On this episode of I Know This Guy we have Julian Joseph. Julian is a world renowned Jazz Pianist, BBC Radio Host and runs the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy. We get into touring life with the Marsalis brothers and what it was like playing with some of the legends of Jazz. We also get into his role as a music educator in London and into how the music education methods of his academy stand apart from the rest.
Episode: 41
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Julian Joseph, a World Renowned Jazz Pianist, BBC Radio Host, Composer, Bandleader, Broadcaster, Educator and Author
Subtitle: “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out.”
Final Show Link: https://iknowthisguy.com/episodes/ep-41-music-of-initiative-w-julian-joseph/
In this episode of I Know this Guy…, Norman Farrar introduces Julian Joseph, a world renowned Jazz pianist, BBC Radio Host, composer, bandleader, broadcaster, educator and author
He runs the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy. In this episode, Julian shares his insights into the philosophy and practice of jazz performance in his recent book. We also get into his role as a music educator in London and how the music education methods of his academy stand apart from the rest.
If you are a new listener to I Know this Guy… we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Facebook Page and join in on episode discussion or simply let us know what you think of the episode!
In this episode, we discuss:
Part 1
Part 2
Our favorite part of recording a live podcast each week is participating in the great conversations that happen on our live chat, on social media, and in our comments section.
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:
Join our discussion network here!:
Julian 0:00
I live by a certain credo, a certain principle, which is that I never let fear stop me from doing what it is I wish to do. In fact, my motto is that, if I find I’m afraid of something, it’s the thing that’s going to make me do it.
Norman 0:27
Hey everyone Welcome to another episode of I Know This Guy, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of some of the most interesting people I know. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to I Know This Guy, wherever you get your podcasts. By the way, my kids want me to say something about ringing a bell. What the hell’s a bell?
Hayden 1:01
Alright. So Dad, who do we have lined up for the podcast?
Norman 1:04
We’re going to be talking to Julian Joseph and this guy, just an incredibly nice individual, a world class jazz musician, radio host. He’s got his own Academy. He’s everything jazz. So I can’t wait. I know you’ve been chomping at the bit to talk to him as well. But I can’t wait to talk to him.
Hayden 1:26
Alright. Let’s dive in.
Norman 1:27
Alright. Well, welcome to the podcast Julian.
Julian 1:30
Well, it’s a pleasure to join you. It’s such a pleasure to be here Norm. Thank you for inviting me or having me invited.
Norman 1:40
No problem whatsoever. As a matter of fact, Marcelo was the person who did recommend you and he said that you were the most interesting guy that he knows. Usually when we start a program or a podcast, I want to learn more about the person and so if you don’t mind if we can go back into your backstory a bit, and let’s talk about what makes Julian, Julian.
Julian 2:05
Wow, that’s a $64,000 question. What makes me me? I think the short answer to that is my Mum, I always think that the confidence that my mother instilled in me makes me me and I thank her for that everyday, she’s no longer with us. I grew up in a family with two brothers, John and James. John’s my older brother, James is my younger brother. We were all born within four years of each other. Within a four year timeframe, I should say. Yeah, we’ve been tight since we were little and still attached today. James, as my manager, John is always the biggest fan of music. So we do everything together really. We’re very, very solidly connected. So I guess my sense of family born out of that, and my mother and father split up when I was quite young, actually and my dad, he just passed last year actually and he lived in Switzerland and I have another two sisters from his second marriage. So yeah, I guess family, life, music. My Drive is really just music man playing, playing, and composing and teaching, and broadcasting, those are the things that sort of fill my days, if you like, and how much of myself is revealed through that? I guess you will delve in and unlock.
Norman 3:41
We certainly will. When did you know that you had the music bug?
Julian 3:50
I always say whenever I’m asked the question of how did you get in touch with music? When did that music was the thing for you? Well, I’ve never ever felt that music hasn’t been a part of my life or that it’s my major driving force, the center, the core of my existence, so I’ve always felt like I’ve always played, I’ve always learned, I’ve always created and I started the piano at the age of about five or six years old. Really, it was because my mum bought a piano. My brothers and I came back from primary school and saw the piano in the front room and said, Mom, there’s a piano in the front room. She’s like, yeah, and you’re all gonna learn because she believed that a good education, music is essential. So I grew up playing, I’ve always felt like a musician. I was really into singing actually, early in my life and so many of the things I did were related to singing whether it was in choir, singing solos, or whatever came up. So I developed as a singer and then I got a little more self conscious when I went to secondary school where you go at the age of 11. So I didn’t really do too much with the singing and just focused on the piano more. Towards the end of school when I got into the sixth form where you go, Well, when you’re heading towards a sixth form, which is around the age of 16, I did work experience at a bank and I had a great time. But after the first afternoon, I knew that I couldn’t, this was not the way forward in my life. Working in any conventional sense and of course, I don’t want to offend any bankers or people who work in banks. I called my Mum when I had my lunch break. I said, Mum, I can never work like this. She goes, Well, you know what you need to do, don’t you? I said, Yeah. She said, If you’re serious, I’ll back you all the way and that’s really when I confronted what I could do with the rest of my life.
Norman 6:10
That’s very interesting. Because if I’m talking to people that don’t work nine to five, so let’s say entrepreneurs, musicians, could be anybody in the entertainment world, I get that answer and I know I’ve done that, like, since I came out of college. I think I’ve worked a very short period of time for one other person, and it was like, I can’t do this. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just like, Man, it’s just not for me.
Julian 6:40
To thine own self be true, you know when it’s not for you, you just know and it speaks to you loudly.
Norman 6:49
It does. Yeah and I try to tell people if anybody cares to listen, but if people do ask me about what they’re doing, if they’re not passionate, or they can’t have fun in their job, or if they don’t wake up just ready to go to work, we’ll find something that you are, because it’s a long life and why go through life when you can’t do what you want to do?
Julian 7:15
Absolutely, yeah. I think one of the great fortunes of having your own way, your own pathway, or a passion in something, is that the way forward is very clear, even if you don’t know exactly what it is you’re going to do. But you just know that you want to be good at the particular thing you’re passionate about and it gives you a purpose, it gives you a life of purpose, and it gives you your direction and you always know what it is that you have to do to improve or to build the skills to do whatever it is you dream about, and that you have a passion for. So for me, I really, really just was passionate about music and I wanted to develop in that field as far as I possibly could.
Norman 8:09
People that have listened to this podcast know that my son, the producer of the show, Hayden, he’s a musician. He went to Berklee, I think one of the driving forces for you Hayden, must have been some of your teachers, especially one in particular and I don’t know if you can speak to that Hayd.
Hayden 8:29
Yeah, I mean, I can think of two individuals that kind of changed my life around the age of 15 or so and I would have never considered a career in music otherwise, or to delve as deep as I do into music. One was a high school teacher, a band teacher. I think I caught him at the right time. He was brand new to the school, looking to reform the whole program and we didn’t have much like a small town music program. Like, I think the auto, like the auto repair classes were like the main hit in high school, though those are the classes to go to. But him and my first electric bass teacher really, completely opened up my mind to so much of the world just through these lessons.
Julian 9:19
Teachers are amazing, aren’t they? Yeah, inspirational teachers, I should say.
Hayden 9:23
Right, right.
Julian 9:24
I think that I feel parallel in a way because my primary school teacher, I had a primary school teacher called Mrs. Quarmby. I mean, many teachers actually, Mrs. Mumbi, Mrs. Quarmby and her husband, but who was this amazing pianist, he could just transform any piece of music, almost like magic and what he was doing with it was jazz music. So he would play Handel’s Messiah and he would just turn it into this massive thing. I mean, yes, he would play the score. But then he would just be able to expand it and make it feel bigger and all of this, and he put all this harmony, there’s extra harmony and now it’s like, I mean that was very young. So me and the kids, my brothers especially and many of the kids, they just knew and sense that something great was going on and I think this just added to the fact that your fellow Canadian Oscar Peterson was such an inspiration because my mom used to let me stay up late with my brothers to watch Oscar Peterson and his TV shows of which there were many and this was absolutely inspiring for me and also at that time, there was a lot of jazz on television, a lot of music on television, to be honest. So I really knew that the jazz sound in particular really grabbed me. I mean, a little bit later on I really got into Coffee F and Debussy, Stravinsky and these really amazing composers, and when I say later, I mean when I was about 12. So yeah, teachers were really, my music teachers were really at the helm of that when I went to secondary school, I had this great teacher called Chris Johnson and he used to play this tune called the 32 seas and basically, it was just 32 seas on the glockenspiel, used to have a half an hour lesson and everyone used to just go crazy on these glockenspiels playing 32 season. He had got wind of the fact that I played piano, so he said, Julian, do you want to come and play piano? I was like, sure. He’s like, Do you know what I’m doing? I’m like, Yes, cool. I’ve got it and I just played his part and we just, it was just that’s it. Then afterwards, he let me stay behind and he used to have a band rehearse and all sorts of stuff. He was this really hip black guy who everyone said, Oh, he’s great. He plays jazz, rock and all of this kind of stuff and I was like, Okay and in his music room, he had this big poster of Kate Bush. So it’s like, okay, something different is going on here and yeah, so I used to hang with him and after that, some other teachers came in school, really talented bass player composers, and then called Andrew Harris. Yes. My drum teacher was a great musician called Trevor Tompkins, who’s still active on the scene today, teachers in many of the colleges and then yeah, so teachers have been incredibly inspirational throughout my life and in fact, it was Trevor Tompkins who said to me, said when possibly when I was around 13 or 14, you should go to Berklee , Hayden. I was like, Yeah great. Okay and at that time, there weren’t many provisions to study abroad. Not that there are today. There certainly are. There should be more, but I was fortunate because I was able to both ensure a scholarship and also from Berklee and also get one from the educational body, the inner London Educational Authority and they made it possible for me to go to Berklee and study there. So that made a huge difference on the trajectory of my studying after school.
Norman 13:32
Did you find it different coming from London going over to Boston? Just any type of cultural change?
Julian 13:39
Cultural shock? Absolutely. Yeah, it was a culture shock for me. Absolutely. I had no idea. I hadn’t lived away from home. I had turned 19 when I got to Boston, really they didn’t have anywhere to stay. I got in but things happened at such a late stage and I thought, I’m going to go over there. Maybe I can stay in a youth hostel for a while or I have a few $100. Maybe I can stay in a hotel or something. Of course, that was very unrealistic. That money wasn’t going to go very far. I was very, very fortunate because I had befriended Mulgrew Miller, before I left England, and he said, Julian don’t worry, no matter what happens, I’ll make sure you’re okay and he was very close to the person he had recommended me go to America to study with. It’s a long winded sentence but I went to Berklee really to study with the maestro and brilliant pianist and composer Donald Brown. So Mulgrew, understanding that I didn’t really have anywhere to stay with any permanence, sent Donald Brown to pick me up from the airport. Sort of see where, what was available and when nothing really was available, Donald Brown took me into his home and I stayed with him and luckily enough only for a few days because my mother had a teacher of hers who lived in Boston and was the Reverend of the Methodist Church and he said, he came to pick me up, Young man, welcome to Boston and he took me to his home, I met his lovely, lovely wife, Mrs. John, Faye John, who became my mother basically in the US and he said, Julian, welcome home and that’s really how I got into America because I didn’t really know what was happening and they helped me sort out halls of residence and just get settled in. So I was really blessed. I had some guiding spirit watching over me, mostly my mom, and mostly Mulgrew Miller. So yeah, I’m a supremely blessed man.
Hayden 16:08
How’d you meet Mulgrew?
Julian 16:10
Well, I went to see him at Ronnie Scott’s club and he was playing with Art Blakey and the jazz messengers and at that time, I think he had just recorded on Branford Marsalis his first record and contributed a tune called No Sidestepping and so I was really excited because he he extolled the virtues and sounds of McCoy Tyner. He had elements of Woody Shaw, who he’d played with for many, many years. Just had a wonderful sense of the tradition in his playing, but just with something different, something very personal. So I went up to him and I said, Oh, hi Mulgrew. I was probably about 16 or 17 and I said, Yes. My name is Julian, and I saw in his eyes, they lit up when he saw me. I said, Yeah, I’m Julian, and I play piano as well and he said, As well as what? So just to break the ice and he said, When you walked in, you reminded me of this young cat plays piano to call Bernard Wright and that was a huge fan of Bernard Wright, who was the 16 year old wunderkind who played just the most beautiful piano and funk and on all of this kind of stuff. He’s the guy playing the, I don’t know if you guys know Tom Brown’s Funkin for Jamaica, but that whole track has a synth bass and the guy who’s playing that synth bass is a 13 year old called Bernard Wright. So I reminded him of Bernard Wright, who I was a huge fan of, and still am actually today. So yeah, that’s how I met Mulgrew and then I invited him to come back and hear my group rehearse at this workshop that I went to that was led by a fantastic trumpet player called Ian Carr and he had several bands, he had this band with Don Rendell in the 50s and then, he was one of the pioneers of fusion with a band called Nucleus. So we would do this workshop with Ian hooking us up with all this music, and then afterwards, because I was writing a lot, I had been writing since I was 10. So I had myself Courtney and Markone, whole bunch of guys there and we just used to rehearse and I brought Mulgrew to hear us and then we were playing Mooster Mooch, and we couldn’t quite execute the tune, because it’s a really difficult tune and he said, Julian, is that some kind of arrangement? I said, No, we just calculated that down. It was just a wonderful moment. It was just such a wonderful moment. So after that, Mulgrew became a very close personal friend who came to my home and my mom would feed him and he got to know my brothers and we just hung and he’s basically like a big brother to me. He used to take me on the road with him and the messengers and yeah, I used to just see all those guys and that was when Taz Blanshard was in the band with Donald Harrison, Sean , Lonnie , and of course, Boo himself. Blakey. So those guys actually wrote me a reference, which is how I got to Berklee. They wrote me a reference. Having a reference from Blakey, right? It’s a long winded answer, I know. Sorry.
Norman 19:36
No, no, no. I loved it. What’s interesting with Berklee, I found out I was in the military for a very short period of time, but my buddies are still my buddies today. I can call them and probably, I’m just kind of interested in your relationships coming out of Berklee. Are they tight?
Julian 20:00
Yeah, I mean, they’re tight. I’ve kept in touch with some, a few people there and I mean, I was very tight with Marsalis when I was there. I was tight with Javan Jackson, all really great jazz musicians. I was tight with Roy Hargrove and Antonio How we used to call him Tony back in those days but Antonio is what his preferred nomenclature is and Jeff Keys, all of these guys. Jackie Tara song who’s half French. Also another guy called Alan Molay and very, very tight with Danilo Perez. So a lot of these guys have friends that have stood the test of time. But I was friends with many other people as well because I mixed across the board, Japanese players and guys from rock and roll. I in fact roomed with a fantastic musician called Gino Leonardo, who is the lead guitarist and major songwriter with a fantastic band called Filter. So yeah, I made and forged many great friendships when I was there, and many of them might I still can’t pull up today and say, What’s up guys? But really, after about the first year, I started playing with Bradford, when Kenny Kirkland couldn’t make some gigs. I used to play with Branford and so Brandon is probably one of the tightest friends that I have from that period of my life. Of course, he had graduated from Berklee before I got there, and his younger brother Delphia was there and we were good friends, but I’m very much in touch with Brandon.
Norman 21:45
So how did you manage the leap from studying from Berklee to touring with the Marcellus brothers?
Julian 21:52
I was doing it while I was there. So you just manage don’t you? You try to prepare as much as you can. You go on the road and then you go back and then do the finals and then go home and then go on some more tours, with Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson and Cleveland Watkiss. So yeah, I was a busy man. I was just busy. I had a great time while I was at college. I’ve just always been out. I’d always be out on the road. So it was really, really good. I did spend some good quality time there. But yeah, it was a mixture between being there and being on the road and meeting lots of great people through Bradford so I had met Bradford and Winton before because they had played London with Herbie Hancock and I went backstage, see Herbie, who was my absolute hero back in those days. I met Winton, and Bradfrord when they were 21 and 22. Playing with Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Herbie Hancock.
Norman 22:54
Yeah, it must be nice just to hang with those guys.
Julian 22:59
I was a fan, I understand that I was not hanging with them. I was just happy to be in their orbit. But as you may or may not know, I mean, Hayden knows this that jazz musicians are very, very outwardly helpful and anyone interested in the music, they’ll give you their number, they’ll call me, they’ll pick up the phone when you call them, they’ll give you advice and so I was very fortunate, because also having known and being friends with Mulgrew, and knowing and Dale Harrison, and Terrence, they’re all part of a brotherhood, I guess a civilization of really kind generous jazz musicians. So I felt that I was in that fold and that they were just really like, all like big brothers me.
Norman 23:58
When you were in Boston, you got to travel all over the place. Were there any highlights, any cities that kind of stood out in your mind? Like maybe traveling to New York, the scene over there, any cities or places that just stood out that you just loved or didn’t, maybe?
Julian 24:14
I loved all of it, even the bad stuff. The first thing I did was Delphia said to me, Look Bradford needs you to play on a video he’s making and I said, Okay, I mean, let me just give you the build up. I mean, I don’t want to make this all about that. But about a term in Delphia said to me. Look man, Bradford needs you to fill in a gig because Kenny Kirkland can’t make it and I was like, Oh my God, I can’t do that man because he has a place with Kenny Kirkland or Herbie Hancock. What am I gonna do? He said, No no, Bradford wants you to come. So I flew to Jacksonville, to the Jazz Festival in Jacksonville. Oh my God, I was just in awe. Delbert Felix was on bass, Branford of course, now Bradford’s only 26 at this point. I’m 19 years old but the world loves him as it does now. I’m basically in shock. He’s like, What tunes do you know? That’s cool. We’re not doing that. Oh, you just gonna have to hear it then, aren’t you? Oh my God. I was thinking to myself, I don’t know any tunes. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. We go to the hotel. I’m basically mute because I can’t speak. I’m so overawed by the situation, by everything, how quickly all of these things are unfolding. So I get on the bus and grab a test and he says, Don’t you even talk, man? I’m like, we got to the venue and we’re walking to the stage. I mean, this is all like a blur to me and I’m walking from backstage to go on and play with these people I’ve admired since I’m still a teenager, but since I was a young teenager, and lo and behold, who’s coming offstage? Coming the other way. Miles Davis, right? Hey, man. Oh my God. It’s Miles Davis. Yeah, man. Alright. I’ll be listening. I was like, Oh no. We go on stage. It’s 20,000 people out there, cameras, everything. You can find it, it’s on the net somewhere and we play and Oh my God, I managed to hold on. It’s an outdoor venue. We play this original Herbie Hancock called Number 73, which I’m sure you’ve never heard of and so I’m trying to navigate this music and of course, a gust of wind blows the music and it just goes all and Oh my God, this is brilliant. This is just great. So that’s my first experience, he’s like, Yeah man. Well, you manage, didn’t you? Did I? He said, What do you think? Do you want to come on the road with us? I’m like, Why, sir. I’ll have to ask Mommy. He said, Well, call your mom, tell her and so that was my initiation into playing with him. I always feel actually, when I played with him a few years ago, for Joey Colorado, and I felt exactly the same, to be honest. I felt exactly the same. I mean, little more experience, but so anyway, Delphia says to me, I got through that ordeal and Delphia system. He looked for avenues to play videos, like Okay, I’ll go. So I fly to New York. I’ve already experienced Jacksonville, I fly to New York and so we go on set and the person directing the video is Spike Lee. Right? I’m just thinking to myself, Oh my goodness, and he just blew up big because she’s gotta have it come out and my head was spinning. Right? So yeah, my recollections of the cities are always attached to some unbelievable thing that happened. Playing Jacksonville, playing in Miami when I met my uncle Robert for the first time. I hadn’t seen my dad for a long time, not since I was a young boy. So I saw my uncle Robert, and he reminded me exactly what my imagination of my father was. So yeah, I had so many things that were triggering my imagination and my life there, associated with these towns. So I don’t know whether the towns have managed to have an impression on me, or whether they were just triggering things because of the incredible circumstances that I found myself in just being able to either sink or swim or doing a mixture of the two. That’s really how those cities were affecting me.
Norman 29:27
Wow. Geez, and just getting to know all these guys. That’s incredible.
Julian 29:32
Very lucky to meet them and I guess some of something rubs off somewhere and you realize that we’re all just human beings trying to do things to a lesser or greater degree than each other than one another.
Norman 29:54
So you’ve managed to weave together education and performance, broadcasting seamlessly in your life. So how did that begin? How did you achieve this?
Julian 30:05
Oh gosh, it was certainly not my plan. When I got home after graduating from Berklee, I was very fortunate to sign with a subsidiary of Warner Brothers called East West Records and so it was East West in Britain, Atlantic in the US, and some other subsidiaries and other places. So my career as a performance took off at that time. I was playing and being around all of those guys that I’d been around, and growing up with my mom, correcting my English every time I was on the radio, telling me what my grandma was about, and I say, But mom it’s just the way I talk. Yes, we’ll improve it. I was like, Okay and then the BBC just called out of the blue and said, What used to happen, in addition to my gigs was that, I would get calls from various producers saying, Would you come in and read for a show? Or would you come in and present something for us? So I was always a guest talking about jazz or talking about music and then eventually, I think it was in 1999. This is quite a few years in that. A new controller had come to radio three, Roger Wright and Felix Carey, my producer at that time, said, Look, there’s a show called Jazz Legends that we’d like you to present or I’d like to pitch for it with you as our presenter. I was like, Okay, and I went in, and I read for it. I can’t remember what the show was that I prepared. But I did that then I got the broadcasting gig and I’ve been broadcasting now for over 20 years, since that show. So yeah, very, very fortunate and out of that I started presenting some television programs and it’s just one thing on top of the other really. So yeah, but just between, that the education thing came a little bit later. Because in jazz, in music now, often there is an educational component attached to the performance. So from time to time, I would do workshops, master classes, and eventually I then did several, I did a series on television on Independent Television called Masterclass with Julian Joseph or something like that, or Jazz Master Class, I can’t quite remember the title and then after that, I did some more presenting with my name in the title and then I had written my second opera for a company called HMDT Music, Adam Eisenberg and Tertia came and asked me if I wanted to write children’s opera, so that was my second opera. We did that and then later on, they said to me, Were you serious when you said you’d like to start your own school? I said, Yeah, absolutely. So about eight years ago, I started my own school called the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy, which we call JJJA. There was a build up to it, I’d been doing a number of things and then JJJA managed to create a focus for me and I was just reflecting today as I left the academy this evening on how great it was to hear a 14 year old kid playing just for fun, because he loves the music of Horace Silver, playing Horace Silver’s tunes, playing tunes by Fantastic South African composer and pianist, a great friend of mine called Becky , just a whole selection of tunes and I was just saying, Well you know what, if I create an academy, that’s really what I wanted to do, and the kids in my class had just played a really great set and many of these kids had been with me since they were 10 years old. So seeing them now at 18 and 19, and older, it was an amazingly gratifying feeling. So it’s just all kind of rolled together. I’ve been very fortunate, in fact, Marcelo Bratke, who I know was the recommender of me as the guy he knows. He came and really inspired our kids. It’s a jazz school, but he played some Chopin. He played a range of things. We have some really talented classical players in the academy too and so we heavily encourage their learning of different types of music, particularly occidental music, classical music. So it’s been a journey, and it’s been quite a journey to get there.
Norman 35:20
How do you balance it all out?
Julian 35:24
You just balance it, man.
Norman 35:28
It’s tough to balance.
Julian 35:30
Well, it’s Christmas time now, isn’t it? We’re on Christmas break.
Norman 35:33
Oh yeah.
Julian 35:34
I’ve got time. I’ve got time to do loads of things. I’ll send them a list of things that I think they need to learn and at full capacity, we have about 70 kids, and it gets affected by the whole topsy turvy place we find ourselves in with locking down and not locking down and whichever phase we’re in. Most of this term, we were in under lockdown and then for the last two weeks, we could do face to face. Yeah, I mean, I just do the broadcasting, I do the education, I do the composing and at this time to have any of it is a real blessing. I’m really, really fortunate that I have these areas that I deal in, because one has wanes, the other takes its place, and the other takes its place and it’s just a kind of revolving group of things that I’m able to do.
Norman 36:46
Have you noticed with COVID, not doing face to face and having to do, and I’m not sure, but online, the attitude of the students change or the style or not being able to practice?
Julian 37:01
Well, the thing is that your engagement with them has to change when you go online. So playing together is quite difficult because of the lag and so I just changed the program really, and instead of us working on tunes sort of in person, then I can get them either to work at home or say go away for 15 minutes work on this and come back and let me hear what’s going on. Or we do this thing that I love to do called line exchange. So because I have them all learning solos, I say, pick a line from one of the solos you’ve been learning and teach it to us. So we get through about one week, we got through that 9 or 10 lines in one session and our session goes from 2:30, actually properly from 2:30 to 3, we have a warm up which I call the doobly doo blues, where we just all go horribly, deeply into like improvising and we go from one person to the other. So everyone gets their moment. At 3 we start class, I have about five classes, or five groups with four or five teachers. Yes, so in mind from 3 until 5:30 we’ll be doing lion exchange. So everybody just shows some kind of linear thing that they’ve got from Bud , Harold or Aragon or whoever Herbie Hancock. So we do that and it just gets them to build a compendium of things to work on and things to absorb into their play. So yeah, you just have to change the program up and make sure that it works in that context. But I’m a jazz musician. I’m supposed to be like that. I’m supposed to be able to be malleable, right Hayden? Alter ourselves.
Hayden 39:08
Zoom improv.
Norman 39:10
There you go. Yeah. Going back to COVID. You’re a musician, you gig. What do you think’s going to be happening? Do you have any predictions of when we can get back together to see live music?
Julian 39:27
Well, you’ve observed how quickly our government is prepared to trust the vaccine and get it out there. So our medical boards have passed, certainly the Pfizer vaccine, and I think with that, people are going to be getting back together. It’s going to take a little while to unroll it, so probably a few months in March, April, May, and then I think it’s gonna start to feel some semblance of normality return. I think once the hospital realizes or achieves a way to stop people from dying from it, then the fright will start to disappear, and will start to dissipate and we’ll know that we’ve got a handle on it, and that people aren’t dying from COVID. So yeah, I think it’s gonna take a few months. Now I’m saying a few months, it’s always gonna be twice as long as that. Whatever I can predict, it’ll probably be twice as long. So I’m just being optimistic.
Norman 40:33
I’m kind of curious. I know North America, especially the states as a view of vaccine, and 50% of the people from what I hear in polls are for it, 50% are against it. Is there a difference in London?
Julian 40:47
I think there is a strong Anti Vax group and campaign, I think there’s a general suspicion with anything that is kind of mass programmed. But here in in Britain we have the Flu jab, and nothing is compulsory, you get the flu jab if there are underlying conditions, but if they don’t see that you have underlying conditions and you’re healthy, then you’re not offered it, but if you want it, you can always get it. So I think there’s less suspicion here. But there is definitely a faction of mistrust with anything governmental. But it depends on what paradigm you live in, whether you live in a paradigm of trust, or whether you live in a paradigm of suspicion, and what things have happened in your life to support either one. I think over here, my rose tinted glasses make me think that there’s a higher percentage of trust, even though our government has come up for a lot of criticism, rightfully so. But I think generally, we’re not probably as suspicious as in North America.
Norman 42:07
Yeah, I think you’re right. North America right now, I think it’s probably even higher. The polls that I hear are 50-50. But I think it might even be higher on the other side. So we’re not so much on the rose tinted glasses yet.
Julian 42:23
I think logic and percentages tell me, if your research comes from you not being an expert reading things that are more opinion than research, as opposed to people who are scientists and studying then really, it’s just, I think I’d go with the scientists. I’d go with the scientists.
Norman 42:51
Yeah.
Julian 42:52
That’s what Jose tells me. But , I could be wrong. I could be wrong.
Norman 42:57
You gotta put your trust somewhere.
Julian 42:59
Yeah, you do.
Norman 43:01
So now, let’s talk about some fun stuff. We just touched on it, but the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy, so I want to know what makes this unique or different from other performance studios.
Julian 43:15
Okay, so what was my motivation I guess, for starting the academy? Well, a lot of kids who get to college to study jazz in particular, I just found that often their engagement with jazz in any real deep way would start at college and I thought, Well, that’s too late. That’s too late to start your jazz education, so to speak, you can see my friends are harder in the background. Yeah, but so really, I thought, if at the very least when youngsters who come to me go to college, having experienced the music, the repertoire. So the music in terms of hearing, the repertoire in terms of playing of Jelly Roll Morton through all of the greats, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, all the way through up to at least present day people, whether it’s Harry Connick Jr, or Brad Mehldau, or Roy Hargrove, then at least I’d have done a service to the music, where the contingent of kids who come through me have a love for the music and an active engagement in the music from its beginnings all the way through to its contemporary interpretations, then that was really what the point was. Where were slightly different from most of the programs that run, certainly in Britain is that we do everything by ear, we don’t use a stitch of music, ear and memory. So that’s the difference. That’s our unique selling point.
Norman 45:21
Very good. Hayden, you’re so quiet. You’ve got to ask some questions?
Hayden 45:31
Yeah. To set up a program like that, and to have kids sign on, I think to a lot of people that might sound a bit peculiar to not use any sheet music, right? Like, with my background, I understand exactly why you do that.
Julian 45:52
Well, you’ll understand this Hayden, and hopefully Norm will definitely relate to it. Most programs deal with music, most of the kids that come to me go to other programs. So when music, I mean, written down music is always the primary focus, the eyes are always the primary focus. My program is really making the ears the primary focus, not focus, not negating the use of the eyes at all. But putting the focus on the ears, that’s really what it is and the parents, we have a very close relationship with the parents, they can call me at any time, they know that I know who their kids are and I’m very open with the children too. They can call me, they have access to me, and they have access to all of the tutors and we like it like that, because we know that the kids will practice. I say kids because they go from the age of 8 up to 24, sometimes even higher. They know that openness and that ability to be able to reach any of us ask questions, have programs of practice for them, available for advice when they get a bit frustrated, also just support them. They realize that this is a valid approach to music, because their underlying one on one lessons are all about reading. Many of the program’s I’d say 100% of the programs they go to are all about reading. My one just isn’t. It’s not, it doesn’t focus solely on reading, it focuses with a high percentage of using the ear, listening and memorization and also developing what something that I call jazz intelligence, which is understanding how intervals are used, and also how what chord qualities are, and developing that side of things, so that you can respond to music on the moment. Reading music is not playing music, it’s learning music, it’s a way of learning. But music is experiential. So I’m just trying to bridge the gap that often gets left to the students own initiative. Now, in order to make this work, it relies heavily on the students using their own initiative, and seeing what it is that I’m trying to teach them. So I do spend quite a lot of time philosophizing about the music with them. So I completely take your point Hayden, but I guess that’s that’s my justification and I know I’m preaching to the converted.
Norman 48:47
So this sounds like it led to your book Music of Initiative.
Julian 48:51
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, the book is really about sort of getting into a bit of jazz philosophy. It’s about developing a sense of empowerment, and a sense that inside all of us, and this probably goes for every subject anyway. The answers that we seek lie within us, all we have to do is ask ourselves and answer ourselves. So often, it’s, if I’ve put a simple question like, how do I learn to play jazz? That’s a really, really big question. So how do you answer that question? So logically, you think, one, I need to find out what jazz is, or I need to understand what my understanding of jazz is. So if your understanding of playing jazz is a fusion group, then you have to learn the repertoire of the fusion group that you really think is playing jazz, and try and do that. In turn, that will lead you to either unfurling or uncovering what jazz really is about or what learning really is about. But in the book, I also say that understanding what jazz is, is understanding who its greatest players are, the people who make the music something you celebrate. So you’d have to know Louis Armstrong, you’d have to know Charlie Park, you’d have to know Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, you’d have to know those guys. Once you get familiar with what actually it is and who plays it, then it’s about you, figuring out how to get to it. Understanding how to play, you either go to a teacher, you either have initiative or enough learning yourself to kind of figure some stuff out yourself. But I think it’s all a journey of self discovery. Some of it, you’re going to need some big major help from other people. Some of it, you’re going to figure out yourself. All of it, you’re going to figure all of it. Yeah.
Norman 51:07
Another question is what makes a good jazz educator?
Julian 51:13
Well, I often think of good jazz educators just as a guide, a guide to understanding the talent of the child or the person trying to learn the music and guiding them to processes that help them empower themselves and teach themselves. That’s what I think a good educator is, a good jazz educator is.
Norman 51:37
Every place that you’ve played, where was your favorite spot? What was your favorite place to play?
Julian 51:46
Gosh that’s a difficult question, because I’ve played so many places. Gosh. I think without a shadow of a doubt, the favorite places are always where the people are warm and kind to you. Whether you play a concert, and then you meet the people and you go out into the community, and you eat and you talk about things and you make close bonds with people and I’ve done that quite a bit. I’d say throughout Italy, in France, in Australia, in Japan. So I don’t think I could isolate one place and think, Oh my God. Yeah, I like the architecture here. But it’s always always about the people. I think it’s always about where you meet warm hearted receptive people who just either you make a human connection with. They don’t even have to love the music you make. You just make some kind of poignant connection with them, and you connect with them on some human level.
Hayden 53:00
That’s it for part one of our interview with Julian Joseph. Make sure to tune in later this week for the rest of the interview. As always, follow us on social media and like the podcast wherever you listen to it. It really helps us out and keeps you in the know with all things I Know This Guy. That’s enough for me and I’ll see you next time.
Hayden 0:02
Hey there guys and gals, welcome to part two of our interview with Julian Joseph. If you haven’t heard part one yet, make sure to go back and give that a listen and as always make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts, it really helps us out and keeps you up to date with all things with I Know This Guy. That’s for me and now for the rest of the interview.
Norman 0:27
A lot of times when I either have to go and speak in front of people, invited to a city, I don’t know what to expect. Sometimes there’s an underwhelming sort of feeling and all of a sudden, I’m out there and it just completely turns around and it’s an incredible group and people are talking to you and just surrounding you wanting more information. Have you ever had an event or a gig like that?
Julian 0:54
Well, I think often, if ever, I feel negative about traveling, it’s probably because I’ve been doing too much now and because it’s been a one day experience, you fly in, do the concert, and then really early in the morning, you fly out and then you do these one nighters a lot of them and you just get weary. So more that affects me if I have to travel, and I’m thinking, Oh boy, it’s just a one night thing. So generally, when I go out, I’ll often be surprised just by the generosity of people. But I don’t think I have any real preconceptions because I know that if it’s going to be a one night, I’m not going to enjoy the experience physically, or mentally as much as if I get to spend a few days in a place or it’s not such a rush, I can leave in the evening or something like that. So yeah, I don’t know whether that is the kind of experience that my life so far has ever set me up for. I remember I went to France one time, and it was my birthday. I think it was maybe on the eve of I don’t know whether it was a big birthday or not. I don’t think it was, it wasn’t a big birthday, but it’s one of the birthdays in my 20s and my late 20s and I went to Paris and I played a few nights in Paris and I thought well I like to be at home and celebrate my birthday. So I was feeling a little I don’t know, displaced is probably the correct word and it turned out to be great, because I’d taken a large contingent of young musicians that I had put together from a mixture of my professional working band, my trio and really talented kids that I had discovered is not quite the right word but I had workshopped in one of the music schools in London and I thought they would be great. That would be great, that guy would be great. So I put those guys together and took them to France with me and we did a great gig. People really responded well to it. But the thing I really liked was that each night because they knew it was my birthday, they gave us unlimited champagne. So I really enjoyed that, not necessarily changed my expectations. But it’s sort of surprised me because it was just so generous of the club where I was playing, and I just was very, very grateful. So that’s definitely not a great story or anything, but it certainly changed my mood and my expectation. I tend not to be sort of down on anywhere that I go because I do realize that it’s a privilege. You can get a bit travel weary, but even that is a blessing. If people want to see you and want to come out and invite you even to another country. So I hope that gives you a little window.
Norman 4:25
Yeah, it does. Yeah, I was very curious because you do travel quite a bit.
Norman 4:32
Hayden, do you have any other questions?
Hayden 4:34
Yeah, I guess it seems like throughout your life, mentorship has been a huge part of your development musically and you just mentioned this situation here. Is that another part of the program of the academy or even personally like when you’re gigging? Do you make a point of trying to bring up younger talent?
Julian 4:53
I don’t know whether it’s entirely honest to say that my motives are altruistic. I like to help anybody who asks for it. I like people who show initiative and are quite bold about trying to get that help or that assistance. But I like many other people, and probably including you, if you hear someone who’s really great, you’re just hungry to play with them. Yeah, I guess it’s like, being a kid and going in the playground, and you just play with the cool people and that’s really what it is. You hear a young talent and you just think, Wow, you just hear, I just hear something for them, I just hear they will be really good like that. In this situation, they’d be really good in this situation, or there’s somebody I really want to write for. So that’s how I’ve done it. I think as I’ve got older, setting up my own Academy, everything looks like I’m really a benevolent generous artist and everything. But I don’t know whether that’s my motivation.
Hayden 6:06
When’s the last time you’ve been knocked out by a new talent or someone who just kind of floored you?
Julian 6:14
Well, I was knocked out by a young bass player who’s been coming through my Academy since he was 10. He was playing today and I just thought, Oh my goodness, what? Then there’s another kid who just weakly floors me, a trombone player. So the bass player is called Matt and he’s his father’s Irish and his mother’s from Ethiopia. He’s just incredible and his younger brother plays drums. Another guy who really floors me is brilliant young trombonist who’s also is in my Academy called James and these guys you’re definitely going to be hearing about, but so many of them are the young ones, some so many of them are kids that I’ve been fortunate enough to be engaged with now. But further afield, not really too sure. One of my students just came back from Berklee and did the most amazing set up Japanese, a British Japanese pianist called Karen Shariah. She’s really talented, and a very, very talented composer, she really has something unique. So at the moment, it’s many of the people who I’m connected to, I don’t think it’s nepotism. I think I just seriously honestly am floored by them and really happy when I feel that the virtues I’m trying to extol or put out there are starting to come through them who I’ve seen develop over a number of years.
Hayden 7:57
I have another one. To bring it back to your book and like making the journey of education through music, like a personal life is a personal journey anyway, like you have to take it upon yourself and it’s up to you to go as far as you can through that journey. How has that changed for you over the years?
Julian 8:20
I think when you’re younger, you’re more categorical. This person can play, this person can’t and this person is talented, that person isn’t and you just realize that No, it’s all opinion. All of it is opinion and most of it is just like life. It’s about what works for you, what is important to you and also the realization that those questions are the way they are said is different for everybody, every single person on this planet. So I think over time, expecting there’s just one answer to a universal question has matured in me. I still think that Sonny Rollins, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Sidney these talents are undeniably exquisite and possibly, not possibly, definitely, there’s consensus and the lack of consensus is just an argument.
Hayden 9:32
Now, like for you, what is it about those players that have that special quality?
Julian 9:40
Okay, let me get a little bit metaphysical for you and just say that there’s magic in them. I always think that we all respond to energy and we hear the force of their energy, and we accept it and not only is their energy immaculate and amazing, but the information that comes out of them goes along with that energy. I think that’s what’s special about any supreme talent like that. It’s a bit short, isn’t it? Sorry.
Hayden 10:23
No, no. Succinct.
Norman 10:27
Okay, so Hayden, are you going to allow me to ask you the questions to ask the questions now?
Hayden 10:32
You can go ahead Dad.
Norman 10:37
It would just be one but no. Okay. I’m really curious. I see this all the time with entrepreneurs. I see the pictures with people sitting on Lamborghinis, waving cash, get rich quick, successes just very fast, easy success and what I find is the true high quality entrepreneurs, or people that pretty much had to struggle, get over hurdles, some people call a failure to get where they are. So I’m wondering about you, did you find that you had to get over some hurdles and if you did, what were they? How did you get around them or get around them?
Julian 11:18
Okay, so I think the best way for me to answer this question is that I say, I live by a certain credo, a certain principle, which is that I never let fear stop me from doing what it is I wish to do. In fact, my motto is that, if I find I’m afraid of something, it’s the thing that’s going to make me do it. So I try not to let fear get in the way. Now often fear is irrational. Many times it’s absolutely rational and so ignoring your fear can often be foolhardy. But I’m even prepared to be foolhardy and fail abysmally. So that fear doesn’t rule me. Many times I’ve had to play piano concertos with orchestras and not feel entirely ready and I’d say 99% of the time I get through it, okay. But there have been some disastrous failures that have happened. I try, and I try not to dwell on it. I try not to beat myself up about it and I think one of the greatest analogies was a friend of mine, who was teaching someone said to the kid, Play this piece of music. I can’t, I might make a mistake, and he said, Go play it anyway. So they played it, and they made loads of mistakes and they looked out the window, and said, What? I said, Has the world ended? No, it hasn’t. So I often think of things like that. It doesn’t mean I just run into the fire and run into a situation where I’m going to just fail abysmally. But yeah, I kind of live by that rule and so it allows me to use fear in a positive way. Yes, sometimes I come up a cropper. But I’m a human being.
Norman 13:19
Nice. Okay. I like that answer. Alright, so now that we know your struggles, and how you overcome them, what about your achievements? What would you say would be your biggest success?
Julian 13:34
Gosh. I was asked what my biggest success was with my Academy and with my Academy is when the students come back. So I was talking about a very talented young pianist, Karen Sharon, she’s been at Berklee, and she’s back now for a little while because the programs are being run online. So she just thought, Well, I’ll go home for the time being and so she pops into the academy and really relishes the time she spends with us, and other pupils. In fact, all the ones who’ve gone to America or farther afield, many of them who are currently at college programs now, they all come back to my Academy and this is something I’m very proud of, because I know that it’s really worthwhile. They feel that it’s really worthwhile for them to come to me and keep honing their skills and keeping their whole jazz mindset and their musical mindset sharp and ready, and not getting lazy about things. So I’m really happy about that. I just won an award at the moment. I was made a felon and it’s taken me, I’ve won that on the first of December and I’m sort of getting my head around it because it’s a huge honor and in the 76 year history of the Ivers Academy, they’ve only had 21 fellows, me being the 21st. So I don’t think I’m really proud of awards. But I’m proud of that one because people like Malcolm Arnold, the great composer. John Dankworth, Kate Bush has someone I mentioned earlier, Sir Elton John, Paul McCartney, these are the kinds of people that they award so it makes me feel really proud to be part of that group of inspirational people and that makes me feel really special. So, I don’t know, I think maybe the first time I played George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F when I was 27 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Barbican, I’m really proud of that. I recently played it in 2018, it kicked my behind. But it’s very happy to revive it, it put me through my paces. But I was really happy that I was able to do something monumental like that, where every part of my body and my brain is screaming, Are you sure you’re ready and I just went out there, swallowed my fear and just got on with it. So yes, I’ve done it a few times since but it was a long gap before I played that particular piece again. My latest opera, which premiered in 2018. My own take and reimagining of Tristan and his oldest story that I did with the librettist Mike Phillips, I’m very, very proud of that. So I’m really proud of something that takes my musical abilities into a slightly different realm that I’m not necessarily dealing with all the time. So those are some things that I’m really, really proud of.
Norman 17:30
Alright, and congratulations, by the way.
Julian 17:32
Oh, thank you so much.
Norman 17:36
Let’s talk about a quote. Do you have any inspirational quotes or quotes you may have yourself that you live by?
Julian 17:44
Well I’m actually a great collector of quotes. So it was interesting that you had asked me about it and one of the ones that I sent to you was, “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” They teach you there’s a boundary line to music, but man, there’s no boundary line to art and that’s something Charlie Parker said and I absolutely agree with that. 100%. Likewise, I sent you one that’s one from Duke Ellington. “If it sounds good, and feels good, then it is good” and I love and live by that and this one, I think, is really beautiful. “Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.” That’s from Charles Mingus. Just such clear thinking and there’s one also from George Russell, he says, “And incidentally, I’m not self taught. Everybody who’s given me a moment of beauty, significance or excitement has been a teacher.” So all of these quotes I just find really uplifting and George Russell, I had the great, great privilege of interviewing him for my show Jazz Legends, many moons ago and he had been quite sickly. I think he was ill and in hospital and Miles Davis used to visit him and all these really phenomenal people and that was also when he wrote the Lydian Concept of tonal organization, the Lydian Chromatic concept of tonal organization and I better get it right, Hayden’s listening. Come on Julian. So he spoke about the book and how he wrote it as he was convalescing and that he talked about there’s a unity in things and that he found that in the US Sing the Lydian sound, now there is something called modes in music. A lot of Western music is based on the Ionian mode, and he instead he sharpens the four, and uses the Lydian as the basis then and it’s because there’s a symmetry to it and as he said that there’s a unity in things and as you shift everything over into the Lydian mode, there is a beauty in that concept. I don’t know whether you’ve ever dealt with that Hayden. Have you ever looked into the Lydian concept?
Hayden 20:42
No, no, I’ve heard it mentioned, but I haven’t checked it out.
Julian 20:46
Really, it’s really something. I haven’t gone into it deeply. But I think you sort of lean yourself to it, one is drawn to it as you experiment with harmony and color, especially in orchestration or, just how you try to move harmony through the landscape of, or try to move music and through the landscape of harmony or harmony through the landscape of music. It’s neither one nor the other. But creating the basis, a different basis of sound, just with the change of one note makes makes a huge amount of difference and this whole experiment with modes is something that George and I spoke about, Miles was experimenting and came up with a kind of blue and this subtlety in the music that it’s not flashy. I was reading actually a really bad review, on kind of blue saying that it’s really a great, great entrance into jazz, but I don’t think that. I think it’s more than that. I think that it’s a profound recording that gives you so much without it being obvious and I think often the greatest things in life, not obvious and so getting into that album is just quite an important journey for most human beings. I would say that.
Norman 22:31
I think that was one of my first albums that I got into Yeah.
Hayden 22:35
To relate it back to that Mingus quote, too. It’s kind of blue isn’t flashy, it’s not overly complex. It’s just something beautiful. That I guess no one would have heard before that time.
Julian 22:53
As Mingus said, making the complex simple. It’s not about making the simple complex. It’s about there’s so many things that when poured through the prism of art, there’s a simple and elegant observation that comes through, and I think kind of blue has that. It has that amazing quality.
Norman 23:22
That is an amazing quote. I mean, just think of life and you could just, it’s a perfect quote. I love it.
Julian 23:32
Yeah, it’s great.
Norman 23:33
So you’ve interviewed tons of people. Who’s been a couple of your favorites?
Julian 23:43
Well, I’ve spoken . I’ve spoken to Herbie Hancock, I’ve spoken to McCoy Tyner. McCoy Tyner is really, really special because he is such a humble man. Unfortunately, he passed away earlier this year, just before we went into lockdown in Britain, but this amazing, innovative, inventive parent is to completely change the landscape of how every single piano player plays chords, plays melodies, after him was just such a humble man. I remember he said to me that playing with John Coltrane made him really understand service, really understanding that your contribution to supporting another artist is just as important as being the artist out in front all the time. Now, obviously, for the uninitiated, they’d say well, he certainly had his moment more than a few moments in the sun and his record speaks for itself, but just the humble and beautiful way in which he’s said that to me made me I don’t know, appreciate a whole different realm of existence in performance where it’s so based on the self, where it can be so based on the self, so based on ego in a certain way. So, McCoy Tyner, it was incredible speaking with him. Also Benny Golson, he is the first interview I ever did and I was nervous as you would not ever believe. I was so I don’t know, in awe, such a gentleman, such a kind spirit, elegant and just profound. He told stories actually about when he and John Coltrane went to see Charlie Parker playing in a club and they were too young to get in. So they listened from outside and just waited and then when Charlie Parker came out, they took hold of his horn and carried it for him and he spoke with them and was really kind and generous to them to really interested in what they were working on and spoke to them about music. So he had so many vignettes and nuggets of great information and stories about his life and all of the great characters that he had come across and there’s one of the major artists in our music. So yeah, he was incredibly spectacular to speak to. I spoke also at length to Freddie Hubbard, I think it was one of his last interviews and he spoke about coming into New York rooming with Eric Dolphy and just getting to spend time with people he really admired like Billy Morgan, and talking about Wynton Kelly and just really, it was amazing. So yeah, it gave me a look into the music and these phenomenal periods of creativity that is really privileged to share with the rest of the world. Recently on my show, that runs now called J to Zed. I had Kenny Barron in and he played a solo set for me and spoke with me about all sorts of things when he first moved to New York at 18 and playing with Dizzy Gillespie and meeting James Moody and he lived in apartment where I think, in the same apartment block, Pepper Adams, the great baritone saxophone player was rooming with Elvin Jones, and he also spoke about playing with Stan Getz and he was in town actually playing with the great bass player Dave Holland who was my fellow countrymen. That person, I’m very privileged to say I know and also he visited my Academy and just rolled his sleeves up and helped the kids learn stuff and played with us and he was just phenomenal and so Bradford did the same thing. I mean, in fact Bradford’s come to the academy twice. So yeah, I’ve interviewed so many great, I interviewed Andrew Hill. Well, there are so many people to mention, I did a great long interview with Wayne Shorter that was really immense. So yeah, many of them stand out for me but, as a collection of great jazz talent and their points of view and their view of the world. All of it is very unselfish, and very altruistic and spiritual, incredibly spiritual. There was only one person I interviewed that I really didn’t like, I won’t tell you who they are. But yeah, this guy was not very forthcoming, and gave me monosyllabic answers.
Norman 29:29
Don’t you love that?
Julian 29:31
I didn’t know why he even showed up for the interview. So anyway, that one out of hundreds is not too bad.
Norman 29:42
That’s not too shabby. Yeah.
Julian 29:44
I did that show for eight years and every single person was a gem, except for one person.
Norman 29:52
Wow. That’s incredible. Being able to talk to all those people just get to know them. Get to be up. little part of their life for a short period of time. It is so cool. It’s like doing this podcast. I get to meet so many interesting people. I haven’t come across the person with the one word answers. Not yet.
Julian 30:21
You’re so charming. That’s why
Norman 30:23
Oh, yeah, right. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when that does happen. But anyways.
Julian 30:29
You just take it, you take it as it comes because it does them more harm than you to be honest and it doesn’t do them any good whatsoever. So you just leave it and you’re just like.
Norman 30:44
It makes Hayden’s job really easy and editing.
Julian 30:52
Absolutely.
Hayden 30:54
Silence. Just silence.
Norman 30:59
Hey Julian. We’re at the end of the podcast and I’ve got to tell you, it really has been a pleasure having you on and talking about everything and hopefully, we can touch base later on at some point and talk more.
Julian 31:13
Absolutely. Thank you, Norman. Thank you, Hayden. It’s been a real pleasure speaking to you. Yeah, it just feels like we’re hanging out. That’s it.
Norman 31:20
That’s it. Yep. Now, I do have one question though. At the end of every podcast, I always ask our guests if they know a guy.
Julian 31:31
I know many guys. Yeah, there are several people that are really interesting. People that I know that you would love to speak with. One person is Sahana Gero, who’s creating the most amazing sheet. She runs the World Heartbeat Music Academy, not far from where I live and actually she’s right next to me, but she’s also creating a new music facility nearby and it’s the first concert venue built in London for the last, is it 15 years? 18 years. Yeah, last eight years. Sorry. So that’s somebody I know. Since 2008, okay, that’s 12 years. Anyway, she’s amazing. So she’s a clarinetist. She works with an amazing array of musicians from Indian music and really runs the most amazing Academy for young musicians that involves Indian classical music, Western classical music, jazz music, and folk music from the Celtic Fiddle to Eastern European music. So all of these things combined in the Academy. So that’s definitely one person who is a guy I know who happens to be a gal.
Norman 33:04
Oh, perfect.
Julian 33:05
But there’s some other musicians. There’s a brilliant trumpeter called Byron Wallen, essentially out of the jazz side of things, but has an amazing interest in collecting unusual art from Africa and different kinds of cultures. Also, he’s a master of gamelan music as well. So involves that into his music. There are many different rainbows to his art and also, he’s a phenomenal teacher. So there’s him and then there’s another guy I know called Matthew Barley, a classical cellist essentially, who creates the most amazing combinations and collaborations with brilliant, different artists from different disciplines. Indian classical music, rock and ambient music and jazz, jazz musicians like me. Yeah, he’s a very, very interesting guy. So those are the guys and gals that I know that I think you’d be really taken with.
Norman 34:21
Okay. Well, thank you again, Julian. It really has been just a lot of fun. Thank you.
Julian 34:26
Thank you so much, Norm. The pleasure was mine.
Hayden 34:33
Thanks for listening to guys and gals. Next week, we have another radio host and BBC. I guess there’s a BBC takeover going on. Not only that, but he’s also a ted talk speaker and an incredible author, by the name of Colin grant. Make sure to tune in next time to check it out. That’s enough for me, and I’ll see you next time.
