Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2013
Ushered into the world in Kent, England, expatriate British pianist and singer-songwriter Jon Cleary has devoted his life to the music and culture of New Orleans. From boogie-woogie to gospel, on to jazz and “junker” blues, he is viewed by many as one of the finest interpreters of the city’s flavorsome musical traditions. Following an acclaimed May tour of Japan, Cleary is back for a two-week trawl through Japan’s bars and live houses. Metropolis caught up with him for a quick Q&A ahead of his arrival.
Tell us about your first musical experiences: how did you become a pianist?
My first musical experiences were as a child looking at my father’s fingers on the neck of his guitar and watching him tap out complex syncopated rhythms on the arm rest of the sofa in our front room as he day dreamed. There would be parties at my house with my Dad’s friends who were musicians and I’d be allowed to stay up if I sang a song or two.
I started finding notes on the guitar from day one, messing with the piano too, but it wasn’t until I got to New Orleans that I started moving towards the deep end of the piano and concentrating on that. My first piano gig happened by accident as a teenager when the regular Tuesday night piano player (James Booker) was late and they asked me to play to keep the ticket audience occupied till he got there.
Tell us about your first song.
I’ve been making up songs since I was a child, can’t remember the first one. The first tune I put on record was called “Go Ahead Baby That’s Fine.” I wrote it in England the first time I went back and have been thinking lately about bringing it back into the set with my band. The piano intro was inspired by Dr John and James Booker. I thought of it as an old style Jazz tune but Dr John described it to me as ‘Fonk’. That’s when I realized that the word meant something slightly different in New Orleans.
How are you taking the New Orleans tradition into the future?
The only way you know if something’s been taken into the future is when someone else years later looks back. I don’t worry too much about that. There’s a great TS Elliot essay about the process by which something new subsequently becomes part of ‘tradition.’ It’s not a science and has a lot to do with factors beyond the control of mere musicians. All I can do is absorb as much good music as possible and hope that by the time it’s gone through my assimilation process some aspects emerge in what I play (mostly in an altered form) and that if I do it enough there might be occasions when I stumble across something new that someone else in turn might pick up on. That’s how it gets handed down and passed on.
Any new songs in the works?
I’m working on a new album right now, nearly finished. It has some great local musicians on it including the Dirty Dozen, Big D and a good friend of mine, Nigel Hall, a phenomenal player and singer from New York who just moved to New Orleans. It’s going to be soulful, fun and fonky. Should be coming out next year.
Tell us about your Japan visits so far and what you have planned for Tokyo.
I’ve enjoyed all my visits to Japan so far. I’ve always been treated very kindly there and found the audiences to be genuinely enthusiastic about the music and well informed about the background, which makes my job easier.
What does music mean to you – why do you think it exists?
They have yet to find a society on earth that doesn’t make music. They’ve also yet to find a reason. I can only speak for myself. For me it’s like breathing. It’s a bodily function, something my brain does 24 hours a day. It’s like having a radio on in the background—I choose to turn it up and focus on it when it’s doing something that grabs my attention but it’s usually just playing away unbidden, running through scales, re-playing snippets of old tunes. I tune in to it when I go onstage, let it play through my fingers, then everyone else can hear it too.
Akasaka Hub, September 28; Thumbs Up, September 30; Tokyo Women’s Plaza, October 12; Cay, October 14.
Info: buffalo-records.com/newstopics/info/JonSoloE.html
2 pairs of tickets are available free to the Oct 14 show. Email bsr@buffalo-records.com with “Metropolis giveaway” in the subject line.
