Partisans 10-year celebrations

A monthly residency at the Vortex

Yes it’s scary but true, Partisans have now been together as a regular working band for ten years and they are celebrating this with a monthly residency at the Vortex beginning March 30th.

For the unfamiliar, Partisans are: Julian Siegel (saxes, bass clarinet), Phil Robson (guitar), Thaddeus Kelly (bass) and Gene Calderazzo (drums).

The band has had the same personnel for the duration, a very rare thing these days, so anything you have seen on Spinal Tap has happened to this band and more.

Readers could trace back to earlier collaborations between leaders Siegel and Robson but the band as it stands has been a major underground voice on the improvised music scene in Europe and far beyond.

The band have recorded three CDs, which, although a modest output, were the result of long touring periods where the material was played-in to the point where traditional composer credits for tunes were merely signifiers of the essence of the tunes, as the various members of the band had put such an individual stamp on them that any original parts would be unrecognisable.

The band have also been recorded many times for radio, won awards, toured all over Europe and have also collaborated with many fine musicians such as Wayne Krantz, Jim Watson (our special guest March 30th), Chris Batchelor, Thebe Lipere and Pat Thomas – to mention a few.

Enough of the biog! It’s hard to imagine if you glance at the current programme of the Vortex or London Jazz Festival or Cheltenham Festival from last year, but when I became a professional musician in 1989, the modern jazz scene in London was split into factions, up to a point.

Firstly there was the ‘straight-ahead scene’. This largely consisted of older players from the great legacy of Ronnie’s and earlier modern jazz scene in Britain.

There was the ‘fusion’ scene, which was virtuosic, tight and stunning with strong rock and funk influences.

There was the ‘free scene’ which was another very poor name as it included all sorts of great stuff from post Coltrane/Ornette free jazz to improvising artists, poetry, film etc etc.

Then there was the scene that some musicians of the time called ‘wholemeal’. This was another silly name that referred to the musicians that been very influenced by the great contribution that South African musicians had given to the scene here as well as by other diverse musicians from around the globe such as Hermeto Pascual as well as by Jarrett, Wheeler, Surman etc.

This is, of course, leaving aside the great wealth of traditional and mainstream jazz which I was not really part of at the time.

Of course, all of these musicians played with each other and crossed over into all kinds of musical settings as they always do, and we can all list so many musicians who transcended all of this, but these were the main elements that were in front of me as a 19-year-old who was trying to get his playing together and start to play on the scene.

Needless to say, I loved all of this music and tried to soak up as much as possible. It did, however, leave me feeling a little confused as I didn’t particularly want to chose between these camps.

And I was in love, as I am now, with the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Rollins, Ornette, Armstrong and so much of the American jazz history, as well as with Led Zep, Jimi Hendrix and a short lifetime of soaking up English pop music such as Bowie, Lennon, Rotten etc etc. It was in that year that I played my first gig at Vortex, which went on to be so significant to us later, then a relatively new club.

A lot of exciting things happened for me between ’89 & ’97 the year of the first Partisans tour. I met Julian Seigel, (Wig) in 2001. He seemed to be into so many of the same things musically, brought new musical things, and of course, was out of his mind and had extra ordinary talent.

We both moved into a hideous house with two other musicians in East Ham where we had only an outside toilet and our armed local shop had chicken wire all around the counter. I was the guy with the TV.

We played music all day and night for a year and used to get great players like Stan Sultzman to come over and jam. Miraculously, the locals seemed to dig it. As soon as we got girlfriends we moved out one by one but it was great and a very formative time and we were seeing gigs like Paul Motion Trio, Scofield’s bands, Dave Holland with Steve Coleman and so many things that had huge a impression on us as well as being influenced by people we were playing with such as Julian Arguelles, Christine Tobin, Django etc.

Into the mid ‘90s there was a huge wave of younger players, largely from the background of Leeds college and Manchester who added a great rounding of the scene and it felt right to start thinking about writing music and going out on the road with our own band.

I met Gene in 95. He came to London from New York City like a hurricane. The first time we met we fought like cats and dogs then laughed like hell afterwards – so I knew I had to play with him. He made me think anything was possible (and still does) and he is one of the most exciting drummers in the world.

Thad had hit the scene around the same time as me and I already knew he was the perfect 'subversive' bass player. He has a serious creative clarity to anything he does which is quite frightening!

The first tour in 97 was the most exciting time of my life. These lunatics would just veto tunes on stage (with hands in pockets vibe), stop playing at any moment, play any tempo or any part of a tune at any time etc etc.

OK, OK, so we’ve had a lot of fun, but I would like to think that we have carried this over to the audience whilst at the same time playing music with a real love of punk, swing, rock, hip hop, samba, bebop, free impro etc whilst keeping a healthy and necessary irreverence for all of it, and in a way that could only sound like us.

There are so many bands now that play music from similar and other diverse influences and it is great to see that people accept it so easily now. It is very hard to categorise the music you see in the Vortex and in places like Tonic in NYC. Nu Jazz is a description I have even used myself in flyers which basically means ‘we can’t describe it anymore’. It could be this that keeps live music the unique experience it is.

We are really looking forward to this residency and we intend to have a real assortment of guests whilst keeping the quartet as the nucleus. I feel a new CD is imminent!

Speaking of names and labels, ‘Partisans' was the name of a tune on our first CD. The title was suggested by Christine Tobin as it was originally intended to be a song about the French resistance.

We noticed after a while that everybody seemed to advertise us as this in the press so we went with it. I suppose these things take on a life of their own as much as the music does.

Whatever you call it, come and join in the celebrations.

Phil Robson

Please visit
www.partisans.org.uk
http://www.myspace.com/thebandpartisans
www.babellabel.co.uk
www.jazzcds.co.uk

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Partisans 10-year celebrations

A monthly residency at the Vortex