Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: I was born in Surrey in England and studied there until going to university in Norwich. I always had an intimate connection with music and did my first performance winning a talent show at 5 years old. I started piano lessons at 8 years old and it just made sense to me. However this was a time when the classical grades were the only option and by my mid teens I was bored of the constraints and required precision of classical repertoire. I had discovered jazz via a residential music course having started in the wind band and moving over to the jazz orchestra the following year. I loved the genre of jazz but it didn’t feel relevant to my life, until Harry Connick jr burst onto the international scene and showed me how jazz could be modern and relevant whilst still swinging like crazy. I now can see how authentic his approach was, having grown up in New Orleans, had lessons from James Booker and Ellis Marsalis, and included New Orleans luminaries such as Leroy Jones, Lucien Barbarin, and Shannon Powell in his band. I have interviewed and recorded with Leroy in the last few years and it has been fascinating hearing about that band and time ‘from the inside’, reaffirming my thoughts and feelings about the importance of that project and the influence it had on me. I joined SC.Y.J.O. on piano and through these weekly rehearsals met kindred spirits, kids like those I knew at school, but who, like me, also had a love for jazz, funk, the blues. Jazz education wasn’t what it is now, there was little access to anything that could help you develop, no internet, few teachers around, only one jazz degree at Leeds Uni which handpicked the cream of the crop, and the physical Real Book only available under the counter from certain shops in London. Discovering music often required taking a leap of faith in a record/CD store. Jazz FM became my go to place for accessing the UK jazz scene and I was amazed that I could hear music on the radio, then spend 30 mins on the train and go and see these incredible musicians performing in town at venues like The Archduke and Smollensky’s On The Strand, as well as the major London venues. I was stuck in a halfway house, considering myself further musically developed than others in my school, but not getting the support I needed to increase my skills sufficiently to consider music in higher education. My own musical development was therefore very much self-taught and happened alongside my academic studies. At university (though I was not studying music) I met like-minded musicians, one (Claire Brock) even appears on this album. I learned through the jazz standards, whilst also composing my own music. After uni I started gigging locally and after seeing Jamie Cullum explode in the early ’00s decided to quit my graduate job and move to the capital to follow my musical dreams. It was here that I feel my music education really began, first talking about music with musicians at gigs, then having 121 lessons with recommended teachers on the scene. Appearing on Jazz FM’s Discovery show gave me a little boost and within a year of moving to the city I was gigging 5 nights a week. Bouncing around the London music scene was a formative time, meeting and playing with some top musicians on the scene, doing my own gigs, then heading into Soho to hang at institutions like the Ronnie Scott’s Late Late Show, meeting more world-class musicians and getting invited to play from time to time. I even found myself playing gigs with one member of Jamie Cullum’s original trio, Geoff Gascoyne, and recording with another, Seb De Krom. I have historically struggled to align my contemporary upbringing and connection with popular music, with my love of swinging jazz and improvisation. Artists like Jamie Cullum and E.ST. helped me see that crossing genres was possible, but it was on my 2019 trip to New Orleans that I was exposed to a complete openness to mixing and merging musical idioms and felt inspired to just allow the music from within me, inspired by my own unique upbringing (in space and time), to be let out. The result is my latest album, my first originals album in over 25 years.
Sorry that answer was far longer than intended!
Q: Can you describe the musical style of Robin Phillips in three words?
A: Jazz, blues, pop.
Q: How do you stay connected with your fans, and what role do they play in shaping your musical journey?
A: E-newsletters, social networks, but most importantly at gigs. My career has mostly been comprised of regular small audience gigs (although I have also enjoyed the thrill of large audiences many times) and I thrive on regular connections and discussions with the audience, often finding out things I did not know about my music and performances direct from the audience. I was involved in a major tour last year as a side man and not having the chance to engage with the audience after gigs was a strange experience.
Q: Return From The Source is your first album of originals in over 20 years. What made this the right time for you to release it?
A: See my answer to the first question as a starter. First, it was my Chicago to New Orleans motorbike road trip (that became the award-winning ‘Back To The Source’ independent documentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSadbKwVgU), giving me the confidence to let my own blend and interpretation of my favoured music genres come to the surface. Secondly, age and parenthood. As much as I love re-harming and re-interpreting the existing jazz standard canon with a modern perspective, I became acutely aware that in order to try to make my own mark on the musical world, and leave something meaningful behind, it had to be original.
Q: What is your favorite track from the album and why?
A: No-one’s asked me that yet! Obviously, as I wrote them, each one has meaning, as they all take me back to the memories described in the song, or the experiences of creating them. I like the musical journey I went on with ‘Muddy Water’, inspired by an interview I did with UK jazz pianist Jason Rebello where we talked about realising you need to work more on your own playing in order to realise the music you can hear in your head. I like the story in ‘See What You Wanna’, inspired by the book South Of Haunted Dreams by Eddy L. Harris, and enhanced beautifully by the cello and vocals of Natalie Rozario. ‘Ode To NOLA’ was the first composition on the album and its simplicity and energetic vibe has been reflected in being the most popular track so far. Musically I’m really proud of ‘I’m Coming Home’, it’s clever from a harmony perspective but also melodic despite this. This was something I always respected in Stevie Wonder’s music, the songs are so singable yet the music underneath it is musically genius. If I had to choose one right now it would be between ‘Muddy Water’ and ‘I’m Coming Home’… let’s go with ‘Muddy Water’…
Q: How did your travels shape the way you approached songwriting for this album?
A: My travels were pivotal in the creation and inspiration for this album. Firstly, experiencing completely different musical cultures and social backstories for inspiration. Songs on the album are inspired by New Orleans, Clarksdale Mississippi, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Sam Phillips and Memphis, England, and the global jazz community. Secondly, the reading I did to prepare for that trip, took me to many fascinating books about the places and the history, also shaping my thoughts and musical inspiration. Lastly, escaping from the English (perhaps even European) scene long enough to realise it doesn’t always have to be a certain way, and that all musical approaches can be relevant, and worthy.
Q: You worked with an incredible lineup of musicians from around the world. How did you bring together such a diverse group?
A: This was mostly due to the lockdown. During the pandemic I was able to try something I’d wanted to do more of for a long time, presenting. I have been told over the years that I am able to share my passion and knowledge well at gigs and should try presenting. Over the course of a year when gigs had disappeared I started producing and presenting a weekly 2-hour jazz show called ‘The Jazz Show With Robin Phillips’ for Delux Radio. Each show included an interview with a jazz musician from somewhere around the world. The fact we were all in the same situation meant that everyone had time. The conversations we had were insightful and fascinating. Interviewees included New Orleans’ Leroy Jones (Harry Connick jr), Paris-based Cuban bassist Damian Nueva (Netflix’s The Eddy), and NYC drummer Billy Kilson (Chris Botti, Dave Holland). These connections enabled me to approach them all to be involved in the album, having connected on a meaningful level during the interviews. On the English side I worked with members of my Pinstripe Suit swing band, and musicians from my more ‘straight ahead’ jazz trio, depending on the vibe of the song. Having developed my own recording studio over the proceeding 5 years, I was able to take the time to allow each song to be realised appropriately for the composition and content. I’d been working with electric guitarist Neil Cowlan and knew his vibe would match the bluesy / funky tone of some of the songs, and have worked with cellist/vocalist Natalie Rozario for many years in other projects and wanted to incorporate her with this project on certain songs. You wouldn’t start with a piano trio and think adding electric guitar and cello would be a workable idea, but it just seemed to come together.
Q: How do you see Return From The Source fitting into today’s music landscape?
A: It doesn’t and that’s a challenge for getting it out there. It’s ‘jazz adjacent’ at best, not quite bluesy enough for the blues scene. It’s definitely singer songwriter and sometimes pop-leaning, but never enough to comfortably sit there either. In the modern world of playlisting this can be a big barrier to promoting the music. Music these days needs to sit very neatly within a genre, not just for reviews and media coverage, but especially for playlisting on streaming networks. However, genres are being crossed and redefined all the time in the modern landscape, especially as each new generation grows up less directly connected to the history and drawing inspiration from various areas (musically and geographically) all easily accessible across the internet.
My hope is that the music will find its way to an audience in its own way, perhaps song by song, radio show by radio show, festival by festival, and performance by performance. I’ve been surprised and delighted to learn that the songs can be received just as well inserted into one of my swing band gigs, as in one of my pop gigs.. music is music as they say!
Q: Exploring the diverse creative processes within the music industry is always fascinating. Could you provide insight into Robin’s unique approach to crafting music? From the initial spark of an idea to the finished song, how do you navigate the creative journey and bring its musical concepts to life?
A: Historically I’ve composed at a piano, coming up with a musical idea, riff, or motif, and composing the song around it. This can lead you in certain musical directions based on what you see in front of you as a pianist and I wanted to avoid that for this project. I’d also been keeping written notes, thoughts, and even poems whilst travelling which meant to songs were already coming into existence in a different way. I decided to try and compose the main musical idea away from the piano: whilst running, in the shower, driving etc, and then take it to the piano to develop and bring some musical and harmonic context. This lead to some interesting song forms and also some of the songs required a much simpler harmony behind it to let the song become what it needed to become.
I also wanted the musicians involved to have an impact on the music, so some of them evolved during the recording process. The brass in ‘Muddy Water’ was actually composed in the moment of recording. I had the idea to come up with 3 different brass lines and call them A, B, and C. I would then call out a random letter from the control booth in the headphones during the recording, to put the different lines together in a unique way, to try to avoid any obvious arranging.
I’ve also learned that whilst I ‘can’ arrange everything, brass players know their instruments best, and string players know their area of expertise best, and so on. So I asked musicians involved in the project to help finalise the arrangements to try and make it as natural sounding as possible.
Q: As we wrap up our conversation, looking ahead, what aspirations or dreams do you have for Robin Phillips, and what message would you like to share with your fans as they continue to accompany you on this musical journey?
A: I would love for this project to be given the opportunity to grow as big as it has the capacity to. Hopefully if some venues and festivals take the chance at programming it, I know it will connect with the audience, as we’ve seen happen as we start to roll out the songs in different situations in the build up to the album launch.
For those listening, I would ask them to listen in closely to the lyrics and stories, because hopefully outside of being a collection of ‘nice tunes’, there are some deep and powerful stories housed within them.
For those following my journey, I pledge to always give all that I have in the pursuit of making music, using every skill and experience I have at my disposal. One thing I took from the New Orleans scene was that it doesn’t matter how big the audience, or how prestigious the gig, you give your all to the music every time. I’ve found this also makes my existence as a professional musician much more fulfilling.
LIVE SHOW: https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/robin-phillips-return-from-the-source
