9. Roland KirkI Talk With The Spirits
I love Roland Kirk’s stuff, it’s always got these mad quirky bits in it, a bit like Mingus or like Monk, but very unique to him. It’s a really sweet record, really beautiful, and again it has a link to nature and spirituality. It’s deep but it has a lot of humour. Charming arrangements and melodies and a real lightness of touch. I love all those things where you hear him growl on the flute or shout or let off one of his conches.
The jazz a lot of people would associate with you would be the stuff that informed The Style Council. Cool school stuff like Dave Brubeck. Do you still listen to that music?
I still like that stuff, but I think I’ve got a better appreciation of it now really. I remember someone buying me A Love Supreme a few years ago and I couldn’t make head or fucking tail of it. I don’t know why. But I listened to it again later and it made the most sense to me ever. Sometimes you just have to be ready in life to receive something, whether it’s music, an emotion or anything. You have to be ready for it. I don’t have any ambition to play jazz but it still influences my music in different ways. Just the fact you can be free and it doesn’t matter if you go out of time or your horn squeaks or your guitar goes out of tune. I worked with Robert Wyatt and he taught me that. He likes all the noises, the scratchy noises on a guitar, or whatever. They’re as important to him as the real notes you’re playing. I like that. For him that comes from jazz and free jazz, and that’s an influence on me as well. It’s about the whole picture. It doesn’t matter if something’s gone a bit out of time or out of tune if it adds to the charm of the track.
