The Sax Man Cometh

Richie Buckley is feeling chuffed with himself. And so he should be. Not just because he recently scored his first movie, The General, but because its director, John Boorman, on finishing that project, immediately asked him to write the score for a documentary on Lee Marvin. As a jazz buff Buckley doesn’t need to be reminded that this means he now is following in the footsteps of some of his own heroes, including Lalo Schifrin, who scored Boorman’s Lee Marvin tour-de-force movie Point Blank. And few musicians, or music-fans, in Ireland would begrudge this belated career boost for the recently-married Richie Buckley, a saxophonist whose work has graced recordings and live performances by many of the greats.

Most famously, perhaps, he has been part of Van Morrison’s band since 1984 and has also performed in concert, or recorded with, among others, Bob Dylan, Sinead O’Connor, Christy Moore, The Cranberries, Freddie Hubbard, Jon Hendricks and Carlos Santana. Oh yeah, Richie also lent his talent to the less-than-credible Barry Manilow and appears on the abysmal Lord Of The Dance CD but, hey, he’s got to make a living right?

Either way, as with many musicians, Richie Buckley often wonders where the line should be drawn between “those sessions I do and get a basic rate for” and the work that should have earned him arranging and composing royalties such as those he’ll get, for The General. And this is not simply a matter of a musician being “precious.” Composers’ earnings, here in Ireland, are tax-free. Indeed, to judge from a list recently published in the Sunday Times, even Boyzone qualify, with Ronan Keating being named as eligible for tax-exemption along these lines.

“That’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? Especially when you think of all the other Irish musicians, who, for years, have been struggling to make ends meet”, he says, acerbically. “Yet that is how it works. I now will get tax-free status, as a composer, for The General, but for years I was happy just to do the gig as best I could, get paid and leave it at that. Yet now I do have to ask myself was I properly paid for what I did? I’ve done sessions where I’d half-arrange the fuckin’ thing! In some cases I’ve done 80% of the work, as a result of my own enthusiasm, where I’d say, ‘try this chord, play it this way’, whatever. And now I realise that organisations like IMRO are seeing to it that arrangers do get payment for their ‘creative input’. There is such a thing as an arranger’s royalty, whereas, most of the time, you are asked to sign everything away for a flat rate, as a session musician. As I did with something like Lord Of The Dance. I didn’t do any arrangement on that, just played a solo. But who knows, maybe in a few years, a solo will be seen as your own arrangement and musicians will get paid accordingly. I think something like that should happen.”

This, of course, raises the contentious issue of when, exactly, does a musician cease to be purely interpretative and become, instead, a creative artist. Again, as a jazz musician, Richie knows that this question has fired debate for, at least, half a century. It has been claimed that Billie Holiday “absorbed a song so deeply into her own psyche” that she virtually “rewrote it in her own image”. Similar claims are made in relation to Miles Davis who could take, say, a basic chord progression from a Tin Pan Alley tune and transform it into a symphony.

“I agree, absolutely,” says Richie. “Billie Holiday did do that and it shows even in her phrasing. Let’s say Irving Berlin writes a basic tune and she sings it with so much soul and character that people would buy it more than if it was a straight arrangement. It’s the same with regards to session musicians. Sure, you can get someone who is given a chart and he, or she, will just play it according to the notes. But if someone comes up to me and says ‘Richie, I want a few chords over this – you’ll hear it, pick it up, then just do your own thing’ and I do that, then this, to me, is a musician being creative rather than just interpreting straight. And you’re right about people like Miles Davis. There’s no doubt that when Miles improvised he basically made up a new melody, a new song. And sometimes they do get credit for that.”

But doesn’t the same thing apply to Irish music?

“Yeah, when a song is in the public domain, you do see something like ‘arranged by Sharon Shannon, arranged by Philip King’ whatever. And they get royalties on the arrangement. So this really is an area that needs to be sorted out. There are a few musicians who have worked it out. If Maire Breathnach does a session, she knows she has her own sound as a fiddle player, so her agent will say ‘you want the Maire Breathnach sound, you’re going to have to pay more for it.’ And I feel I should be able to ask for the same thing. Especially given that I have played on so many records and have a sound people seem to like! And a stamp that is my own. I mean, if I was a designer or a professional in any other area people would pay for the name, right?”

Richie Buckley suddenly laughs out loud. “Jesus, I’ll probably never get another gig in my life after saying all that!” Hardly. Music has always been at the centre of his life, maybe even since before he was born! He may not have been aware that the auditory nerve is the first sensory organ to become completely functional in the foetus but he’s not surprised by the news. Nor does he see as implausible the claim that a child’s musical potential can be enhanced if a musically-rich environment is provided before as well as after birth.

“Well, as you know, my own dad was a jazz musician and definitely would have been practising when my mother was pregnant,” he muses. “But I, myself, also have a kid, who is eleven, and I used to play the sax when he was in the womb and he loves music and is a great singer so this all makes sense to me. After all, the first thing a child hears is the rhythm of his mother’s heart, the beat. And I am a great believer in exposing children to good music from the start, whether that means before or after birth. Especially up to, say, nine, ten years old – which is what really pisses me off these days, in terms of how you just don’t hear jazz or even good, classic pop songs on the radio during the daytime, when kids are listening. Sure, there are ‘specialist’ programmes late at night and someone like Ronan Collins sometimes plays that kind of music but, overall, kids are only being exposed to chart hits. Then again, that should come as no surprise, given that radio these days has far more to do with market surveys and advertising and making money than it has to do with music. But it is a shame because, as in my own case, who knows how many kids could go on to become jazz musicians, develop their talent in this area if they were exposed to the right music at the right age? But these days they’re not even given that chance. It’s all pop, pop, pop.”

That said, Richie Buckley stresses that he never was a jazz snob.

“I was totally open to all forms of music, from the start,” he asserts. “Okay, when I was nine and starting to play the sax there was all jazz stuff at home but my ma had Frank Sinatra records and I love Sinatra! He’s a big influence on my playing of standards, in particular, because I used to learn the lyrics from his records. And I’d play to the lyrics. That’s the main way Sinatra influenced loads of jazz musicians, like Lester Young, inspiring them to work off the words of a song, rather than just the melody. And, as with Billie Holiday, who, obviously influenced him, Sinatra’s phrasing was fantastic. And phrasing, as I say, really is what defines a great talent, like the way Miles Davis phrases, or Stan Getz. Then again I was lucky, in that when I was a kid my dad’d sit me down and talk about these things, say something like, ‘listen to this, you have to get the rhythm right, rhythm is very important, you can’t be just flying around the licks, you have to know how to pace it, work out how a musician constructed a piece.’ My dad is a great teacher in that sense and I’ll always give him credit for that.”

So who did daddy Buckley set down as the great role models his son should try to follow?

“Charlie Parker! I remember asking me da, ‘who’s the greatest saxophone player in the world?’ and that’s who he said was. Then again I also love Louis Armstrong, who influenced nearly every jazz musician on earth! And singer. And I love Sarah Vaughan. Yet I have to say that when I was sixteen and my dad bought me John Coletrane’s Giant Steps I just couldn’t get into it! It was too over my head! But you have to remember that although I was into Parker and all that, I was hanging round with me mates, going to dances in Dublin and my biggest hero at the time was David Bowie! I still love Bowie. But back then it was the time of Diamond Dogs, Hunky Dory and his David Live album, which is still one of my favourite albums.”

Surely, as a kid playing sax and listening to Charlie Parker, Bowie’s music must have seemed primitive by comparison?

“Not at all, because, as I said, I was into lyrics and I loved Bowie’s lyrics, the way he put songs together. And though I know a lot of guys in the jazz scene will turn around and say ‘Richie, you’re fuckin’ mad to say that’ I still believe Bowie is a great singer. Very original, the way he sometimes will even sing out of tune, sing in a clipped fashion, or really smooth. But I always loved rock music, at that level, and Irish traditional music, which is why I could tap into all that stuff, say, for The General.”

Asked whose album he would recommend newcomers to jazz to check out Richie’s reply is maybe only partly tongue-in-cheek.

“The soundtrack of The General, of course!” he laughs. “But, seriously, I’d tell them to go and listen to Sinatra’s early stuff and Nat ‘King’ Cole which, to me, is great jazz, though, again, not everyone will agree with that. Yet guys like Nat had all those great jazz musicians backing him and was, himself, a great jazz pianist. Sinatra had all those wonderful string arrangements. And even Sinatra singing something like ‘All The Way’ has what, to me, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music where he just holds out this note and if you’re a soloist, you go ‘Yes! That’s exactly how I’d love to be able play it.’ You can have a guy playing all the fancy riffs in the world but when you hear Sinatra doing something like that you realise there is such a thing as total purity in music. And perfection. It’s gorgeous. Apart from that people could listen to something like Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis, but don’t start with Coletrane! Though you would have to get into him later.”

Apart from Sinatra, if Richie could choose one piece of music that totally restores his spirit when he’s feeling low, what would it be?

“Charlie Parker playing ‘Old Folks’, from the early 50s. My da had ‘Old Folks’ on a forty five when I was a kid and I used to play it over and over again, for the playing, the power, the passion. And I still stick it on when I’m in bad form and it’s guaranteed to put a smile back on my face! That track, definitely.”

Where, in Richie’s own work, has he produced a solo he finds similarly inspiring, that makes him go, ‘I really got it right there.’

“An album I did with Van, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher,” he says, unhesitatingly. “I helped do horn arrangements on that and really enjoyed doing that, especially on ‘Tir Na Nóg.’ But there is a moment when Van sings ‘and we walked all the way to Tir Na Nóg,’ I think it is, and the way he phrases that line is like Sinatra’s vocal in ‘All The Way.’ Even when we were recording, it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck! Still does. But when I heard it in the studio I nearly had to stop and say: ‘Sorry, Van, can you do that again!’ But then the same thing often happens when you’re on the road with Van and he would do something just as fantastic, pour so much soul into a phrase. I’ve often been sent over-the-moon by him that way, the way his energy comes up, the way other musicians tap into that. Then again, he feeds off us that way, too, which is why it’s so good playing with Van, because we really are a band playing together, not just a bunch of people backing a solo singer. And another thing that’s great about touring with Van is that the music is so jazz-oriented. In fact, I’d say Van is the Miles Davis of the rock world. As in the way he gets musicians around him, brings us all together, creates music.”

In this sense, in contrast with all those claims about how “mean-spirited” Van Morrison is supposed to be, Richie describes the man as “most generous”. At least, as a musician.

“He really is,” he says.” Because, apart from not making us feel we are just part of a backing band, at times he’ll even draw you out centre stage and stand back and let you do your solo and he, himself, is really getting off on the music. You can see that, yourself, and it makes you try even harder. So to be working for someone who does all that really is fantastic for a musician. Georgie Fame also had that thing with Van, where he’d be playing the Hammond organ and Van’d be bouncing off him, and Georgie’d feed off that. It’s great to watch and listen to, better still to be a part of! And times like that really do make up for a lot of the crap you have to go through in the music business.”

Indeed, Richie Buckley admits he has recently travelled through one of those down periods.

“It came about because for months I was working full time on The General and I really ended up feeling out-of-touch with everything, especially my playing,” he reflects. “I’d also told Van I couldn’t tour and had to turn down a tour of South America with Lisa Stansfield and, at times, there really was a lot of grief involved in working on the score and I wondered was it all worth it. To tell you the truth, at times, I nearly went fuckin’ mad. But Sinead my girlfriend – sorry, my wife! – was great through all that, she kept me going, made me persevere.”

Looking back over his time in the music business when did Richie Buckley feel he had finally developed his own sound?

“Only over the past few years,” he says. “And developing that sound was really important to me. Because you can have the greatest technique in the world but if you don’t have an identifiable sound, you don’t go that extra distance. And what I think is individual to my sound is – I hope! – a lyricism. I really do try to be lyrical when I play, even try to make technical phrases sound lyrical. That’s the challenge. But then lyricism is part of what we are. As in the Irish, isn’t it? It’s there in our poetry, plays, so maybe that, in itself, is what we bring to any art. A certain lyricism. Either way, it’s what I really go for in music and when I get it, that is, to me, ‘the Richie Buckley sound’. Wherever it comes from. God knows. But then a lot depends simply on being in the right place, at the right time.”

And, yes, that last line could just as easily have come from the mouth of Van Morrison who, during a recent BBC interview, spoke about the difference between those nights when the “spirit” is right on stage and when it is virtually absent, leading to, well, what else? Spirit-less gigs. “But that doesn’t just happen when I’m with Van, that can happen at any jazz gig, when you know, almost from the start, that nothing special is going to happen, so you just do your best, anyway,” says Richie. But, no, despite what some may believe, Van and his band, unlike early U2, have never prayed prior to a concert, asking God to make sure that the gig is ‘blessed’.

“No fucking way! That’s rubbish. We never did that!” he says, laughing. “Though there is, as I say, something you can tune into when you’re playing on stage – which often is what Van goes for – and you can feel very spiritual, very connected, to whatever. But, Jaysus, you wouldn’t pray together before gigs! Unless it’s to the pint you’re holding in your hand! But at gigs, or while recording, what I really go for is bringing through that certain feeling, that lyricism without becoming Kenny G! I’d hate to sound like Kenny G. As I said earlier, I’m a huge fan of Stan Ketz so it’s more his sound I’d go for. “

Surely, as a Dub, Richie Buckley ate way too much cabbage and bacon as a kid to ever grow up sounding like the insipid Kenny G?

“Fuckin’ right!,” he laughs. “But then Kenny G also gets too much sun! We don’t have any sun!”

All of which leads us to the soundtrack of The General, which is, itself, immensely lyrical.

“That’s how I wanted it to sound,” Richie reflects. “When I first got the film, at home, it was black and white, had a lovely feel to it and seemed to be perfect for that saxophone sound. But I didn’t want it to be like a jazz movie from the 50s. I wanted elements of that, but brought forward into the 90s. And, on top of all that, the way John Boorman directed the movie and the way it was shot, definitely influenced me, musically, too.”

But did Richie really set out to capture not just the character of The General himself, but also the “sound of Dublin’s streets” to quote that press release.

“I did, yeah. Okay, if you asked another kind of musician to capture the sound of Dublin they’d probably go (sings) ‘the oul triangle’ or, maybe in a rock sense (sings) ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’. But I tried to do it in a jazz setting, make it bluesy and dirty and poor. I definitely wanted to capture poverty, which is why we have a steel guitar coming in, bending notes, being what I’d see as grimy. And we have a heartbeat pumping there through certain tracks. And even though, overall, I wanted the mood to be lyrical, I still brought in that angry sax. But, more than anything else, I went along with what John Boorman wanted. Not only because it is his movie but because he really knew his stuff, in terms of the music. I’d talk with him for hours, just like you and me are talking now, then I’d go off and have a totally clear idea of what feel he wanted, what he believed would work in certain scenes. He really is articulate, at that level, and this really helped.“

Even so, one drawback of many movie soundtracks is that the abbreviated nature of scenes often means that tracks run, on average, less than two minutes. To a jazz musician this, surely, is far from ideal, particularly given that, as we said earlier, someone like Miles Davis, could turn one musical phrase into a half hour symphony! Did Richie feel restricted in that sense?

“I could have but I didn’t allow myself to feel that way,” he says. “Because I’d just look at the screen and say to myself ‘this is what the scene needs and nothing more.’ That was my job, so I couldn’t become indulgent, stretching themes out, unnecessarily, whatever. Though, within the parameters of that two minutes, I could indulge, go wherever I wanted. Yet what really amazes me is that when you listen to the music it does stand up as an album. Then again, Brian Masterson was fantastic in terms of editing, so the way it flows we did especially for the CD.

“But, you’re right, a lot of movie soundtracks don’t work in that way, have themes and variations that are just too short. Mind you, to get back to Lalo Schifrin – who played in Dizzy Gillespie’s band in the 50s – his soundtrack for Bullit is a great album whether you ever see the movie or not. And I’d love it if people took to this album the same way.

But, in his heart, does Richie Buckley really stand over the CD version of the music from The General , and even see it as a set of compositions showing an Irish musician coming-of-age?

“I do, yeah,” he says, emphatically. “And there is a lot of me in the music, in terms of the way I play, the feeling, the way I directed the other musicians to play. The thing is that everybody who worked on this project, like The Wind Machine, was there really working for me, delighted I had gotten this gig. So there was a great feeling while we were recording. Everyone was on my side and helping me make the music as good as I could. In fact, all the musicians are family and friends! And it sounds like that. So, a lot of people put their hearts into this album and hope, for my sake, that it’ll lead to better things. Even in that sense I think it’s pretty good. As a CV, if not a CD!”