Canadian Originals is a series by Will Chernoff featuring exclusive long-form interviews with Cellar Music artists from Canada. In edition 2 of this series, Will talks to bassist and composer Neil Swainson about his sextet album Here for a While (release date: September 6, 2024). On the album, Neil perfects his bass tone, writes for three horns for the first time in his career, and meets old and new friends in peak form.
Neil has played professionally while based out of Toronto for over 45 years and has recorded with Woody Shaw, George Shearing, and many more great artists.
Will is a bassist best known for his Vancouver jazz website, Rhythm Changes. He spoke to Neil by phone on August 10, 2024.
NEIL SWAINSON: Hello?
WILL CHERNOFF: Hi Neil, it's Will Chernoff for Cory Weeds and Cellar.
NS: How are you doing?
WC: I'm doing great, how's your Saturday morning back east going?
NS: So far so good, just give me a second, I’m going to wash my hands, and I’ll be right with you, okay?
WC: Okay!
NS: Thanks...
Sorry about that, I was just watering some plants, and I had it on my hands. So, you can hear me okay?
WC: Yeah! Do you have a lot of house plants, or like a house garden indoors, outdoors? What's your situation?
NS: No, it’s just, I’ve got a couple on the front porch, they’re kind of covered, so they don’t get rained on. They gotta get watered, so that’s what I was going there. Anyways... so yeah, so how are you doing?
WC: I'm doing well, it's only nine AM here in Coquitlam, so I'm chilling.
NS: Sorry about that [laughs].
WC: Oh no, it's good [laughs]. Yeah, congrats on a great album.
NS: Oh, thank you.
WC: I've had the chance to listen to it in full ahead of its release here at Cellar, with Cory providing that for me. And I really enjoy it, along with all your stuff.
NS: Thanks, man.
WC: And I heard you at Jazz at the Bolt, this year, [to] play the music.
NS: Oh, did you? Oh, that’s right, that was before we recorded it. Yeah.
WC: It was only a day or two before you recorded it, right?
NS: It was. Literally a day before, yeah. So that was the first time any of us had seen the music together. I mean, everyone had their parts, so we had a brief rehearsal in the morning and then we played the gig in the evening, and that was it.
WC: Now, you had history with everybody, probably, right? Because most of the band is coming back from your previous Cellar album, Fire in the West, except for Quincy Davis on drums.
NS: Right, and I’ve had history with Quincy [Davis, on drums]. the only guy I didn’t have a history with was Steve Davis, the trombone player, who I’ve heard and admired for many years. But I hadn’t actually met him. When I pitched the idea to Cory of making it a sextet instead of a quintet, he suggested we use trombone, and Renee [Rosnes, the pianist] suggested a couple of people, and I opted for Steve, because I like the way he sounds and [inaudible] worked in the past. I wanted to ask to work with him, so that's how that came about. Quincy and I had worked together in Vancouver previously. In fact we also did a record with Brad Turner [who plays trumpet on this album], and he's on Brad Turner's record, so I've played with him a couple of times before. We did a brief little tour of Vancouver, Victoria, and stuff five years ago, before covid. So that’s, I have played with everybody, some of them for many years. Renee, we go way back. So yeah.
WC: And that's Brad's recent album on Cellar, The Magnificent.
NS: That's correct. Yeah. It was good to reconnect with Quincy on that one. It’s always great to play with Brad, who’s one of my favourite trumpet players ever.
WC: Yeah. I love the Brad Turner / Kelly Jefferson [who plays saxophone on this album] front line, now on two records of that in the last couple of years for you.
NS: Me too, I mean, I had played with them the previous summer, we did a little gig in Bamfield and the two of them were available. We had a nice band up there for a music concert [series] we did called Music by the Sea. The way they sounded together was magical. Both of their sounds, and the way they blend, and the way they play in tune together, it’s like another instrument, it's not like two separate guys. That was astonishing to hear. I wanted to duplicate that on the first record, and I wanted to keep it together on the second one, for the same reason, and Steve Davis fit in perfectly with the wonderful sound he's got. I’m all about the Duke Ellington thing, you know: the sound of the players influences the sound of the music.
WC: Yeah, absolutely. I love that you already mentioned that you have a long history with Renee, because this week, I went and I listened digitally to [the album] Free Trade.
NS: Oh yeah, that’s way back there, yeah! That’s 35 years ago.
WC: I enjoyed that.
NS: Yeah [...] we had a nice tour there, that was the 80s or something. I’m trying to remember when that was, it was a long time ago. ‘89, maybe?
WC: Is when you recorded it like 1989 or 1990, you're saying? Yeah.
NS: Yeah, so I've known her since those days. I mean, I probably met her before that, too, but it was first time I could recall playing with her for more than maybe a tune. And yeah, we’ve been playing off-and-on ever since. She’s one of my favourite musicians and a great musician, so I wanted to have her on, yeah.
WC: That band is called Free Trade because it's all Canadians who – except for you, actually – moved to the US, right? You're the one who did not.
NS: That's right. Yeah. So I was, the default. Well, I mean, free trade is a mutual agreement between two countries, so I was the other side. But, yeah, no, that's the reason, yeah.
WC: Yeah, Ralph Bowen, Peter Leitch, Renee, Terry Clarke, and you.
NS: That's right, and they all lived in the States, except for me at that time, yeah.
WC: And you have an original on that album that I listened to, called “Lucky One”.
NS: Oh yeah. Forgot about that thing.
WC: It sounds to me like I hear the continuity between that tune and what's on your current records, you know, I mean, the production style is very different, but the composition and the ensemble sound, it sounds very continuous with what you do now, for sure.
NS: Ah yeah, well, I guess I’m writing the same tune over and over [laughs].
WC: [Laughs.] Variations, and that just the standard of listening and musicianship and stuff in that idiom – that post-bop or whatever you would call the different terrain that you cover–
NS: Yeah.
WC: It's there, it's all there too. Of course, even over 35 years of time elapsed, the standard is still so high.
NS: Well thank you!
WC: I also recently finished reading the Fraser MacPherson book that Cory and Cellar published.
NS: Oh yeah, I haven't read that yet.
WC: You’re quoted in it!
NS: Well, somebody interviewed me or something. I don't know what I said. What did I say [laughs]?
WC: I should’ve tracked down exactly when you were quoted and what you said, but certainly I think one of the themes when they brought in your interview material was the Concord jazz label. Because there's the connection with your album 49th Parallel that was reissued on Cellar Music, Reel to Real. You played with George Shearing, and he recorded for Concord. And Fraser recorded for Concord.
NS: That's right, yeah. And then, Ian McDougall, Rob McConnell, a few people records for did Concord either, you know, not because of me, but people that I knew. It was helpful. Carl Jefferson was helpful in getting a lot of those people out there, and me especially.
WC: Here’s an open-ended one for you that I’m curious about, because it was all before my time. And it's interesting, because the book actually compares Cory to Carl in a brief moment. And you know, I know Cory well here, but can you tell me about Carl Jefferson?
NS: Well, as much as I can. I mean, when I met Carl, he had a fairly successful label, Concord, which he started on his own. He had a, I think a car dealership or two, at least one, in Concord, California. And he really liked straight-ahead, swing-style jazz. So he put out records by people like, well, Carl Fontana, Woody Herman, Rosemary Clooney, Scott Hamilton, Warren Vaché, those really great modern swing players, that kind of idiom, that style of music.
He approached George Shearing about recording for him. So George signed a contract with him, and as a result, he had a tour of Japan, which I got to go on. Now, I wasn't playing with George at the time. I was filling in for Don Thompson. I was like Don's sub, and when Don couldn't make a gig, which was usually in the summertime because he taught at Banff, I would go to wherever George went, which is often London or somewhere overseas that Don couldn't make. So for a couple of years I did that, and that was one of the gigs where instead of just filling in for Don, Don had actually left.
I was playing with George in Japan, and George had gone through an immigration procedure with Don to get him a green card, and then Don left the band shortly after he got his green card. So George said, I can't reapply for another green card, because I just went through the process. They probably won't give it to you. He said, what I'll do is I'll hire you, for me, for overseas and non-American stuff, and I'll hire different Americans in the States. And I said, fair enough.
But when I toured Japan, I got to meet and know Carl Jefferson a little bit. And he liked me, and he was a nice guy to me and everything. And I told him that story, and he said, oh I'll get you a visa! So, I told George. He says, well, if [Jefferson] can get the visa, then it's yours. Carl called his secretary, and she called a congressman and blah, blah, blah. Three weeks later, I got a three-year visa in the mail, and I started working with George. I stayed with him almost 20 years, and largely because Carl Jefferson made it happen through his, the people he knew and his beneficial good nature towards me. I'm forever grateful for him for that.
And yeah, he was a very enigmatic guy. He was a nice guy, kind of gruff, but he really loved the music in a style that he liked. He put out my first record on that label, and at the same time he said, well, if you've got a record that's got Woody Shaw on it and it's not being released, I'll put it out for you [laughs]. He was in my corner without me hardly knowing the guy, so I'll always remember him for that.
He had his family of musicians, and he treated them like family: Jake Hanna, Warren Vaché, and all those guys [...] Ken Peplowski, those were his people, right? So, I was kind of, included in that a little bit at the time, and so that was very nice of him.
WC: Thank you for that story.
NS: Yeah, you’re welcome!
WC: Yeah, I want to go back a little bit further even if you want. I'm curious about Victoria and about your younger years. Maybe maybe one way I can just phrase this really broadly, and and see what you're interested to recall is just, when you were in your late teens, early 20s, or your youth in Victoria, what do you remember about the jazz scene there? And who do you remember playing with or hearing, or what do you remember experiencing from those early years?
NS: Well, I was interested in jazz in high school by about grade nine and had a few good friends that were also, some were budding musicians and some were just fans. And we all got together and listened to jazz records, and discovered the music together. We bought records and learned the history of the music through records and radio and stuff.
But occasionally in Victoria, someone would come through. I remember hearing [...] [Bobby] Hutcherson came to UVic. I remember hearing Kenny Burrell. I remember hearing Roland Kirk [...] I was a jazz fan, and occasionally people would come through, but occasionally I would go to Vancouver with a buddy, or to Seattle, to hear a concert or [go to] a club. I heard Chick Corea, I heard Weather Report, I heard Miles Davis. I saw Joe Henderson in a club in Vancouver, I saw Woody Shaw in a club in Vancouver, not knowing that 20 years later I'd be working with both of them, but that's what happened!
And in Victoria itself, I had a friend Bruce Hurn, who’s a trumpet player. He got me in with this sax player named David Keane, who had a rehearsal band of young guys like myself, and Kim Ratcliffe, a guitar player. And we would rehearse every week and play. I didn't know anything about how to play, I was just playing by ear and thumping away on the bass, having a good time. I learned how to read chord charts and how to play bass lines, all that stuff, from listening and being critiqued and playing with these guys.
I did that for about a year. Paul Horn, the famous flute and sax player, lived in Victoria at the time. Towards the end of that year, I played a concert with him and a great piano player named Jerry Bryant, who also lived in Victoria. And at the end of the concert, he said, I want you to come and play in my band. I was 19, and I didn't know anything about touring or playing in a band, not in this local thing. So that was my introduction to playing with guys from Vancouver, touring across the country, traveling with a bass and all that stuff.
So it all grew out of that, just being one of the few people around playing upright bass at the time helped, because I really didn't know anything. But, I was willing to learn, and I guess people saw something in that. So that's about it.
WC: Yeah. So your connection with Woody, it began for the very first time when you heard him by taking the ferry over to Vancouver and hearing him play there?
NS: Yeah. Yeah. I heard him in Vancouver, and then he came to play six months later with a band, from Portland. I went to the concert and we were playing at a club after-hours, and they came by. He didn't sit in, but his band did, so I played with some of the band [...] The drummer’s name, Ron Steen, from Oregon. I played [...] for a tune, reading out of my little fake book and stuff, but I was a kid [...] But I did meet Woody at that time, not that he’d remember. It wasn’t until years later when he came through Toronto and played at a club called Bourbon Street that I worked with him for a week or two at a time. And I got along with him as well, so I really got to play with him for an extended period of time. Then he asked me to play with him in New York, and other places as well, and that as a result of that. It was like two or three years later.
WC: Yeah, I listened – I mean, you have multiple records with him, including one of your own, right? – But I listened on the way into this to Solid with Kenny Garrett, Peter Leitch, Kenny Barron, Victor Jones on drums. For me, that is my number one version of There Will Never Be Another You. Like, I learned the tune from that version!
NS: Oh really! Yeah, that's cool. That was just, he threw it on and we were like, Let's play this song. Just calling a tune and seeing what happens. Of course, there was no trouble with Kenny Barron playing piano.
WC: Yeah.
NS: That was... I remember playing at a club called Carlos Juan at the time. Toward was the end of that week, he said, hey, we got a recording session on Saturday or something, I can’t remember what day it was on [...] But it wasn't with the same guys that were on the gig, except for Kenny Garrett. And Peter Leitch, I was staying at his house. So he drove me to Rudy Van Gelder’s studio. He had his guitar in the trunk, and Woody just happened to ask him to get his guitar. That’s the reason [he’s on] that record, from driving me up there! He has a well deserved reputation, of course, but if he hadn't have driven me, and had his guitar in the trunk, that wouldn’t have happened for him. So it was fun to play with some of those guys on that recording.
WC: Yeah. And you take a great solo on that track, “There Will Never Be Another You!”
NS: All I remember is that, okay, that was in the era of, let's say, direct bass recording. Rudy Van Gelder helped pioneer that with Ron Carter and all that stuff in the late 70s and early 80s, which I didn’t really like. And I wanted him to put a mic on my bass, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with it [laughs]. He just wanted to do it his way, and you couldn’t argue with the guy, because it was his recording studio. And he was temperamental. He was liable to say, well, either he goes or I go [laughs] so I didn't say anything.
So that, it wasn't the sound that I was after. I had this great big [inaudible] bass that he probably could have got a really nice sound out of. But we were victims of the era, and I'm not denigrating one of the great recording engineers of all time. I'm just saying that in a particular period, that's the way everybody did things, all across the board, in all countries. It wasn't a great sound [...]
WC: I mean, can you imagine like a 30-year-old Canadian bass player on a date with Woody Shaw arguing with Rudy Van Gelder about a bass sound?
NS: It's not gonna happen. He’s not gonna pay any attention to my ass!
WC: Yeah. I really appreciate that you brought that up though, because it's an interesting subject. I'm a bass player, and I hear that on Free Trade, you know, I hear that same sound of the era to some extent as well, right? But then when I listened to Fire in the West and this album Here for a While, the contrast is so striking. The natural approach to the bass sound and its beautiful clarity, whether you're soloing or playing bass lines, we can tell that you put so much care and attention into the acoustic tone of the instrument, and how these current records of yours were produced, and that you set it up to take advantage of that.
NS: Yeah. Eventually, I just said, after that experience and many others, if I’m going to be recorded, I don’t want to be represented in a way that I don’t particularly hear my sound. So I just said no DI, no direct recording. You got a microphone, I don’t care if you put me in isolation, I don’t care what you do, I don’t want to have that as my sound, so I just stopped doing it. Largely, it wasn’t just me. It was a result of Wynton Marsalis and his group, who became the current A-team in jazz in terms of popularity and recording. And they started to say, we gotta get back to bass sounds and drum sounds that don’t sound like electronic instruments, and they were right, and God bless them for it. So it wasn't hard to be part of that wave of, we must make the basses sound like basses again, and here we go. So I just put my foot down by myself and pissed all my engineers off. But especially sound at a concert, oh, they hate that. But I’m willing to compromise a little bit, but not very much, in that department. As long as they got a mic on it, no DI, but I’ll let them take a line or something. I get mostly mic. I don’t wanna hear that sound of the pickup in the house. That’s just the way I feel about it.
WC: Totally makes sense. I want to turn my view directly on the new record, but I'm curious if you are one to talk about inspiration behind the titles of your compositions to any extent, or if you are one to prefer to leave them out there open for interpretation, you know,
NS: Well, it could be a bit of both. I guess it depends on which you specifically mean. At lot of times I’ll write a tune and I won’t have a title for it until long after. Then I’ve had times [where] I’ll have a specific goal in mind or a personality in mind, or a feeling or something in mind when I’m writing. Usually it’s the song itself reminds me of something, or I just say, that’s a good title, I’m gonna call this that. If you have a specific one, you can ask me, I can tell you if that was pre-ordained or just happened to be a good fit.
WC: Sure, I'll try some. I'm willing to strike out if I do [laughs]. “Under Cover of Darkness”.
NS: Ah, you know, I just like the sound of that title. And it seemed to fit, you know [...] the feeling of mystery, not like a military style of under cover of darkness or anything, just the feeling of mystery, not clear vision but kind of a determined outcome.
WC: Yeah. “In the Path of Angels.”
NS: Ah, that was just an expression that I heard somebody use while I was writing these songs, and I thought, what a great expression. Put yourself in the path of angels. I said, I'll use that as a tune title, I just found a tune that seemed to fit that description [...] I had several tunes that didn't have titles, and that was one of the titles that came to me after I’d written these songs. So I said, well, I'm gonna call those tunes that and stick to one that suited it.
WC: I really love the track “Madrona”.
I mean, I have several favourite tracks, but that one right in the middle where it's just trio and you put it out – it's been released by Cellar as a single, ahead of the album release – and it's just as a trio, and it's such a wonderful trio playing, with you and Renee and Quincy Davis. I really love that tune.
NS: Thank you! Yeah, I had a title that was just a working title and Renee said, Oh, you can't call it that! I said yeah, I know... And she said, what about "Arbutus"? I said well, what about "Madrona"? Because that's the Spanish word for the same tree, and I like that better, so that’s what I came up with. So that's how that came about. It was just a matter of discussion. Again, whether it fits the tune, I think it sort of does in a weird way. It's a beautiful, you know, singular tree. I mean, they grow in little groves, but there's not very many of them, and they only grow in a certain part of the world. It's a beautiful thing, and I thought that was a nice track to play. It fits the title, I think.
WC: Totally. One of the defining traits of this album and your work in general, I think, is the clarity and the beauty of the ensemble writing. You know, you have three horns here. And the way they're harmonized and arranged, and the arrangement sensibility across the whole album, is very strong. Can you talk about that, in terms of this record – even though that's evident through all your work – maybe there's involvement with Renee, the process there. I'd love to hear more about that.
NS: I had lots of experience writing for two horns, because that’s all I’d ever done until this recording. Once you get a third one involved, it becomes a whole other ballgame in terms of how you voice the horns. Renee was extremely helpful. She had lots of suggestions, and she changed things around, I said, that sounds better. Just in terms of where you voice the trombone or how you move the inner lines because you don't want to make them all sound parallel all the time. You want inner parts to have a horizontal melodicism as well, as with the lead part, so trying to make it interesting from a three-horn perspective is very difficult. I had it all written out, and then Renee made suggestions: this’ll make the voicing a little bit stronger, this and that, and she was really great. She could do a masterclass on arranging. So I was very indebted to her for that and always will be. I had some ideas, most of the ideas are there. But she helped with a lot of orchestrating tips here and there, so she deserves a lot of credit for that.
WC: Nice. I want to close with reflecting on the album title and the title track. I could have my own interpretation of what that means based on your lengthy, excellent career. But when you think about it now, and it's this year, and you recorded earlier this year, what does the the title Here for a While mean to you?
NS: You know, that’s a good question. I’ve been here for a while. To be here for a while, I hope people I know and love, I hope everybody’s here for a while! I hope this isn’t the end of days. I hope this is the beginning of a long evolution. So it doesn’t really have one particular meaning. We decided on that title because of the tunes involved. We could have called it any one of those tunes’ names as opposed to “Here for a While”. But it does have a... I have been here for a while, and I hope to be here for a while longer, and all that stuff. And the picture that Cory took, looks like I’ve been sitting in that chair for a while [laughs]. So maybe that’s got something to do with it. I don’t know. I certainly enjoyed the process and I thank Cory, of course, and Shelley Miller who helped make it possible; and Renee for her help, and all the musicians were great. They were really 100% in there, they were dedicated to making the best thing they could make, which is a flattering. When you're out there kind of naked, trying to your music out there, and if the people weren't into it who were playing it, then you’re sunk. But these guys were great.
WC: Yeah. Is there anything else pertaining to the album, or what's going on right now, that we haven't talked about yet that you wanted to bring attention to or mention?
NS: Not really. I hope people like it. I hope people will buy it so that we can do more recording like this. We've got more tunes in the can and everything, so here goes. But in the meantime it's just, I'm grateful to have it out there as a snapshot of what I've been doing for the last few years, and some of the wonderful musicians that are still with us playing wonderful music.
WC: Well, thank you so much, Neil. I appreciate you taking the time to talk about the album. I’m very excited for the release. I’m happy that I got to hear you this year in Vancouver, and I hope I get to hear you again soon.
NS: Oh, thanks! Well, make sure you come up and say hello so I can put a face to the name.
WC: Absolutely, I will. I hope you have a great day over there, and thank you again.
NS: Yes. Thanks, Will.