LondonJazz News: What drew you first to the piano?
Frank Harrison: My sister was taking piano lessons so we had an old Victorian upright in the house. One holiday when I was 11 we listened to a lot of Billie Holiday, and I really liked the melodies and harmonies in those tunes. So when I got home I started trying to figure them out.
LJN: Who was the teacher who left the biggest mark on you?
FH: Peter Pettinger. He was a great classical pianist but also loved jazz. He introduced me to Bill Evans (of whom he wrote a brilliant biography) and that was a big revelation. Although he knew a lot of jazz theory, he took Bill’s attitude towards tuition: that you can show someone some chords, or a melodic or rhythmic idea, but then they’re just borrowing it from you. But if you let them find it for themselves, it’s theirs. So we talked about bigger things – the sound you get from the instrument, the overall shape of a solo. He taught me to focus on those things rather than on individual notes.
LJN: Was there a sequence in the way you got to know jazz after that?
FH: Yes – actually from Billie Holiday onwards I worked pretty much chronologically. I needed to hear each movement of jazz before I understood the next. I remember loving Blue Trane but hating A Love Supreme! Since then I feel like my musical life has been about removing those set ideas about what I like and don’t like, and becoming open to more and more music.
LJN: When I hear your playing I always find there is a strong melodic line and logic. Is that something that’s important to you?
FH: Yes. I try to play what I hear rather than what my conscious brain might come up with. I think that way you’re more in tune with the listener too – if you want a break in the line, they’re probably ready for one too. I think that’s something that Peter instilled in me from early on.
LJN: You’re a pianist of choice in a number of other bands, right?
FH: I guess so! I’ve got a few projects on the go at the moment. I’ve been playing with Gilad Atzmon’s Orient House Ensemble for fourteen years now and we’ll be touring a new album from January. I think it’s our strongest one so far. And I’ve just finished a tour with the Sirkis/Bialis International Quartet, which was a great experience. Asaf and Sylwia wrote some very deep music for that band, it’s unlike anything else I’ve played or heard. Now I’m starting a tour with Tommaso Starace playing music he composed for the photos of Gianni Berengo Gardin. It’s great – very melodic, and with a lot of humour. And I’ve got a new duo album with singer Edith van den Heuvel about to come out. I’m really happy with that one, it’s very intimate and beautifully recorded.
LJN: How long have you been working with Enzo Zirilli and Dave Whitford?
FH: We started playing together a couple of years ago. They’re both incredibly inspiring musicians to work with. Enzo kind of fits into Louis Armstrong’s definition of jazz: he never plays the same way once. He’s always improvising, always searching, and finds some very beautiful and unusual places. Dave is my ideal bass player. He’s got a perfect balance of rooting things when they need to be rooted, combined with a lot of freedom. Like Enzo, there’s no ego there – he just listens and plays what needs to be played.
LJN: How is this album is different from your others?
FH: The biggest difference is that it’s live! Our previous albums have always involved a lot of preparation, finding the right studio, writing and rehearsing the music… This one was never intended to be an album. We were on tour promoting our Lunaris album and I stuck my digital recorder on stage just to have my own record of what we were doing. But when I listened back to our gig at The Verdict in Brighton I heard something that’s very hard to capture in the studio. Playing close together in a great room and to an attentive audience lets you take risks, and - importantly - have fun. You’re not making judgments about what’s happening, you’re not wondering “is this the take”? You’re just listening and responding, so the music really plays itself.
We then spent a day in the studio mastering it – polishing it as much as we could, trying to bring the piano out a bit… The end result isn’t something that ECM would release but there’s something nice and honest about it.
LJN: In what formats are you making it available?
FH: Since it was free to record, I decided to make the MP3 version of the album free to download. But as some people still like physical objects, we also printed a CD with a bonus track.
LJN: What gigs have you got coming up?
FH: We’ve got a couple of gigs in December to celebrate the new album. On the 3rd we’re at the Albion Beatnik in Oxford (the bonus track on the CD was from a gig we did in Oxford). And then on December 12th we’re back at The Verdict in Brighton. We’ll also be doing a London launch in the spring.