What got you particularly interested in British jazz? How innovative do you think it was, and still is or isn't?

I think that my passion for British jazz comes from two factors. The first is the indelible recollection of a Soft Machine concert in Chicago, July 1968. The band was playing before Jimi Hendrix - The Experience, of course... The shock was quite violent because my ears (I was only 16 at the time) had absolutely never heard such sonorities so well combined, with that incredible sound and the drummer's so sharp voice - and tuft of hair, incessantly going from one side to the other... At that time, Robert Wyatt didn't wear the long blond mop of hair he had later, from Soft to Matching Mole. I had just listened to the first records of Jimi Hendrix and, at middle school, older music lovers were trying to play it again. With our little beginning band, we were repeating the tumes of the Rolling Stones or the Moody Blues. Well that visual and auditory encounter has been the starting of a passion, a crazy love for these musicians. I've tried to find their records but, as I was living in a small town in the Meuse... it was quite impossible to get some vinyl discs.. Soft Machine was not recording a lot and moreover had been a long time before cutting their first pieces. Then I met other fanatics...

The second factor has been the deeper discovery of these musicians, thanks to the concerts organised by Gerard N'Guyen with the magazine A Tern, and the meeting with some famous humanists, Pip Pyle, Phil Miller, Dave Stewart, Alan Gowen and, later, the quartet of Tippett, Hopper, Dean and Gallivan, plus a discographic approach of the relations between these musicians...

Gradually, through listening I familiarised myself with a certain kind of European music. The activity seemed important in Germany and in Holland too, much less so in France... Well, the Anglo-Saxon countries had a particular charm - is it becuse I was a "foreigner" with an inclination for exoticism and risk too?

I started to set up a relatively well-stocked record collection and often bought records based on only the names that I saw on the covers - with the help of shop assistants and specialists who were importing records absolutely unsaleable, unless to absolute fanatics like me!

Later, in 1983, the idea to make an inventory of everything more or less that was happening with these musicians took shape. I had gathered together in a notebook my references, and (with the help of a friend) published the first version of this book, entitled, incorrectly, Discographie du Jazz Anglais. Amateurishness? Certainly and with some mistakes of youth. But I sold 800 copies of this book! ..I decided in 1993 to work on it again; I wanted to make a true reference book and I think that Simply Not Cricket (thanks to Robert Wyatt for the title!) reached its goal.

It was published in 1995 - at the beginning of the CD era - and I quickly realised that a continuation would be useful, to take in to account the proliferation of CDs with their ease of production and the continuous arrival of new and gifted musicians. I was keeping up to date with all the news, and in 2000 thought that a further episode would be welcome for all fanatics and collectors all over the world.

How would you compare it to other European developments recently, such as the strong impact of countries such as Norway?

Well, I would first refer to the identical richness of Germany or Holland in the mid-sixties - as said before - thanks to some key figures, like in England. Their names are well known: von Schlippenbach, Lovens, Kowald, ...Mengelberg, Bennink... European musicians have had very few opportunites to play in England, but British musicians have often played on the continent.. It is perhaps why this mixing of styles went unnoticed and why some people have spoken of a "European music" scene, as opposed to (the words are ridiculous) American jazz.. But despite the current situation, I am still convinced that this innovative wave will never again find such exciting and creative energy that the British underwent.

Can you tell me the story of the magazine Improjazz and your general activities?

Improjazz was born on a restaurant's table, after a quite stormy meeting with other members of another association [in 1994] which also published a magazine, Notes, which specialised in a music more diverse than just jazz and improvisation... Patrick Gentet and I left, and it was time to take things in hand and defend the music we loved. We determined two imperative rules: regularity (10 issues a year) and never investing personal money in this venture. The first point until now has always been respected, but I suspect Patrick of rummaging through his pockets to complete the occasional deficient funding. But we have been quickly helped by friends and passionate people who have thought that a magazine about different kinds of music had to stay alive.

translation:Guillaume TARCHE

back to previous page