Sketches by Barry Jackson
Well, we’re six months into the new-style all-acoustic Green Note jam and things have settled down nicely. We’ve got some permanent fixtures, we’ve got some regulars, we’ve got some semi-regulars and we’ve got newcomers. We’re turning out the kind of music that doesn’t get anything like enough of an airing, and we’re serving it up to an appreciative audience. It’s all calm but it ain’t sloppy; it’s laid back but it ain’t lazy. We could do with a few more people showing up sometimes, it’s true. Quite why the numbers vary from pretty packed to pretty quiet is a bit of a mystery. But anyone who ever shows up seems to go away pretty glad they did.
The blues, like any other kind of ‘roots’ music, often calls into question conventional notions of the gap between an amateur and a pro. In other forms of popular music, the lines are blurred because of an equal lack of talent either side of the wire. That’s because there’s no notion of a craft, of skills to be learned and worked on, of genuine passion for a musical style, of wanting to do justice to the music. Those folk are proudly and intentionally part of the ‘anyone can do it’ culture. In that culture, it’s all about luck as to which people poke their heads out of the pack.
But in the blues and related fields, this is of course not the case. The pros just about always do something that anyone can’t do. It’s skill and a dedication to craftsmanship that separates them from the rest, as well as talent and individuality. That’s why it’s a joy to see them – they’re doing something you can’t do and that’s one of the things that excites. You see them and you know why they’re earning a living (albeit probably not much of one) doing it.
However, what the blues also has is a fair share of people who aren’t doing it for a living but, in a just world could be. Maybe they preferred to get ‘proper’ jobs and throw themselves into it as a serious hobby; maybe they had a go at doing it for money and couldn’t make a go of that (very few people ever have, in real terms); maybe they’re young and trying to work their way to do it for a living (and hopefully some of those at least will achieve their aim). Whatever, within these categories can be found some seriously good people, who could be said to bridge the gap between the amateur and the pro. There are quite a few people on the London jams scene of whom this could be said. Let’s call them pros who don’t do it for a living.
The reason for this poncy digression is that I was reminded yet again of this at the last jam, because a number of people in that category play at the Green Note acoustic jam. And unlike at electric jams, it’s entirely possible for everyone who’s there to hear how good they are. And so it was, on a quietish night audience-wise, that a small band of people, who can play a bit, sat up front listening to what their comrades on stage were doing and muttering to each other things like: ‘Christ, he’s really good, isn’t he?’ One of the nicer features of this whole blues thing is the pleasure that people take in each other’s skills and talents. And they don’t fake it for politeness either.
Anyway, what exactly was served up? As usual, I kicked off, firstly with David on mandolin for Early In The Morning and then with Charles on double bass and Martin on drum for Sneakin’ Away, Easy Does It and Highgate Hill Blues. A person in the audience asked me if they were my own songs. When I said that yes they were, he told me I should say something about them, why I’d written them, that kind of thing. It was the kind of night where people on stage just had chats with the people listening. Well, I thought of saying that explaining songs kind of takes away the point of writing them, but decided to settle for adding this to my own, not short, list of inadequacies.
Barry Jackson came on next, and Barry has a style that suggests he’s so comfortable doing this he could be in his pyjamas. Playing a Guild resonator from his seemingly endless collection of enviable guitars (haven’t seen a gleaming Strat anywhere near Barry yet, and the sight just wouldn’t seem right), he launched, with the band, into Walking Blues (in the style of Son House), Fred McDowell’s great You Gotta Move, Junior Parker’s much covered (but surely seldom like this) Mystery Train and Ry Cooder’s Crazy ‘Bout An Automobile. The latter brings me back to the previous point. Ry Cooder’s early 70s albums are among my favourites of all time, and they haven’t been diminished one iota by time. But Barry’s renditions of the material lose nothing in comparison.
First-timer Steve Lyons was next up and he did three originals – There’s A Place For The Blues, Can’t Be Satisfied and Out On The Road, with David on mandolin for the first and Martin and David for the last. For the second number he brought in a welcome first for the jam – violin, in the person of Mary. Steve had clearly got exactly what the jam was about, ringing the changes for accompaniment, doing originals and widening the range of instruments. His was a fine set and fitted right in.
Then came the much mooted and eagerly awaited acoustic debut of jam luminary Pete Vardigans. Demonstrating admirable guts in doing something that can fill the electric player with dread, he did an excellent set on Barry’s guitar. Kicking off with an instrumental version of When The Saints .., , he then played and sang (very well) the staple See See Rider, Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven (a nice twist on a familiar electric number – acoustic versions of such material can come over really well) and I Need To See You. The odds on Pete turning up soon with a rather nice new acoustic guitar have now been slashed by the bookies.
David then did a set of his own. I think it would be fair to say that David was, not for the first time, the star of the show. Indeed, with the exception of one number, when he had to exit for a ‘comfort break’, he was on stage the whole night, showing just how good a mandolin player he is. The house sound we’ve now got going has evolved largely due to his mandolin, and it’s now an integral part of something rather special. Now he switched to guitar for a couple from his own repertoire of terrific covers of prewar blues. First came Furry Lewis’ Judge Harsh Blues, and then a rendition of Charley Patton’s Jinx Blues (or at any rate, a variant on that strand of Charley’s stuff). The other musicians purred their admiration of these numbers and there were murmurings at the many bits of wonderful guitar business David was divvying up. Great, if brief, set from a top-notch musician.
There was time for me to get up for a couple more of mine – Five Thousand Days (I was actually able to say something about this one – see, that thing was gnawing away at me) with Charles and David, and Hard Work with Martin joining us. The latter took flight in that ‘more than the sum of the parts’ way that gives a musician a real kick – you think you’re listening to a really great band and then you remember that apparently you’re in it. Lest we forget, it’s worth repeating just how good Charles and Martin are too.
Barry rounded the evening off with a couple more, the last being a Mexican-type song about going to Tijuana. This featured a chord sequence way, way beyond the remit of any jam. Undaunted, Barry called out the changes for the Charles and David as he went along, and undaunted they made those changes. It was a master class in real musicianship (and I have to add that anything like this would have induced a fit of the vapours among the vast majority of electric jammers). ‘Now the minor 7th .... now the 3rd’ said Barry as asides, while rendering the actual public consumption bits of the song. With little more than the odd slight furrow of the brow, the band went right along. If there’s a better bass player than Charles around, I’d be seriously surprised, and here he was demonstrating once again what a fine all-round musician he is.
It’s that sort of thing that put me in mind of the point I was making at the beginning of this gibberish. The line between the pros who don’t do it for a living and the pros who do can be a very thin one indeed.
A few years back I spent some time talking to the terrific American acoustic blues artist Paul Rishell. Talking about guitar skills, he pointed out that what separated him and the likes of me was time spent doing it. I, he suggested, could easily play like him if I hadn’t spent so much time doing the earning a living thing. The difference was time available to hone the skills. Well, I’m not sure he was right in my case, but the point is a valid one generally. Paul’s definition of success was that he had managed to go all 40-odd years of his adult life earning a living from music. He counted it as a triumph that he’d never had a ‘job’ job. So do I.
So there you have it. The pros who don’t do it for a living are only not pros in that sense. When they’re doing it, they think, act and play like pros. It’s just what they do the rest of the time that’s the difference.
Mark Harrison
Feel free to put a comment on here. I and a sense of futility are old pals, but it would be nice to think that someone was actually reading this swill.
7 Comments:
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Barry Jackson said...
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Well, Mark, a thoughtful and thought-provoking post. I think the stuff about professionalism is very interesting - there are indeed many accomplished performers around the jam scene, and although only some of them 'earn a living' from it, the best are as serious about doing the music well as if their livelihood did depend on it.
As for me, I'm grateful I don't have to make a living from it. I have the luxury of playing music I love with people who are really good at it, and not worrying about the dosh - which suits me fine, since I think you'd have to be quite a lot better than me to make a decent living from it!
Any way, it was another good night and you are very generous in your comments: I look forward to more similar nights (next time i'll bring the strat?) - 20 December 2009 16:26
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Rick said...
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All fair points about professionalism, but lest we forget, technical competence alone 'aint what gets it. Something with heart and soul, even if the delivery is a bit ham-fisted, will beat any amount of dazzling technique if it's not accompanied with real emotion. As someone once said, all you really need is three chords and the truth.
- 21 December 2009 11:05
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professor shorthair said...
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I've finally got the three chords, now where do I find the truth?!
I'm with you on this, Rick. As Mississippi Fred McDowell says: 'I ain't no expert guitar player, I can't do that stuff, I just play the way I feel' But then maybe that is just another kind of technical competence? - 21 December 2009 12:01
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said...
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I wasn't suggesting that technique is the be all and end all. I was saying there are amateurs who are as good, or nearly as good as, the pros in their abilities as musicians and who have the same attitude. Feel, individuality, originality, that's a whole other question.
- 21 December 2009 12:34
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Rick said...
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Aye, my point was in addition to Mark's rather than in opposition.
- 21 December 2009 15:09
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said...
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It's an interesting point that Rick has raised, and of course feel/originality, etc are more important than chops, which can be just for the aficianado. Some artists with admirable amounts of technique can be rather dull. The thing should never be too earnest. What stops it being is the spark of originality and individuality. Ideally, you'd have both, but there are cases where feel outweighs technique. Hard to judge though - seems to me that Son House had a pretty sound technique, though he appeared to be flailing around randomly and had a cavalier attitude to tuning up. I could name a number of acoustic artists who have both feel and technique, but oddly enough I'd struggle to come up with electric artists who do. We're off on another topic now ......
- 21 December 2009 15:30
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Barry said...
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No disagreement here, it seems, just an attempt to find words for that elusive quality that makes the music 'good'.
This 'feel' thing is quite difficult to pin down - I've endured some unpleasant times at jams when a 'singer' with no voice to speak of, has emoted their way through a song at high volume with much passion and no substance - neither technique nor feel, in my book. Whereas guitarists at electric jams often have some technique, while not apparently feeling the music. Rarer I think to find a guitarist with passion but no technique.
As for electric examples: John Lee Hooker was no guitar hero, but had the blues thing nailed better than most (odd how seldom you find guitarists at jams emulating Hooker). Jimmy Reed had no guitar technique to speak of and yet his music is brilliant (again not many Jimmy Reed emulators out there...)
I'm reminded of discussions about painting - how technique can be the death of good drawing.. but that IS another topic... - 21 December 2009 15:50
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