Interview with Fergus McCreadie
An interview with the Glasgow-based jazz pianist on his new EP 'Sketches', approaches to long-form improvisation, and ignoring that little voice in your head.
Fergus McCreadie is a pianist and composer who seamlessly combines jazz with Scottish folk music on his three trio albums. Forest Floor, named the 2022 Scottish Album of the Year, continues a theme of drawing inspiration from Scotland’s natural landscapes. Fergus’ new EP, Sketches, consists of four solo improvisations and a reimagining of an older composition. He followed the release of the EP with a weeklong solo tour during which he improvised a performance from scratch each night. I talked with Fergus over video call on 4th December, 2023 to discuss his approach to solo improvisation, being influenced by Keith Jarrett and McCoy Tyner, and the importance of musicians listening beyond their genre.
Eli Thayer: I’ve really been enjoying the new EP; it’s super fun and a nice departure from the trio recordings. I was, however, away during your recent solo tour. Could you walk me through a typical one of those performances?
Fergus McCreadie: Yeah! So generally, I kind of approach those performances with as much of a blank canvas mindset as possible. I’ve my whole life been such a big admirer of -- well, so many piano players -- but Keith Jarrett in particular. He sort of talks about going on stage and walking up to the piano as if you’ve never played the piano before, which I think is such a cool way to approach it. Cause like, I’ve played piano every day for a few hours or whatever, so there’s certain things my hands know how to do. The most exciting thing is when your hands are figuring out something that you don’t quite know, and you’re kind of on that edge. That’s when the most creative stuff happens. For all the solo shows, that was my priority, was trying to go into them with as much of a free mindset as possible. So going into the show, I’d just go on stage with no plan whatsoever. You know, I find that for me that’s the way that works. That’s the way I really like to play solo piano.
ET: In those shows, are you playing shorter pieces like on the EP? Or is it more like Jarrett’s live stuff where he really goes on for extended periods?
FM: Yeah, I think the shorter pieces are ‘cause if you just put out one forty-minute track, streaming-wise it’s not gonna be as good. And I think that was a different challenge on the improvised EP just to sit down and try to figure out a couple things and then put them up. Whereas the live thing, you’ve kind of got that space. And I really like that challenge of: your hands are on the instrument for forty-five minutes and you’ve got to kind of, you know, keep yourself interested and keep the audience interested as well. Sometimes that’s making difficult decisions. A lot of the time I find myself throwing away ideas mid-performance, like, “oh, that’s not good enough, so let’s just go back a step and see if we can go a different direction.” I find that really interesting, and I think hopefully from an audience perspective, seeing that kind of creative process unfold in real time is really interesting.
ET: That’s an interesting point on streaming. Does the streaming model impact your decision on what to release? Obviously, Jarrett has released countless recordings of those forty-minute pieces, but much of that predated the ‘modern age’ of listening.
FM: Yeah -- I think still, regardless, going into the studio and recording something solo, I think you do sort of need the audience in a way to really get that forty-minute piece. That longform improvisation is quite tricky. It’s a mental thing to do, right, to go on stage and have nothing prepared. It’s crazy that it’s just improvised the whole time, and I think to do that you kind of need the element of, “you just have to accept”; ‘cause if you’re in the studio and you mess it up, you can just go back and retake and all that. Getting that sort of feeling, it’s not a fear, necessarily, but it’s like, “this is your shot at it.” That is what creates that spontaneity. So I think it’s harder to create that spontaneity in the studio, which is why with shorter pieces, to me, it just feels more natural. But yeah, I think I would like to do that at some point, release the sort of longer-form pieces. But I think that the way the music is consumed now has changed. So even if I was releasing a whole forty-minute piece or whatever, I would still probably look for ways to cut that up a bit. Maybe, say, it’s like eight tracks, but if you listen to all eight tracks in order it’s all seamless. Back when it was Jarrett and it was vinyls and CDs and stuff it wasn’t the same, but now the way streaming is set up it’s paid per play, right? So if you’ve got a forty-minute track, most people don’t have the time to commit to listening to that forty-minute track -- which I think is a shame, that the art of the album is going to be lost -- but people dance around between things. So you want bite-sized chunks, in a sense, or at least some bite-sized chunks that people can latch onto and put on playlists. Streaming is a bit of an evil thing, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so you might as well play to the model of that, if that makes sense.
ET: Did you notice different audience dynamics? Like, was the Glasgow LayLow crowd notably from the Dundee audience, and did that affect your improvisations at all?
FM: Um, I think there’s a whole range of factors. It’s not just the audience. In a way, it’s hard to know what the audience thinks, especially if you play a whole bit, forty-five minutes without any kind of audience interaction or whatever. You don’t get anything visceral from a big round of applause or anything like that. But, you do feel a vibe in the room, and the best audience is always the one that’s really super listening. To be honest, through this whole tour, I think of all the six concerts I have genuinely been really lucky with the audiences. They’ve all been really focused and up for just sitting in the quiet while I kind of spin the thing or whatever. ‘Cause it must be intense as an audience member, as well. Obviously, it’s intense for me, as well. But yeah, the audience is one of the factors, and the piano is also a big factor. The better the piano is, the easier it is to bring your ideas out. The sound of the room, I think, as well. The Glasgow one I really really loved; I think that was my favourite one. But the Dundee one, which you mentioned, is a really close second, just cause the room was absolutely beautiful, just this huge, echoey room, which is perfect for that. You just have to take it as it is, but you get these different tools to play with each night -- different audience, different piano, different room, whatever -- and it’s interesting playing with those things. With the audiences, I do notice a difference. But really, if the audience is listening and with you then it doesn’t matter what they’re like, I suppose. The listening thing is the thing that really makes it for me.
ET: I read a clip from a Jarrett interview, actually, where he talks about playing in the giant, nineteenth-century concert hall in Vienna (The Musikverein), and there’s no monitors, no amplification, no nothing. But the room is so live -- the acoustics are incredible -- that he can barely play, his drummer’s on just brushes in this massive room. And it totally changes the dynamics of how it all works.
FM: Totally. It’s such an interesting thing, room acoustics. I don’t consciously go into the huge room and think, “okay, I’m gonna play less notes because I need to give the room more space,” or if I’m in a club where it’s really quite dry, I don’t think, “okay, I need to use lots of sustain.” You know, you just kind of start playing, especially because jazz is so improvised. But I think all music, if you’re in that creative mindset, you’re just looking while you’re playing for what sounds best, and as the concert goes on you get to know the stage more. That’s often, I think, why when you see a gig it gets better as it goes on, because the musicians are getting a bit more used to the space.
ET: The title of the new EP, Sketches, implies to me that you went in and sat down with vague general ideas of what you might do and built the rest from there in the moment. How spontaneous was it?
FM: So there’s the arrangement of ‘Glade’ that I had on there that’s from a previous album. And I think I decided on that on the way to the studio in the morning, so that’s not wholly spontaneous. And I’d come up with that arrangement a few weeks before, just messing around on the piano.
But everything else was in the moment, on the spot, spontaneous. So if I think about the way the day worked, I had about an hour where the engineer was setting everything up. It was a four-hour recording session, but really for that you’re only doing takes for about three of that. Because the engineer sets up the camera -- because we did videos as well -- so the engineer sets up the camera, sets up the mics, makes sure it’s sounding nice through the recording system. So during that time, I was just playing. I think there’s a bunch of ideas that I didn’t have time to record, actually, that never made the cut. But I was just playing a bunch of ideas, and, for example, the first one I came up with was the E-flat one. So just coming up with that and thinking, “alright, there’s a kind of vamp. Now it needs something that’s a bit more slow and maybe major-sounding.” So that’s when the ‘Chorale’ came, and I think I was messing with an idea that sort of came from the chorale, which was more rhythmic and ended up being the F one. But the chorale’s in G, so I thought, “oh, well I need to change the key for that.” Those are the ideas that I remembered figuring out while we were soundchecking. I think we had about half an hour left and there was a sort of thing of, “alright. If we’ve got half an hour left, we’ll spend ten minutes to figure something out.” And that’s where the B minor thing came from. So really it was very spontaneous, actually. I really wanted to try and make it like that as much as possible. Come up with an idea and do maybe two or three takes. I think the most takes I did was four… maybe not even! I think I did, maximum, three for every one. And it would get a little bit better, but I’d get it to the point where; ‘cause, you know, you can obsess and try to make it perfect or whatever, but I don’t think ‘perfect’ music is that interesting, personally. Perfection is not interesting because humans aren’t perfect, and I think music is kind of a mirror of humans in a way. So it has to be imperfect to be interesting. And I think it is really imperfect. I think that every time I play, to be fair, but that one I think there’s loads of things that, when I listen to it, I think “oh, I’d do that differently if I’d really sat down and wrote it.” But that’s the kind of sketches that I would come up with. It’s just the idea in really raw form, before I’ve taken time, like with the tunes I’ve actually written, to really structure it and make it a specific thing. It was just a way to showcase that ‘raw’ thing, which, to be honest, sometimes I enjoy the most: an idea in its raw form. That’s when it’s the most interesting playing it and that’s when you can come up with the most stuff. And the more you play it, it’s harder. I think when it’s a really good idea for a tune you can keep it interesting and fresh. But when it’s at its nucleus point like that, that’s when I get the most excited, for sure.
ET: Is there anything behind the keys chosen? Or was that all just, “this feels right for this piece?”
FM: It was just the ones that felt right for the piece. The chorale is in G, I do play in G a lot. They’re all actually, to be fair, keys that I would play in quite commonly anyway. Maybe not F as much. I don’t know if other musicians are like this, but I do really gravitate to certain keys, like D major, which I didn’t do any improvisations in, but the ‘Glade’ arrangement is in D. I think about a third of my tunes are in D, and then I need to change the key because they can’t all be in D major, that’s ridiculous. No, there’s no rhyme or reason behind the keys, they’re just the ones that felt nice under my hands. That E-flat tune, it says E-flat major on the thing but it’s more like… it’s quite ambiguous really. It’s got the major third in it, but there’s the flat seventh as well, which makes it more dominant, sort of mixolydian sounding. But E-flat mixolydian looks a bit too complicated on the CD-thing, I think. They all have really different characters. G, to me, is a very pure, kind of joyous-sounding thing, whereas F is a bit more playful. B minor is quite a dark-sounding one. I think naturally I gravitated to certain keys. I often think about music -- this is quite a long answer, actually -- I often think about music in terms of being hot or cold. Right now, I’m in my tenement flat and it’s quite cold, and I’d really love to get a bit warmer. But once I’m warm, I know that something cold will feel amazing. It’s the same thing in music. I think once you’ve heard enough of something that’s quite delicate and sweet, you want something that’s a bit darker and has a bit more of a bite to it. So I think naturally that’s what happened, over the course of the session.
ET: Diverting a bit here. I read a lot of Ethan Iverson’s blog (Do The M@th) online.
FM: Oh, yeah.
ET: He writes a lot about his pantheon of jazz piano players, which he says is Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, and Jarrett. His theory is that, at least for his generation, those were the guys, and everyone else kind of splintered off from them. You’ve talked about Jarrett already, but do you see yourself anywhere else within that circle of players?
FM: Yeah, of course! That particular circle, all four, it sort of speaks to the pervasiveness. In tennis, we’ve had the big four of Murray, Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal, and I think it’s kind of the same thing. They’re all just so amazing, so ridiculous. And impossible to rank. You know, it’s an interesting one. I think Jarrett is the one that really speaks to me the most, but I wonder if I’ve taken the most stuff from McCoy Tyner, actually. Especially in certain styles, just the power of the way he plays. But he still keeps that really nice sound, I don’t know how he does that; just plays so loud but it doesn’t sound like he’s hammering the piano that much. It does, but it still has that nice quality. It doesn’t sound strained. I love McCoy Tyner so much, I think that’s the one. A lot of jazz pianists shout out -- Ethan Iverson talks about this a lot in his blog, I think -- but a big part of the thing is transcribing other players, but I’ve never transcribed McCoy because I know that I already have naturally picked up too many of his tricks. I don’t want to sound too much like him. If I transcribe McCoy, I’ll sound too much like McCoy. So I’ve never gone down that path. Funnily enough, I think Herbie is the one that I’ve transcribed the most, just ‘cause Herbie is the one that, of the four of those, is so close to perfection. He’s amazing. All that, especially the playing with Miles Davis' second great quintet is just absolutely ridiculous. Really, for me, the premium backing rhythm section is just Herbie and Ron [Carter] and Tony [Williams]. I look to that for comping ideas and so on. Chick’s probably the one I’ve taken the least stuff from, but I really really still love a lot of his language. The way he plays on Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is really amazing, that’s one of my favourite records. All four are just so amazing, big, big influences to me.
ET: I feel very validated right now, because I’ve been listening to your trio records and I keep thinking like, “this reminds me of McCoy’s ‘70s records like Sahara,” ‘cause you’re hitting these massive block chords in the left hand and shredding up top.
FM: That’s such a McCoy thing, yeah. The Real McCoy, from ‘67, I think that’s probably one of the albums I’ve listened to the most. It’s a weird thing: as soon as I heard McCoy Tyner, I remember it really clearly. I have a really weirdly vivid memory. I was doing dishes in my parents’ house when I was fifteen, and I was thinking, “I haven’t listened to any McCoy, I should put on some McCoy while I’m doing this.” And I was listening to it while doing the dishes, and I was thinking, “this is absolutely blowing my head off; I can’t believe how good this is.” So yeah, The Real McCoy has always stuck with me I think. I sometimes wonder, ‘cause his language is so pentatonic, and the folk element of music and the pentatonic scale in general really resonates with me, I wonder if because there’s that element in it -- I think that that style fuses so well with Scottish folk anyway -- I wonder if that’s why it appeals to me. It’s impossible to know, but I think there’s maybe an element of that. I’m not sure.
ET: Something I’ve been thinking about alongside [Tyner] and your relationship to folk and jazz is the difference between ‘swing’ and ‘pulse’. I hear in your music, for lack of a better term, more of a pulse than jazz swing. Do you agree with that, and do you think it comes from listening to McCoy and folk music?
FM: Yeah, probably. I think the thing with writing swing is that I’m not that good at writing swing tunes, so I don’t often do that. If I host a jam session -- which I haven’t done in a little bit, actually -- but if I host a jam session in Glasgow I’ll play, like, all swing tunes; there won’t be any of my tunes. I find that maybe because it’s a way of playing I know -- ‘cause that’s how I started, is listening to all swing stuff -- maybe it’s a way of playing I know slightly too well to feel like I have anything to add to it. I’ve got a new record coming out in April which is a trio record, and there is a swing tune on that, which is very straightforward swing. But generally I think I do gravitate towards the other things. Probably you’re right because there’s more scope to kind of incorporate that folk element. It feels more real to write something in that rhythmically folk strand, personally. Whenever you combine jazz with another genre, you want to make it a seamless transition, right? If I were just to play a reel, and then go right into McCoy swing and have that kind of double thing, it would sound terrible! It would sound absolutely insane. And I think that’s the same if you were combining hip hop and jazz; if you had a hip hop section and then a swing section in the same tune. I mean, you can do it, but I think there’s the risk of making it sound like -- you don’t want to make it sound like you’ve just smashed two genres together. So I think always you want to make concessions, in a way. Maybe the concession of trying to find this gap in between the two worlds that I really like is going for, rhythmically, more of a folk thing, but the approach is very jazz-like. Maybe it’s something to do with that.
ET: How much does your rhythm section of David [Bowden] and Stephen [Henderson] affect your rhythmic identity?
FM: So much, so much. I never write them parts, actually, or not for a really long time. The very first record I did, Turas, I think I was a bit more prescriptive about what I wanted. But now, yeah, I don’t write them parts, ‘cause I want them to come up with their own things. ‘Cause that’s how you get that ‘band’ sound. Especially because they know my writing quite well at this point, and we know each other’s playing so well. I’ll say whether I want it to be a certain speed or not, but rhythmically I leave it really up to them. Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot as well about trying to write tunes that are even simpler, just really like fragments of melodies in a way. Ones that have loads of flexibility so we can play it loads of different ways and settle on the one that feels the best for us. I’m trying to make it, I suppose, over time, less and less prescriptive. And that way we don’t talk about what feels good, we just do what feels good. I think that’s more natural. But yeah, they have a big influence on it. And they’re both such good jazz musicians and folk musicians in their own right as well. I place my trust in them a lot.
ET: We talked about the [jazz] piano pantheon, but I feel like there’s a slightly different lineage when it comes to solo jazz piano. Obviously Jarrett still, and McCoy had some great solo records too. But when you’re talking about the history of specifically solo jazz piano I think it gets more into the territory of, like, Brad Mehldau, or more recently Dan Tepfer, too, in terms of pure improvisation. For your own solo practice, do you find yourself taking more from trio jazz and adapting that? Or do you really try to draw from this history of solo playing?
FM: That’s a really good question, actually. I’ve not thought about it so much. For me, the all-time great solo pianist -- ‘cause I think a lot of what Jarrett’s doing is kind of stepping outside of jazz. If we’re looking for pure best solo jazz pianist, for me, it’s Fred Hersch, without a shadow of a doubt. Just ridiculous. And if I think about the stuff that I practise in relation to solo jazz piano -- I mean, I practise vamping in left hand and soloing in right hand quite a lot, getting that independence together. I suppose that’s quite a Jarrett thing. But everything else comes from Fred, actually, and the way that he plays and his concepts of it. I’ve seen him play quite a few times, and every time -- just the inventiveness of it, and there’s so many lines going on at the same time. You know, it’s never just, “left hand comps, right hand plays.” I’m really into that. I love trying to create a texture. It’s so fun. I mean, I need to practise -- I will need to practise. But I love just trying to create a texture, and trying to bring out little, different voices in it. And that’s such a Fred Hersch thing. Obviously, lots of people after him have done it well, to different degrees. But he’s the original master, I think, of just making it sound really pure, and linear, and beautiful. So Fred Hersch I really admire for the way he plays solo piano. I love a lot of the old stride stuff as well -- Art Tatum is an obvious one, just the way that he orchestrates things I find really inspiring. Genuinely a lot of classical music as well. Sometimes I even wonder if -- I mean, a lot of jazz musicians do a lot of classical practice as well, obviously -- but it’s a slightly untapped resource. These incredible composers knew exactly how to write pieces that were perfectly played solo. They don’t feel like they need any other instruments. I think that’s what we want to aim for with solo piano, is that you don’t feel like it needs drums; you don’t feel like it needs bass. So obviously I’m not going to try to play a Beethoven-style thing where it’s got an Alberti bass in the left hand or whatever. But having a look at those kinds of concepts and seeing how they create momentum and how they did all that with a slightly old-fashioned harmonic mindset and trying to apply that I find very interesting, actually.
ET: On that classical thought; Jarrett has recorded classical records and he talks a lot about how that’s influenced his solo playing, and really helped with his voice leading and two-handed fluidity. As opposed to the ‘old-school’ style of jazz piano, where you’ve got “left hand chords, right hand solo.”
FM: Yeah.
ET: I know you have something of a classical background. How often do you work on that stuff now, and do you sense that it does immediately impact your improvisation?
FM: Yeah, definitely! Hundred percent. I mean, I practise it every day, honestly. In lockdown I got this dream of, “oh, maybe I could try and learn some, like, Chopin etudes too and start playing them on some gigs.” And then I got such a fright when I started practising. They’re so hard. The thing about Jarrett is, I think he’s maybe the only jazz pianist I’ve heard who plays classical really like a classical player. Like, really. Cause I know Brad [Mehldau] has done classical, and this is not criticism. Both approaches are very valid. But when Brad plays Bach, you can hear that it’s Brad, which I think is really cool. Whereas when Keith plays Mozart, it genuinely sounds like a proper, proper classical interpretation, which I think is really cool as well. Both approaches are equally valid. And Keith does talk a little about that. He’s trying to almost imagine himself as the composer of this piece. He stops becoming Jarrett, and he becomes, just, someone who plays Mozart. It’s very interesting. I think to play the way that Jarrett plays, you need to come from a really strong classical background. You could do it, but it’s so much work; it’s a lot of work to play the way Jarrett does. It’s incredibly impressive, actually, how he can switch between the two so well. I think a big part of that is his childhood. He was a child prodigy in classical music, basically; which is a bit of a cheat, if you ask me. But I’m definitely not that in any way. I think I even failed one of my grades when I was younger. Classical is a much later in life thing for me. But really it’s a hands thing. Just playing the piano, and the confidence I feel pressing notes and looking for certain colours and stuff, it’s an exponential increase in certain ways since I really got into it. It’s not even an improvement. I just think my overall playing has expanded so much. And it’s reaffirmed my belief that even if you are a jazz player, what you really want to be doing is checking out as much different music as possible. ‘Cause I think folk music does the same for me; it really expands my thing. But just in terms of raw piano playing, it’s done a lot for me. So yeah, in my practice I do an hour of classical technical exercises. And then half an hour of any given Chopin etude -- I’m doing C-sharp minor just now, the really fast one. And then half an hour of really hard changes -- you know, ‘Giant Steps’ changes or whatever. And then I start to really do the actual practice, the fun -- still fun, but, quote unquote “fun practise”. And for me, that really works, ‘cause I really tackle the technical thing, and then I tackle the technical thing in context, and then I tackle something that’s much more of a mind technical thing; trying to loop your way through, in really interesting ways, these really hard changes. It’s a big thing for me, I really practise that a lot. At some point down the road, I think, I would really like to bring a project where I do play some of these pieces, but I need to be a lot better first. Hopefully that happens.
ET: Yeah, I’ve also come to classical guitar somewhat later in life. I’m not good at it, remotely, but I’ve found that it really makes my fingers move in ways that they’d never think to. It’s a completely different mindset.
FM: Totally. I agree so much. When I’m playing, if I’ve been playing classical, I just discover things that I never would have discovered practising ‘normal’ jazz. Or maybe I would have. The thing about it, for me, is I study Herbie, and McCoy, and Jarrett, and early like Bud Powell, and Charlie Parker. These guys are absolute masters of navigating changes, and creating perfect phrases, and playing perfect solos. Even though I said perfection doesn’t exist, but you know what I mean. Playing solos at the really highest level. But none of them -- apart from, I suppose, Jarrett in a sense -- none of them have looked into playing the piano technically at the absolute highest level. ‘Cause I think if you look at someone who’s playing all twenty-four Chopin etudes in one evening, that’s just something a jazz pianist -- unless you’ve really, really worked on it -- just can’t even fathom doing. In the way that playing five or six standards and really stretching out improvising is something a classical pianist can never dream of doing. So I think I refer specifically to the Chopin etudes ‘cause they are kind of the pinnacle. Your hands just feel absolutely incredible after practising them. They’re just written in a way where it’s hard for your hands to play them, so they’re perfect for that purpose. And I think Chopin really, really, really, understood how to play the piano in a really efficient way. And those etudes, you can’t play them unless you play the piano in the most efficient way. So I’ll never be a concert pianist in that way. But it teaches me a lot, just about the actual mechanics of arm, hands, finger mechanics, all playing the piano. And probably the same for you, for guitar. But I’ve just studied the music of these people who really understood how to play the piano at the highest technical level, if that makes sense. And there’s obviously the harmony thing, and trying to play it beautifully as well is a whole ‘nother thing. But for me, technique -- there’s only so much technique you can find in jazz. And I think there’s a reason why all four of those people you mentioned -- Herbie, Chick, McCoy, and Keith Jarrett -- are all pretty studious classical pianists as well. They’ve all done it. I think it makes sense.
ET: That’s great. On that topic, kind of, one criticism of Jarrett that I’ve seen pop up is that he’s playing in the jazz tradition, but he comes more from Bach than the blues and bebop languages. And that’s very much an opinion that you get from a certain class of jazz heads with very strict ideas about how things should be. But it’s interesting listening to your music in particular as this ostensibly jazz music that, in its influences and styles, is very far apart from the American history of blues and jazz. And you absolutely do play blues sometimes -- I was listening to ‘Jig’ this morning, and that’s got some absolutely ripping blues on it. I’m not really sure where this question is going. What is your relationship with traditional blues and bebop styles as opposed to classical or Scottish folk and trad?
FM: Well, I sort of view it as: I want to be as schooled in those traditions as possible. So if I want to claim that I’m influenced by jazz, which I definitely am -- jazz is the music that got me into playing in the first place -- but if I want to be that, I really need to know first, my history. I find it very important to be really knowledgeable about -- as knowledgeable as possible, anyways -- about the lives of these great musicians, and how jazz came to exist. Going way back to pre-Louis Armstrong, like King Oliver, and Buddy Bolden, and Jelly Roll [Morton], and all these people. Being knowledgeable about that, I think, is really important. So yeah, it’s interesting the way that I’ve done the records. ‘Cause my own music, and the way I play, I never practise that, actually, now. Maybe I would have a little bit -- probably quite a lot when I was a teenager, or when I was at college or whatever. But nowadays my practice almost entirely consists of learning, trying to be as good at playing as -- I want to be able to, like, do my own thing, but then if I go sit in and play an Art Blakey tribute gig, I want to really feel comfortable there. ‘Cause it’s really important, I think. And I didn’t used to think that, either. I used to think, you know, if you want to be a jazz musician you should just be influenced by who you like and play what you want. I think that is definitely very true, but at the very least just having a knowledge of everything that’s come before is important. And it makes you a much better musician as well, I think.
There are some people that would maybe say, “you need to transcribe a Parker solo, and you need to transcribe Coltrane, and you need to transcribe all these certain people before you can consider yourself a real player.” I don’t really think that. I think a lot of people think that you need to be amazing at bebop before you can consider anything else, and I don’t really think that either, although I do practise a lot of bebop as well. But I think it’s important, even if you’re doing your own music, to consider where your music comes from, what you’re being influenced by. ‘Cause really, ‘new music’, as a concept, doesn’t really exist in my opinion. I think music is an amalgamation of stuff. New music is created by old music. What’s that Jarrett quote? It’s something hilarious, like, “babies don’t make babies.” You know what I mean? You’ve gotta take old music to make new music. I function best when I’ve been practising bebop or stride. Stride is a huge one; I practise a lot of stride now, these days. Stride or the blues. Just being well-versed in that stuff is really important. That’s kind of my relationship to it. I really love to play it as well, it’s not a chore. I enjoy that. But yeah, I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. I think that’s really important. The best players who play their own music, you can hear the lineage in the way they play. I think it’s important. And just knowing the history of it, and respecting how it’s come to be, I think that’s really important as well.
ET: I think that would appease the jazz council. So, as you venture more into open-ended improvisation, does that come into conflict ever with the folk and trad aesthetics? I think of folk and trad as very much improvisational in terms of dynamics and interplay, but still very confined to a form, depending on the song you’re doing.
FM: Hmm. Interesting. No! Yeah, no, I don’t find it has any effect. You almost switch into different gears, I think. I was playing a folk concert yesterday, actually, just accompanying. You just do slip into different things, I think. It just is different. Yeah, I think your mind just goes to different places. It’s like you’re serving different functions. If I was to play a solo gig of fully trad tunes, I would just have a slightly different mindset. It’s just like having little different compartments that you access, and different mindsets that you access as well. But still always, you know, trying to play good music. But then, you know, a lot of the trad music that I really like as well is a lot of the stuff that is quite open ended. The best trad tunes are the ones that feel like they can just go on forever -- the really cyclical ones. I don’t know if you’ve listened to much Martin Hayes before.
ET: A bit.
FM: A bit. He’s one of my top five musicians, just ever, I think. And the best is when he’ll play a tune many, many times over, and you sit there and listen, like, “I would be happy if this tune just went on forever.” It’s that cyclical, constant thing, I find that really inspiring. And with solo improvising, a lot of what you’re looking for a lot of the time is an idea that you can just loop, and loop, and loop. ‘Cause that can be such a fun texture to explore, and you’re slightly changing it and gradually ramping up the intensity of the idea as it goes and goes. Folk musicians are absolute masters of that. There’s another really great musician at the moment, this piper called Brìghde Chaimbeul, who does the sort of thing where the tune just feels like it can go on and on. This repetitive thing, you kind of get into a groove. I find that really interesting.
ET: Back to Sketches, then. We’ve talked about how those recordings are. They’re short, and diatonic; you kind of choose a key and go with that. With the live performances, do you feel free to stretch out more and be exploratory in terms of harmony and tonal centres?
FM: Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of like that ‘hot and cold’ thing, isn’t it? If you’ve been playing for however long, like ten minutes in B minor, suddenly you want to do like five minutes where the tonality is really vague, or where there’s even no tonality. Although I don’t gravitate toward the ‘no tonality’ thing as much as maybe some other people. But I do enjoy it, it just depends how I’m feeling. But what I particularly like is if you have a really different texture, and if you have one idea — one motif — just taking that and using that motif to try and slip through lots of different keys in one go. So there’s no set key centre. I don’t know why there were no things like that on Sketches, actually, ‘cause I do enjoy that. It’s just that nothing like that came out on the day, I think. But yeah, no, I really enjoy finding that sound, definitely on live performances. If the right mindset hits in, then I do quite like looking for different chords. Particularly, sometimes it’s nice to be in a key — let’s say we’re in D minor — so I’ll have the one idea, but then you keep using that idea to create really crunchy sort of things. So you play the idea in D minor, then you play it again but you shift it. So let’s say I shift the idea to F, but I put the harmony in, I don’t know, B, or something like that. Make it really crunchy, you know? But then slip out for a second and slip back into D minor. Especially if you’ve been having the same key for ages, you slip out of it into something crazy like that, it sounds really nice. That appeals to me a lot.
ET: I’m thinking about that bit in the Köln Concert where Jarrett hits this (sings). And he keeps taking that big, grand gesture and moving it around. It works so smoothly, because it’s just one big thing, but he takes it anywhere he wants.
FM: Yeah, I find that very inspiring, actually. That really motivates me. Yeah, I love that, it’s great.
ET: I’d like to ask about your experience at RCS and working with Tommy Smith and the faculty there. I’m not super familiar with his output, but what I have heard I associate with the late 20th-century ECM-ish European sound. Listening to RCS grads and students like yourself, I don’t hear very much of that. What is the approach to teaching jazz there, and do you think it’s modelled in Tommy’s image? Or has it spun off into its own, independent ‘Glasgow sound’?
FM: I think the course is quite free-wheeling, to be honest. The thing was that you get made to do a lot of composition. And when you do these compositions, for some classes you get a certain briefing, like “write a composition for this scale or this style” or whatever. But as the course goes on it’s more “write a composition, bring it in, and then we’ll talk about it.” And I think there’s not so much an ‘RCS sound’, in the way that there is for some other colleges, maybe. ‘Cause it’s quite diverse, the music that comes out of there. I think it’s not as prescriptive, maybe, as other courses. No, I think Tommy is good in that way! I think he’s really up for people being different, which is cool. And that’s what makes a lot of these quite individual musicians come out, ‘cause they’ve been able to explore that side of things. They’ve not been made to do too much of a single thing. No, it’s good, actually. It’s very — ‘free’ is the wrong word — very open to how you interpret certain assignments and so on. It’s very healthy, I think.
ET: I feel like you play in a very — this feels like a word that’s lost a lot of meaning — but in a very ‘pianistic’ style. Doing things that can only be achieved on that instrument. Do you find that that’s something that you see in yourself? And is it something that was encouraged at RCS; to play to your instrument’s strengths? Or was it a more general, “learn jazz, listen to sax players, etc.”?
FM: You know what, I think they kind of encouraged the opposite. It’s interesting to hear you say that, ‘cause I hadn’t heard someone say that about my playing before, that it’s pianistic. But I think you are right; that’s a classical thing, I suppose. I do enjoy certain aspects of the piano, and there are things on it that you can’t do on other instruments. But I mean honestly, a big part of it was you would do these big transcription projects where you’d do a huge solo or something, and a lot of the time they would say, “you can pick what you want, but you should consider picking a transcription that’s not your instrument.” I’ve transcribed, probably, more Coltrane than anything else. But I find that really interesting. So yeah, that wasn’t really encouraged, but maybe it’s something I’ve just ended up doing. Because I’ve got into this classical thing. Interesting. Most of the transcriptions I’ve done have not been piano players. So no, I don’t think so, actually. Maybe that’s just — I think ‘cause I’m such a nerd about how the piano works, trying to make it work well and stuff — maybe that’s just the path I’ve gone down, I suppose. I don’t know.
ET: Do you still transcribe regularly, and is it still more non-piano focused?
FM: Really not that much. To be honest, I’ve never been a big transcriber. I’ve transcribed somewhere between ten and twenty solos in my life. Not that many. I mean, some people do hundreds upon hundreds in their life. It’s just not a way of learning — I really enjoy doing it when I do it, but there were just other things I knew I needed to work on. I didn’t need a transcription to tell me what I wanted to work on. But nowadays I kinda get my transcriptions from my students, to be honest. I’ve done two transcriptions this year, both ones that my students were doing. One was a Coltrane solo, one was actually a Kenny Kirkland solo. I did both of them just ‘cause my student was doing it as well, and it’s easier for me to teach them about the transcription if I’ve also transcribed it. And it’s an excuse for me to do a transcription, as well. Of my own volition, no. I mean, I’ve sort of applied the same transcription process to Martin Hayes recordings, trying to really get the way that he plays the tunes, the way he ornaments stuff; try to really get that down. But otherwise, yeah no, I don’t transcribe that much.
ET: You mentioned your practice routine, which sounds pretty intense. You’re touring and performing often; does that impact your practice at all?
FM: Yeah, very much. There are a lot of tours where I just don’t practise, ‘cause it’s not possible, really. I quite like that stretch sometimes. When you’ve been practising a lot, then you go on tour for a week, and you don’t do any practice but you’re playing every night. It’s interesting to see what happens to your playing in that way. Maybe you’re — I don’t even think that’s true. The stuff that’s in your hands if you’re playing every day is still staying in your hands. If you play every night and you’re not practising, you’re really getting a chance to settle into the stuff that you’ve been practising. No, touring makes a big impact on practising — I can’t practise when I’m touring, basically. But it kind of is what it is. It’s worth it to be able to tour. Sometimes I’ll get a bit of a soundcheck, or if there’s a day with not much travel I’ll go and find a room in the city and play a little bit. But that just is what it is. Ideally I’d be able to do my four hours a day or whatever, but it’s not that feasible with an adult life. You just do it when you can.
ET: To wrap up, I’d like to ask: what’s an aspect of your playing that you love?
FM: Oh, I don’t know. I suppose a lot of musicians probably say now that they hate all of their playing. I think I’ve managed to keep a good enough mindset to not say that. I have so much stuff to improve. (pause). I don’t know, actually. I think I’ve been lucky — I don’t think I’m naturally a very good musician, personally, I think I’ve had to work really hard to be good; I’ve done a lot of practice. But I think one of the things that I’ve been able to do is turn off that voice in your head that’s saying, like — you know, just being able to let loose on the piano in that way. I think that’s what I value most in a player: when they really are themselves, and aren’t thinking the silly little thoughts that come into their head, like, “oh, is everyone going to like this,” or, “is this appropriate,” or whatever. Yeah, I would say that. I really value that, ‘cause I think it wouldn’t be as fun if I had that kind of voice. So I value that in my own playing, just being able to improvise and turn off that [voice]. It’s something I can’t do when I’m playing classical music, actually. I haven’t found out how to do that yet — how to play a classical piece and really lose myself in it. I’m always thinking, “ah, that note wasn’t loud enough,” or, “that phrase wasn’t quite correct,” or, “I played a wrong note.” In jazz, I can really switch off. It’s that way to switch off, and just do. I value that, definitely.
Fergus McCreadie’s new solo EP, Sketches, is available to purchase on Bandcamp. He is performing on December 13th with Matt Carmichael at the Glasgow Art Club, and on New Year's Day with his trio at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh.
Idionomadic will always be free to read, but if you like what I do please consider subscribing at the link below (this is also free!). It just lets me know that people are reading and encourages me to write more frequently.