if anybody been trying. I mean, it's not an original idea. I'm always way behind when it comes to technology. I'm always way behind the curve, because it comes of being a Capricorn. I talked to, do you know Nigel Kennedy? John Scofield, Mike Stern and me are all cyberphobes, you know? I mean, I'm sure that John and Nigel Kennedy don't even know how to turn it on. John Scofield and Mike Stern, I think probably know how to turn it on and can do emails, but instinctively we don't go for this thing. I just find the whole cyber world intimidating, something I don't really comprehend. So I do what I have to do. But in an ideal world, I wouldn't do any of it.
And see our article about early Soft Machine
And our tribute to Mike Ratledge
Also see John Etheridge's website
