Mike Walker says it feels as if he has purged his soul. It’s easy to see why. His debut album, which he began almost 10 years ago, has finally been released. The story of how Madhouse and the Whole Thing There, one of the most impressive debut albums by a British jazz musician since Courtney Pine’s Journey to the Urge Withinin the 1980s, finally got to see the light of day is almost as intriguing as the narrative that provides the inspiration for his music. The Manchester-based guitarist, who has worked with musicians such as George Russell, Kenny Wheeler, Mike Gibbs, Anthony Braxton, Tim Berne, Dave Holland, John Taylor and Mark-Anthony Turnage, says that at one point he despaired of ever seeing the finished CD in his hands. The reason why he clung so tenaciously to seeing the project through to the end was because the album was very personal to him. It is about his mother and her struggle with schizophrenia – or as it is now known – bi-polar disease. He says it is something that he felt compelled to write. “It’s like that phrase, ‘just get on with it,’ like what’s happening around you, you have to get on with it. I wanted [the album] to say all those voices that existed in one person, all the contradictions and the dissonance. Also, the fact as a family my two sisters and my brother, we really knew what it was like from the inside.” What is remarkable is that such a sombre subject and character-forming experiences should inspire often profound and beautiful melodies presented in imaginative settings. The opening track, ‘A Real Embrace’, is a dancing Brazilian samba with a haunting melody line and strings written in a way that evokes Klaus Ogermann’s work for the old CTI label in the 1970s. “I wanted it to be happy, summer sound but with a bit of melancholy,” explains Walker. “It’s a very long form, but I didn’t want the listener to think that but just go along with it, like a classic Jobin melody.” The mood shifts for ‘Owed to JC’, not an ode not to the usual suspects, Jesus Christ or John Coltrane, but the Salford “punk” poet John Cooper Clarke. “I first saw the album title as a quote in a book called The Divided Self, about bipolar disease and I discovered it comes from a poem by Clarke. I wrote the poem which is in the liner notes very much, I think, in his style. The meter and rhythm is very Cooper-Clarke, I had an American guy called

Mad For It Highly regarded by his peers but woefully under-recorded, guitarist Mike Walkerfinally makes his debut this month. Stuart Nicholson talks to Mike about the struggle to get the album out Jazz images at large Manchester-based jazz photographer William Ellis, whose work is represented at an important jazz photography exhibition in America this month, has a major jazz exhibition at the Manchester Jazz Festival from 18-26 July and the Scarborough Jazz Festival from 26-28 September. Ellis, who specialises in monochrome jazz photography and has been praised by legendary jazz photographer Herman Leonard, has his images in the Jazz In Black and White exhibition that runs until 20 July at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City. At the Manchester Jazz Festival his exhibition will be one of the largest jazz photography presentations in the UK with 50 framed images and a further 300 images from his archive projected on a giant screen. Ellis’ photography can be viewed at www.william-ellis.com

Stan Tracey by Wiliam Ellis

Mark Heart, who was with Supertramp, and I recorded his voice to sound slightly humorous, on that track.” The album’s centrepiece, and longest track, is ‘I’ll Tell ‘im’, which is inspired by Walker’s childhood and his mother’s condition. “‘I’ll Tell ‘im’ is about my growing up and living with a person with schizophrenia – my mother. She was proud to have something she couldn’t spell, she was a dry witty woman, so there is changing moods, there is a resolution there in both music in words, two chords going round and round, yet there is a lot going on, but all that stuff exists within it are the kind of emotions I felt.” The album cover art, a picture of Walker’s mum, is striking because it is so unusual, “I wanted something reflecting the music inside, not a ‘jazz’ picture,” Walker explains. “Those pictures of somebody with their instrument, they don’t work for me. This is the last picture taken of my mam, and we took the brown and oranges from the curtains behind her as the colours that run through the album’s package.” The story of how the album finally got to be released is almost as complex as the concept behind it. Suffice to say it begins with a benefactor. “Vernon Hyde offered the capital to fund the album and without any strings attached he said, ‘make an album and let’s see what happens’. That was several years ago now, we recorded it, then two things happened. I was involved in a hit-and-run, I was knocked down and suffered several injuries in 2001, and I was off the scene. “Then we had to get the post-production things together and in general get the album where we wanted it. As we wanted it properly mixed, we went to a guy in the States called Roger Nichols, a brilliant engineer. Said it was amazing, we paid him up front, and heard nothing for two years. Basically he did a runner, but we finally got the money and the tapes back and had to start again. Then we met Matt Kemp, who worked at it very passionately to get the mix right, and he made a really great job.” It is, as they say, a long story. But the punchline is worth the wait. A great album by one of the most under appreciated musical talents in the country.

Broadcaster Campbell Burnap dies Trad trombonist and former Jazz FM DJ Campbell Burnap died in May of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 68. His broadcasting style won him many admirers, earning him the nickname “Mr Charm” for his mellifluous tones. Born in Derby in 1939 he emigrated to New Zealand when he was 19, taking up the trombone there, and later lived in Australia. After travels in the States which included a visit to New Orleans where he played with local musicians, back in England he joined Terry Lightfoot’s band and later Monty Sunshine and, in the 80s, Acker Bilk. His broadcasting credits included presenting on BBC Radio 2, Jazz FM and theJazz digital station.

VINICIUS CANTUÁÁRIA AND BOJAN Z FOR VORTEX Brazilian singer and guitarist Vinicius Cantuáária appears at the Vortex in London on 21-23 July for some rare club dates, following the release earlier this year of his album Cymbals. He’s bringing his

band with Takuya on trumpet and keyboards,

Adriano Santos, drums plus Nanny Assis and Dende on percussion. Also booked for two dates earlier in the month on 14-15 July is Bojan Z with Final Terror bassist Ruth Goller and influential Polar

Bear drummer Seb Rochford. Bojan Z, aka Bojan

Read a review of the album on page 52

Zulfikarpasic, is from Belgrade in Serbia. In the 1980s he went to the States to study with noted arranger Clare Fischer and then began to make a name for himself on the Paris scene and formed his

own trio which saw considerable success in the 1990s.

His quartet debut album in 1993 made quite an impact as did solo album Solobsession in 2001. He won the European Jazz Prize in 2005.

THE COLONEL

Putting decent values back into jazz music

“The new mayor of London, that Boris chap, I don’t mind telling you, I don’t much care

for the cut of his jib. At least Ken was keen on the music. When I say Ken I’m talking

of course about that good-natured old bean, Kenneth Clarke MPnot the Bendy bus

loving newt fancier. Like myself, Ken’s a real ale man with a mighty thirst. None of that

Johnson chap’s outrageous Bullingdon Club behaviour whereby one expels the contents of one’s own

stomach through one’s mouth just so one is able to get the next pint down. Stopping the drinking of

alcohol on the London Underground is all very well but what about extending it to include the

Bullingdon binges too? And as for the state of his hair; it reminds one of those ghastly chaps from those

new jazz-punk bands. I ask you, how can someone with such a lack of moral fibre and no interest in real

jazz be expected to run London?”

10 JULY2008 //Jazzwise