Photo by Alain Mingam
 
 

With the reissue of his first and only LP so far and the recording of a second LP (40 years later!) in the pipeline, the legendary drummer drops by the Superfly shop for a quick chat!

 
 

Your were born in Jamaica, and stayed in touch with community when you moved to UK in 1962. Is it an aspect important in your career?

I stayed in the community because I had no alternative, dont forget i was only 18 years old… Yes it is, if I had not left Jamaica I would not have felt the urge to become a professional musician.

Is that why you had recorded for Esperance label, with some west-Indies musicians?

I recorded for Disc-Espérance because that was the label which offered the opportunity to record the music that I wanted to at that time! The musicians were the ones with whom I had started the group Space Spies, not only west-indies musicians but also one Portuguese and one Japanese Musician in the Group.

Why did you decide to play the drums?

I play the drums because I was born to play the drums.

You mentioned Rashied Ali as an important reference. Who were your mentors as drummers? and why?

Apart from Rashied Ali, there are also Cozy Cole, Kenny Clark, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Max Roach, Milford Graves and many many more. Too many to mention here!

“Trapeze”

After studying music, you decided to move and live in Paris…

At the age of 11 in Jamaica, I decided – thanks to M. Maurice Chevalier – that France would be the only country that i would want to go to if and when I chose to leave Jamaica. So after London, I decided to come here. I started to study music so as to have something to offer when I eventually got here .

How was the French scene at this period? Where did you play?

The French musical scene was open, alive and welcoming. I started to work at once with François Tusques. We played everywhere, in MJC (Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture), university campuses, clubs…

In Paris, you became one of these totemic drummers of the free jazz scene, playing and recording with Francois Tusques, Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton or Bobby Few. And also a member of french protest singer Colette Magny’s band. Nevertheless, you still are one of those unsung heroes. How could you explain it?

This question is not important : what is really important is that I am still alive and replying to this interview. Thank you very much!

In 1975, you published your first and only album. Why did you choose this title ‘Trapeze’ ? And, actually, was it well received by jazz critics and public?
This is a great question. The title ‘Trapeze’ is in to the Circus where the artists placed their lives in great danger, in great danger swinging high above the ground with rhythm and coordination. I was not and i am still not impressed by the critics as for the public, we were in direct competition with Miles at that time, Miles won of course.

With Colette Magny (“Repression”)

Where did you record that ? How was the record sessions’ moods ?

We recorded at Studio Washington in XVIeme arrondissement in Paris. It took a day (8 hours.) We were well prepared, hours of repetitions, but it was what we called a live recording session : no play backs, not more than two takes per track. The mood was great, the musicians were confident and there was no stress. I recorded the music that I sincerely believed people would enjoy, and the fact that it is being re-distributed for the third time proves somehow that I was right.

After that, you never recorded under your name, but toured and played with many musicians, from Miriam Makeba to François Tusques. Was it your choice ? How could you explain it ?

They called me, I never sought them out… I did record, a 45’s in 1984 for 4 Aces label, an independent label started by Barney Wilen and his wife, which was an attempt at some reggae (one song) which never got off the ground ! More seriously I never recorded album because I did not have anything that I thought worth-while after ‘Trapeze’.

In 1971, you came to France in order to study percussions at conservatory. In 1980’s, you became teacher at IACP, Alan Silva’s Parisian school. What did you learn in France? and what did you teach to younger fellows?

I decided classical percussion and piano in order to advance my musical capacities, I also studied at the Agostini Drum School started by Kenny Clarke and Dante Agostini in the late 60’s, which prepared me to qualify as a teacher at IACP. I taught my “solfege”, interpretation, technique, discipline, improvisation.

“Dancer”
 

Forty years after his first release, Noel McGhie & Space Spies LP is coming back in front, through his first vinyl reissue and after a CD reissue by Jazzin in 2003. Is it like a renaissance ?

Some producers have good taste and the public is still attracted to this album!

And will we have the luck to listen there repertory on stage?

No. I won’t be performing the whole Space-Spies repertory on stage. Just two titles re-worked that will be included on my next album

Finally, there are rumors about this second album, focusing on your Jamaican roots. Could you tell us more about that?

I have decided to re-visit my African-West-Indian musical heritage and I am currently preparing the above mentioned album with this aim. I would rather not talk about that. Let’s just wait and see how and if that will turn out.

To buy it

“For Gone Desillusion”

“I’m not gonna follow the same road some of the people preceding me have already taken – you know, ultra obscure stuff that only one or two bastards are lucky enough to own and for which a few more are willing to give everything they possess and even what they don’t. Not that I’m not one to indulge the same silly passion occasionally, but as much as I love finding rare gems in the records crates, I firmly believe: a) that rarity is not an important factor when it comes to the appreciation of the music b) and that deafness is a sure threat for those who judge the music strictly by this sole criteria. Instead, I’m gonna stick with the basics, choosing five tracks of one of my all time favourite artists, the ‘Cool Ruler’, the ‘Lonely Lover’, the one and only Gregory Isaacs. Most of them are very easily available on albums you can still find for a few bucks in flee markets or second hand record shop. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride as much as I have and I’ll be the happiest fellow if, by chance, I make you discover a title you didn’t know before – or even just arouse the need to delve back into your records collection for one album so deeply buried you haven’t listen to in a while.”
 
 
 

One One Cocoa
(Dwyer, 7”, 1972)

“The only non-album track of this selection, and consequently the rarest, available also on a few compilations. But that is not the point as I have chosen this song not for his rarity but because it is, in my humble opinion, the first track recorded by Gregory Isaacs on which he found his artistic identity, both as a singer and as a writer: as a singer, he was a scarce commodity in the reggae field, one of the few Jamaicans you cannot link to a previous artist (either American or Jamaican) and one also who hasn’t generated any known copycat; and as writer, in this particular song like in so many others ones, he embodies better than most the frame of mind of the sufferers from the ghetto who always keep faith in their destiny despite all the adversity (‘I know one of this fine day / The table’s gonna turn my way…’). The cherry on the top, which makes this track a must amongst the must haves, is the backing track, courtesy of another ‘independent as fuck’ ghetto reggae entrepreneur, the mighty Glenn Brown, creator of some of the heaviest and deadliest riddims ever. And yes, if one of you nice chaps are kind enough to offer me the original 7” on Dwyer, I’ll take it willingly and might even say ‘thanks you’ if you do insist.”
 

Love Is Overdue
(Trojan, In Person, 1974)

“Not his first hit – this privilege belong to All I Have Is Love, a Phil Pratt production –, but a massive one from 1974, and the beginning of a very fertile collaboration with Alvin Ranglin, a producer for which he recorded some of his best work. Here, as often in his songs, Gregory embodies the ‘Lonely Lover’ (one of his nicknames) on an easy-skanking riddim, opening his heart and lamenting his lost love with various discerning comments not lacking a certain sense of humour (‘Who’s gonna tell me lies and let me think they’re true, yeah / Now that my love is overdue…’) – and even managing to sounds a little bit boorish sometimes (‘Although she wasn’t the best girl / But she brought happiness into my world / And now I’m a prisoner of loneliness…). Brilliant!”
 

Loving Pauper
(Conflict, Extra Classic LP, 1978)

“The only track of this selection which is not penned by Gregory (it’s a cover of a rocksteady classic by Dobby Dobson, originally released in 1967 on the Treasure Isle label), but he sings it with such coolness and such class that he not only does it over, he takes it over and basically ruins it for anyone wanting to sing it after he’s done with it. His delivery and his articulation are second to none on this one. Yes, this man is a true crooner, the reggae equivalent of the jazz greats Nat ‘King’ Cole or Frank Sinatra – no wonder he is revered as the ‘Cool Ruler’ in reggae circles. And when he sings: ‘I got so many patches on my clothes, girl / A hole in the bottom of my shoe / Financially, I’m a pauper / But when it comes to lovin’, I’m alright…’, I can’t help but be thrilled.”
 

Slavemaster
(Cash and Carry, Mr. Isaacs LP, 1978)

“Contrary to some wrongly held beliefs, Gregory was not only a man who sang about love, but also a man capable of expressing the pain and harsh reality of his ghetto peers as only few could. And the beauty of it was that he didn’t have to change his stance to do so – the topic of a song may switch from love to consciousness, but the plea remains the same – as he was always the voice of the voiceless. Nowhere it is more evident than on his Mr. Isaacs LP, an album that contains some of his most socially conscious and angriest songs (Storm, Sacrifice, Handcuff, Set the Captives Free, to name a few). And when he sings: ‘If I don’t get my desire / Then I’ll set the plantations on fire…’, there’s no place for even a shadow of a doubt on his willingness to do so in the mind of the listener.”
 

Party in the Slum
(Front Line, Cool Ruler LP, 1978)

“When he released Cool Ruler, the first of his two album on Front Line, Virgin’s reggae subsidiary, Gregory Isaacs was, with Dennis Brown, the most popular singer in Jamaica, and a supreme master of his craft. Later, the bruises of life – a long love affair with narcotic substances and numerous stays behind the bars of various prisons – would alter his voice, but at the time, he could do no wrong. And nobody was in better position than him – despite all his success, he was still livin’ in the heart of the ghetto – to celebrate the fragile respite of the tribal war that has brougt nothing but bloodshed, tears and desolation to Jamaica (‘It seems that mankind is been reborn again / The worst of enemies is now the best of friends / And everything is gonna be alright…’).”

One of Great-Britain’s best-known music photographers, Adrian Boot moved to Jamaica in the seventies to teach physics, working at the same time for the NME (New Musical Express), The Times, The Guardian or The Face. By the mid-70s Adrian had become an in-house photographer for the Melody Maker finding himself on the front line at the height of the Punk movement . During the next decade, he became chief photographer for major events like Live Aid, Freedom at 70 or Roger Water’s The Wall in Berlin… Adrian Boot has also worked with the Grateful Dead in Egypt.

Before looking at this selection of Adrian Boot’s photographs, it is important to read what  Michael Thomas, his partner during this road-movie in Jamaica through the musical environment, had to say about how the Jamaican society worked, its gangs and its politicians, the way they were all connected in the immediate aftermath of independence. “The politicization of crime and the criminalization of politics goes back a long way, to the Manley (prime minister and leader of the left wing political party, the People’s National Party) years. This book is the story of those years, when the guns came to town and Johnny Too Bad took over the house.”, wrote Michael Thomas in august 2010.

He remembered the ‘electric’ atmosphere in the small island, like the massive sound waves of the dance-hall movement.  “You had to have a 4×4 to get there. These days it’s forty minutes on the motorway, it’s a teeming favela full of rum bars and old Rastas like my mate Electric-Power selling tonic to stretch your ejaculation to BREAK-ING POINT etc. But the waves roll in, the way they always have and always will… Babylon is on a thin wire, they were singing back then. The wire just gets thinner and thinner.”

The full story : http://babylononathinwire.com/
The link for the book : http://www.patate-records.com/detail/19103/

"Manley is a big man !"Uptown kingstown

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Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. Stuart Baker is the man behind one of the most exciting reissue labels : Soul Jazz Records. Since 1992, he has contributed to release numerous reissues of rare LPs and high-end compilations in very diverse styles such as reggae, funk, samba soul, punk, spiritual jazz, folk…

When did you start digging records? 
I started buying records when I was around 10 years old.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
Hmmm… The Sex Pistols ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’, Rolling Stones ‘Get Stoned’, Ian Dury ‘New Boots And Panties’.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period? And why?
No. Growing up my taste in music coincided with the fashions of the day – disco, punk, ska.

What was your first issue?
The first album we released was called ‘Fresh Out’ by Eddie Russ. 

Why have you chosen this name : Soul Jazz ?
The label came out of a shop. We put a sign outside the shop on white board in letra set that said SOUL and JAZZ underneath it. Seemed to make sense at the time!

Does that mean it was actually your main music styles ? 
Well it started off that like this but changed soon after into encompassing many styles of music.
 

Dealin by Richard Davis

 

When and why did you create another sub-division, called Universal Sound ?
I think Universal Sound started a few years later, as a way of releasing more specialist releases, or albums that followed on from our releases on Soul Jazz.
 
What could be your editorial/esthetic line? 
Not completely sure I can express it in words, although it all makes sense in my head.  

You published numerous selections on New Orleans… Do you believe this Crescent City is in the center of all your concerns? Tradition and creation, urban and rural, body and soul, does it combine all that you like in music?
Hmmm, I would not say it is at the centre of my concerns, but I would say it is a reflection of my interests. My interests are in “hot” musical places, points in time and people. Some of these are New Orleans in the 1960s, Jamaica in the 1960s/70s, Chicago in the 1980s, New York in the 1960, 70s, 80s etc.
 

I’ve Never Considered by Inell Young

 

You published many books focused on LP art-work (black jazz, disco…)… Does a LP artwork already tell many about the music played inside the record?
Yes I would say. A good sleeve is a reflection of the values of the music inside and makes you want to hear it.

You also publish books more on the societal aspects. In what the social dimension and the political question are connected to the musical creation?
Music is a cultural expression of a place in a period of time. I am interested in any form of cultural expression, often but not always of a rebellious nature.

Do you think that the buyers of vinyl are the buyers of books ?
Not sure. Some yes, some no.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues? 
Normally what I am interested in at that point of time. I’m actually not that interested in reissuing albums. I like to explore areas and put together records as ideas. We often reissue albums later that follow on from a broader concept album, to fulfill an interest that this may have created.
 
Your were well known for your 100 % Dynamite serie and for your Spiritual jazz reissues/compilations, and still appreciated for that, but now – and for a long time in fact – you do reissues in other styles, like new wave, post punk, or disco. Is it difficult to go out your (supposed) speciality?
I think we would have closed many years ago if we had not consciously moved into different areas of music. For my own sanity and passion I need to look at new areas of music, and this is what I hope I can share on our albums.

 

Get Up and Get It by Jackie Mitoo

 

What is the best deal/business : to make reissue or to produce new records? 
Hmmm, well I like both new music and music from different periods in time. Either way in my head I approach them as if they are new.

Is it two different jobs? 
No, same.
 
Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
No!
 

Christmas Time In Nassau

 

There is more and more reissues of old LPs. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point? and why ?
Well as I say my main interest is in exploring musical themes rather than reissuing albums. I agree there is a lot of these now!
 
What are your next releases?
Punk 45 – Punk from Cleveland, Ohio 1974-80. Punk 45 – Punk from Akron, Ohio 1976-80. ‘Studio One Jump-Up: Jamaican Rhythm and Blues, Gospel, Boogie and Early Ska’, Popul Vuh – ‘Kailash’ (unreleased film and album), Lloyd McNeill – ‘Tanner Suite’, Sounds of the Universe (Hieroglyphic Being, Andres, Kaseem Mosse). That’s all I can think of.
 
What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
‘Nu Yorica! Experiments in Latin Music 1970-77’. It was 20 years ago we first released it!

Idle Hands by Harlem River Drive

 

http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/