JAZZ LIVES: SPIKE WELLS
Veteran Jazz Man on Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriot, Bobby Wellins, Law, God etc.
The author and the musician on a chilly Brighton winter day.
Spike Wells is one of the UK’s foremost jazz drummers and has been so for almost 60 years. He’s currently part of QOW Trio, a saxophone-double bass-drums trio who continue to explore the territory Sonny Rollins first mapped out on Way Out West. I’ve yet to see QOW Trio perform but both their albums – 2021’s eponymous debut and the just released The Hold Up – are dynamic explorations in contemporary jazz.
The Hold Up was released on January 30, the date marking the late Tubby Hayes’ birthday – Tubs would have turned 89 if he hadn’t got so involved in the “jazz life” that led to his premature death aged 38 – but I didn’t think to ask Spike if he was aware of the connection. Interest in Hayes’ life and music has risen in recent years, so it wouldn’t be amiss to launch an album of contemporary British jazz on his birthday.
I first made contact with Wells last year when working on a feature about the late American jazz pianist Blossom Dearie for The Guardian – Wells played in her band when she was based in London in the late-1960s and offered interesting observations on Dearie – its worth noting her lifestyle was the opposite of Hayes (she made it to 84), although both musicians shared what might be described as an obsessive focus on their music (being a jazz band leader must lend towards obsessive natures, surely?).
Anyway, here’s my Blossom feature if you want to read of her (and Spike’s sojourn with Dearie). https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/10/blossom-dearie-jazz-singer-with-the-little-voice-and-vast-talent
Spike and I enjoyed chatting over Blossom and he mentioned how, the next time I visited Brighton, I should pop around. Being in Brighton between Xmas and New Year gave me the opportunity to do so and I found him happily ensconced in a terrace house filled with books, records and British film noir posters. Spike’s lived a full and interesting life and continues to keep extremely active – and not only with jazz. The interview below should give an idea of this immensely likeable and learned man.
Spike proving his worth in Tubby Hayes Quartet, 1968.
Garth Cartwright: We initially met due to the reissue of Blossom Dearie's London recordings as a magnificent box set, Discover Who I Am (The Fontana Years London 1966-70), which you play on. Is there anything about Blossom we're not previously discussed that this box set has inspired you to recall?
Spike Wells: The box set triggered many memories – of my wonderful times with Blossom at Ronnie Scott’s, on tour in Northern Ireland and a TV show in Norway. She was so lovely to work with and I admired her piano playing as much as her very distinctive singing. I was very pleased to participate on the album That’s Just The Way I Want To Be because, instead of the usual trio, it involved a larger group and strings wonderfully arranged by vibraphonist Brian Gascoigne (Bamber’s brother). The box set also gave me a chance to hear some rare stuff unearthed from the Fontana vaults in the UK.
GC: How does a Tunbridge Wells schoolboy develop into one of the UK's foremost jazz drummers? I'm sure it wasn't exactly the career your parents hoped you might pursue?
SW: I was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral 1955-1959. I had a good musical education in the process and became interested in Louis Armstrong and the Glenn Miller orchestra on records. Later I was given a Dizzy Gillespie EP and became keen on modern jazz. I started playing the drums seriously in the early 1960s. At university (1964-1968), I decided I wanted to become a professional jazz musician and played as much as I could with visiting London musicians, who included Joe Harriott, Shake Keane, Bobby Wellins, Peter King and Tony Coe. In 1968, I moved to London and was offered some gigs by Tony Coe. When I was unexpectedly offered the job of drummer in the Tubby Hayes quartet, I quit a post-graduate course in philosophy which I had started a few weeks earlier and turned professional. This was not of course what my parents had wanted or expected but they stood by my decision.
GC: You came of age in the early 1960s as British rock began to boom, but you never joined the rock boom - even though the likes of Ginger Baker and Charlie Watts were newly minted from dropping jazz for rock - was this because you never got an offer that appealed? Or jazz really was your musical calling?
SW: I was never attracted to rock. Jazz was the only music I wanted to play. I was at one point (about 1970?) offered to chance to join a fusion band called IF which had some success and toured the States but I didn't like the management contract we were asked to sign and dropped out at the beginning. They were indeed ripped off by the manager! I honestly don't know if Charlie Watts would have succeeded as a purely jazz drummer but I know he loved jazz and was a key musical figure in the Rolling Stones. A drummer with a great feel. Ginger Baker initially tried to make it on the jazz scene but soon turned to rock and achieved what I consider to be wholly unmerited fame in the trio Cream. I dislike his flamboyant, undisciplined and unmusical drumming and saw a biographical film about him (Beware Of Mr.Baker) which portrayed him as a thoroughly unpleasant human being. I only met him once briefly - at the 100 club - near the end of his life.
GC: You were tutored by Philly Joe Jones, notably drummer on many of Miles Davis’ 1950s albums - what was he like as a man? And as a teacher?
SW: Philly Joe Jones became my favourite drummer when I started listening closely on record to the hard bop of the 50s and 60s. He came to live in London for a few months (1966/7?) and stayed in the flat in Hampstead of a friend of mine, bassist John Hart who was tragically killed in a road accident in France a few years later. Philly Joe came in under the radar without a work permit, sat in on as many gigs as possible and earned a little pocket money by teaching. A number of British drummers (including me) would make the pilgrimage up to Hampstead for 45 minutes a session one-to-one with the master who only had a practice pad to work with and made us all learn military drum pieces from a manual called the Charles Wilcoxon book which he swore by. I was a little disappointed by this routine but he did show me a number of invaluable jazz tips as well, mostly to do with changing the time signature on the ride cymbal and snare drum and also his "tympani cross", a single stroke pattern across the snare and tom-toms involving crossing the arms repeatedly.
Some of the gigs he played on were with a band which John Hart and I were members of. I used to do the first set and then surrender my drum kit to him for the second set. I think I learned more from watching him play live than from the lessons. In 1969, he was back in England "officially" as part of a tour by the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland big band, the Philly JJ trio and the Roland Kirk quartet which I was part of. We got to know each other better. The last time I saw him was at a Jazz Festival in Kongsberg, Norway in 1976 where I was playing with the John Taylor sextet and he was appearing with Sonny Stitt.
PJJ's drumming was - perhaps the best word is "magisterial", based on rudiments (especially the paradiddle) but with a God-given "feel" for time and accents which would propel any band and was instantly recognisable. The favourite drummer of Miles Davis and Bill Evans - how about that?
He was a bit of a hustler, always trying to get money together to score methadrine (not methadone – now commonly know as “crystal meth”). He had kicked his heroin habit long since. Methadrine is a powerful "upper" and predictably tended to make him speed up tempo-wise. Despite his hipster reputation, once you got to know him and he trusted you, he was really warm and friendly. A true jazz giant and my hero.
Here’s Spike’s main man demonstrating the technique that made other musicians gasp.
GC: As a drummer you must have been something of a prodigy - as a young man how did you develop your remarkable technique?
SW: I would not claim to have a "remarkable" technique. I am completely self-taught apart from a few exercises with Philly Joe (and one exercise which Kenny Clarke wrote out for me). I believe most accomplished drummers would say that I have very little technique, certainly in the sense of "chops" i.e. strong hands executing fast figures. I have always just had to rely on self-belief in my originality, backed up by the confidence given by being in demand to play with all sorts of musicians.
GC: Before you joined Tubby Hayes were you a freelancer working with a variety of musicians? I'm aware of Blossom Dearie and Joe Harriott - who else did you work with in the 60s? And as Harriott is now garnering retrospective respect, what was he like as a musician and a man?
SW: Your chronology is slightly awry! When I came down from Oxford, I played a bit with Tony Coe and pianist Colin Purbrook in August and September 1968 but I joined Tubby in October 1968 and that was literally my first professional gig. It was a baptism of fire but it was also high-profile and gained me a reputation which opened the door to playing with Ronnie Scott and Humphrey Lyttleton among others.
Joe Harriott I first met when he came up to do a concert with us in Oxford. Joe was a pioneering spirit with his experiments in free-form jazz but he always felt undervalued. He gradually lost work and had a very sad end - homeless and suffering from cancer. I got on very well with him but we didn't play together many times. I remember doing a broadcast with the Harry South big band when he was featured, playing a beautiful solo on My Man's Gone Now from Porgy And Bess. My career in 68/69/70 was very full on - the tours with Blossom, Stan Getz, Roland Kirk and Ronnie Scott and spells at Scott's club backing visitors like Johnny Griffin, James Moody, Art Farmer and Cedar Walton. As you know, I quit full-time in 1973 but went on to be a permanent member of two famous bands - the Bobby Wellins Quartet and the Peter King Quintet in the subsequent years.
GC: I'm guessing you knew Phil Seamen? Did you study his technique? He's now venerated as the great pioneer of British jazz drums while being infamous for his heroin addiction?
SW: Phil Seamen was a pioneer of the British modern jazz scene in the 50s and was still a big presence in the 60s (particularly his work with Joe Harriott). He had a fairly simple technique but a very sound one and there was an authority to his playing reminiscent of Philly Joe. He also reminds me slightly of the early, conventional playing of the Dutchman Han Bennink. I never had lessons from him but saw him in action quite a lot in his final years (he died in 1972). I played with him once at the Hope & Anchor pub in Islington (in 1971 or 1972) where he ran a jazz night. He booked the Tubby Hayes Quartet but wanted to play himself. Tubby wanted me on drums so we had two drummers!
I liked Phil a lot and we got on well, after a bumpy start: Shortly after playing a concert with Joe Harriott in Oxford at the age of 20, I went to hear Joe's own quartet at the Bull's Head Barnes. I sensed (imagined?) that Joe had liked my playing and might remember me, so I asked Joe if I could have a sit-in on drums. The chutzpah of youth! "Well it's alright with me" said Joe "but you'll have to ask Phil." So I approached the great man: "Er, Phil, do you mind if I sit in for a couple of numbers? Joe says it's alright." "Well I suppose so" came the dubious reply. "Oh, just one other thing, Phil. I'm actually left-handed so I'll have to change the kit round." A look of utter incredulity came over his face. "YOU PUT EVERYTHING BACK EXACTLY AS YOU FOUND IT OR I'LL BURN YOUR EARS OFF!"
I wouldn't agree that he was infamous for his drug habits - I would rather say he was a man of addictive tendencies. He also had the most wonderful and surreal sense of humour. Whenever he saw Mike Pyne, Ron Matthewson and me (Tubby's rhythm section) approaching, he'd shout out "'Ere comes Freeman, 'Ardy and Willis" (the name of cheap shoe-shop chain). On a live recording at Ronnie's, he introduced the pianist as "opening the batting from the gasworks end" (a reference to the Oval test cricket ground).
Spike isn’t playing with Hayes on this recording. I chose it because, if you are new to Tubbs, then its a great introductory number.
GC: You joined the Tubby Hayes Quartet in 1968 - back then Hayes is the foremost British jazz tenor saxophonist: were you in awe of him? Or were you young and arrogant and thought 'he's lucky to have a hot player like me'?
SW: I was gobsmacked by the chance to join the Tubby Hayes Quartet. Talk about being in the right place (living in a house full of musicians including, in the flat above me, Ron Matthewson) at the right time with Tubby getting back on his feet and looking for a new drummer with Ron recommending that he give me a try. Yes, I was in awe of Tubby and most certainly did not think he was lucky to get me. I felt I had to win my spurs and relied a lot on his encouragement.
Tubby Hayes leads his Quartet on flute - shaggy Spike is lost in music.
GC: What was it like to be a member of the Quartet? Was Tubby still playing well? Or were his best days well behind him? What was he like as a man to be around? And did you foresee his early death?
SW: Tubby had been burning the candle at both ends during the sixties, with a hectic schedule of work and a taxing lifestyle. He had a bit of a breakdown in 67/summer of 68 and was looking to relaunch his career in the Autumn of 68 with a new quartet. Ron Matthewson was still on bass but his drummer Tony Levin had had to go back to Birmingham to look after his father's furniture business after his father died. And Tubby saw a novel opportunity to use guitar instead of piano so Louis Stewart joined the group (Mike Pyne rejoined in 1969).
Tubby's most ebullient days were behind him. He had to have a heart valve replaced and died on the operating table of the anaesthetic when they were going to replace the first replacement which had failed. His playing, during the 5 years I was with him, was by common consent more mellow and reflective and less skating dazzlingly on the surface. That did NOT mean however that he lost his appetite for fast tempi! His mood depended to some extent on the state of his health but he was basically a warm, friendly guy who wanted to enjoy himself. We shared a love of cricket. I don't think his premature death was a surprise to anyone. He had been too much of a raver, like others of his generation.
Trad jazzer Humphrey Lyttelton scored a surprise hit (No 19 UK) in 1956 with this rocking number. What makes Bad Penny so distinctive is how the engineer/producer recorded and mixed it - without Humph’s consent. The name of the sonic sculptor who did such is Joe Meek who had quite a future ahead of him.
GC: Humphrey Lyttelton was another iconic British jazz musician you worked with - I imagine he had a very different approach to making music than Tubby: what was Humph like as a man and musician?
SW: The old Etonian aristocrat Humph was a rara avis on the jazz scene - the nearest equivalent would be the upper middle class George Melly, who went to Stowe and then liked slumming it on the road with the Mick Mulligan band. I think Humph enjoyed being the black sheep of his titled family and rebelling by becoming a musician.
By the time I joined him, he had moved a long way from very trad jazz he started with to a kind of Ellingtonian mainstream which I loved. Hump was egocentric - an upper class insouciance - and he was very tall so he inevitably talked "down" to people, but kind and charming to those he liked and very loyal to his sidemen if they fell on hard times. He always paid by cheque but the amounts were larger than in most bands.
Apart from playing, he compered BBC Jazz Club in the days when it went out live and was as witty then as he later was chairing I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. He was very supportive of me even before I joined his band and would always give me a warm plug when I appeared on BBC Jazz Club with other bands. When he asked me to join his band, I had to make it clear that Tubby would get (would demand) priority if dates clashed. Humph was quite relaxed about that but I remember one day which was very frustrating for me: Humph had a double recording session at Philips/Fontana to make a double LP with John Surman as a guest star but Tubby had a big band gig at a grotty North London pub which paid £4 and he said in full blackmailing style that he would cancel the big band if I didn't make it. A further irony was that Humph got as a dep’ on drums at the studio session Tony Levin, who had been my predecessor with Tubby.
Humph would often get big name American visitors to play with his band and I remember with particular pleasure a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon when we appeared on stage with Charlie Shavers on trumpet, the great Buddy Tate (who played opposite Lester Young in the pre-war Basie band) on tenor and the legendary Jay McShann on piano - the man who had given Charlie Parker his first regular job in Kansas City! I love casually telling people that I've worked with Jay McShann.
GC: You mentioned being influenced by Tony Williams - what was it that Williams brought to contemporary jazz as a teenager that made such a big impression on musicians and jazz fans?
SW: Tony Williams is one of my very favourite drummers and I am referring to the teenage prodigy with Miles Davis, not the later over-loud drummer with the over-size yellow kit. What stunned us from 1963-1968 was his relaxed and flexible yet driving time feel and the looseness but utter togetherness of the rhythm section with Herbie and Ron Carter. I also love his playing on albums with Jackie Maclean, Kenny Dorham, Grachan Moncur and Sam Rivers from the early sixties. His ride cymbal beat and sound were out of this world.
I later learned that "that" ride cymbal was one which Max Roach gave him. It eventually cracked but not for about 4 years. An Italian cymbal maker called Roberto Spizzichino (who died in 2011) set out to produce a cymbal sounding a near as possible to Tony's and marketed it as a "Tony Williams". They are now in short supply (going for 4 or 5 grand on e-bay!) and I count myself very fortunate to own one and to have acquired it some time ago at a modest price.
GC: What defines - to you - a good jazz drummer?
SW: Good jazz drumming requires, not necessarily a flashy technique (thank goodness!), but a musical sensitivity. This requires an ability to listen closely to what the other members of the group are doing and to blend in and complement their playing. This applies above all to the bass player, with whom the drummer must have a time feel in common for anything to get off the ground. There are some bass players I JUST CAN'T play with and others who are so simpatico that the drums just seem to play themselves and I can almost sit back on autopilot.
A drummer must be prepared to use dynamics, ranging from pianissimo to fortissimo at key points as well as having an otherwise median volume. It always amuses me that, when the drummer marks a climax by playing very loudly just for a few bars, the audience tends to forget how softly he has also played and accuses him of being an objectionably loud drummer! Art Blakey uses the best range of dynamics that I've ever heard. I prefer playing with sticks as much as possible but brushes are also an important sound for some passages, as occasionally are soft mallets.
The classic example of an un-musical drummer to my ears is Buddy Rich whose relentless black-and-decker drilling and machismo seem to thrill most people. Give me Billy Higgins, Mel Lewis, Ed Blackwell, Pete La Roca, Ben Riley, Stan Levey, Roger Humphries or Frank Butler any day! That’s a random selection of drummers I dig because they err on the musical, sensitive side.
GC: By the mid-1970s you had retrained as a lawyer and then, in the 1990s, as a priest - yet you always played jazz, right? - did you find any correlation between playing jazz and practising law and being a community priest?
SW: I was a practising solicitor for 22 years. Being in the legal profession was, as I had hoped, more intellectually stimulating that doing pop studio sessions on drums for a living but jazz remained my all-consuming passion. I played throughout this time with various bands, notably the Bobby Wellins quartet, the Peter King quintet and Coe, Wheeler & Co. There was no common denominator between law and music. Law was, as they say, dry-as-dust (at least the sort of law I was doing - land law, equity and succession).
I experienced a reconversion to Christianity in my 40s and quickly felt called to the priesthood. I was ordained at the age of 50, immediately took early retirement from my job as a bank in-house lawyer with relief and eventually ran my own parish as vicar. There are most emphatically connections between jazz and faith - the first is that working as a priest in the community has many similarities to working with musicians among audiences and "spreading the jazz word".
The second, and more fundamental, is that the profound emotions stirred in me by music chime with the deep convictions of my faith. As I said at the beginning of the documentary film A Love Supreme, "Viennese Masses and John Coltrane are really the same thing". In the end I believe the spoken or written word falls short of the yearnings of the human heart and music gets a lot nearer. As Charlie Parker once said to a condescending announcer who was patronising him: "well, they say music speaks louder than words so we're gonna play something now".
GC: I'm an atheist but find some form of spiritual release/relief in music - it's like listening to music I enjoy soothes my soul (or just makes me feel a bit better). What do you make of this?
SW: I can completely understand and sympathise with what you say. It is true of many people I know. I suppose for me, having somehow got into the grace of faith, I can see my deep love of music through that prism.
There’s a huge hype around certain younger London jazz musicians right now - while there’s talent rising I’m uncertain if any of the young guns could match QOW Trio in dynamics and musicality.
GC: QOW Trio is your latest band with tenor player Riley Stone-Lonergan and double bassist Eddie Myer - are you surprised to find yourself playing with younger musicians and making such forceful original music as you approach 80?
SW: QOW has been an unexpected piece of serendipity in my old age. We first met in 2018 when Eddie Myer, who lives just up the hill from me, brought Riley Stone-Lonergan round to my house for a blow. Not sure where he met Riley but they were already good friends. We played a few numbers impromptu and immediately felt and agreed that this trio was a "marriage made in heaven".
We started in the tradition of piano-less trios in the Sonny Rollins vein but gradually worked away from this, both backwards - playing Lester Young tunes and other past classics - and forwards ie branching out into free improvisation. We recorded our first album just in time for it to be released before Covid lockdown and, as you know, our second is being officially released this month and we will be launching it on a six day tour in February. It has already had airplay on BBC Jazz Record Requests.
QOW has given me a new musical lease of life. I just hope and pray that, if the work keeps coming in, I will have the physical stamina to keep making a full contribution on the drums. I think the intergenerational line up (late 70s, late 50s and early 30s) is really invigorating and seems to fascinate people. Plus the fact that Eddie is very versatile stylistically on bass (he plays bass guitar with Turin Brakes) and Riley and I share a love for the old and the new in jazz vocabulary.
Any excuse I can find to listen/read on/speak about Louis Armstrong I will do so - here’s one of the high points in human creativity: Louis and his Hot Seven with Potato Head Blues!
GC: You mentioned Louis Armstrong as being your gateway into jazz as a youth. Mine also - a couple of decades later. What qualities is it in Armstrong that he was - and to some degree remains - such an inspirational figure? And did you ever see Louis perform?
SW: I never saw Louis live - although I could have done - but saw him many times on screen. When I first heard him, I was only 12 or 13 and it was my first sound of jazz. Thrilling. Over the years, I grew to appreciate the beauty of his sound and, above all, his PHRASING and the way this could be a scintilla behind the beat (which is the key to swing in a soloist). I have always heard an affinity between Louis and Billie Holiday (the only jazz singer I absolutely revere) in this distinctive phrasing.
I’m uncertain as to whether Spike’s playing on this performance but I am certain that its a beautiful example of British modern jazz at its best.
GC: You mentioned the late Scottish saxophonist Bobby Wellins as being your personal favourite British jazz musician - I know you played with Bobby for a number of years, could you describe why you rate him so highly and what it was like to be in his band?
SW: I think Bobby is a very special taste - some people think he's a good player but don't "get" his total originality. Some, like me, do. It's difficult to define. You need to listen carefully to him: the keening, Scottish sound; the slow vibrato; the original patterns of harmonic improvisation; the supple technique and perhaps most of all and most difficult to define - the SARDONIC fuck-you hipness of his playing. In this respect only, the nearest thing would be altoist Jackie Maclean. I played in Bobby's bands from 1978 until his death in 2016. That's nearly 40 years. He was, as Dizzy said of Bird, the "other half of my heart beat". My hero, my closest musical confrere and a very close personal friend. There are a lot of "musings" on my website devoted to aspects of my musical life with Bobby.
Having said all of which, I must still acknowledge that Bobby had an even closer musical rapport with pianist Stan Tracey. There was something quite magical about the way they inspired each other. Listen to Under Milk Wood or Stan's big band album Alice In Jazzland. Bobby's solo on Afro-Charlie Meets The White Rabbit - a title typical of Stan’s sense of humour - is mind-blowing.
GC: By the time you left jazz to study law fusion was getting very popular - Weather Report, Return To Forever, Miles Davis, Ian Carr’s Nucleus, Keith Tippett’s Centipede etc - did you play with fusion bands? What was your take on jazz fusion?
SW: I'm quite lukewarm about "fusion", certainly the British examples and Miles Davis's rock efforts. I do very much like Joe Zawinul's Weather Report for its extraordinary range of colour sound and compositions. The first line-up is my favourite (Miroslav Vitous on bass, Eric Gravatt on drums and Dom Um Romao on percussion). I actually dragged Tubby Hayes down to Ronnie's to hear them – in, I think,1972 - but it wasn't his cup of tea!
GC: You worked with major band leaders while a young musician - Tubby Hayes, Blossom Dearie, Stan Getz, Tubby Hayes, Humphrey Lyttleton, Roland Kirk, Ronnie Scott, Bobby Wellins - what, to you, are the qualities these musicians shared as band leaders? With the Spike Wells Band and QOW are you band leader? Or do you prefer to run bands as equals?
Here’s Blossom from her London sojourn with a lovely tune - yes, Spike’s doing the excellent drumming featured here.
SW: I really don't think there was any particular quality which these various bandleaders shared. They were all inspiring to me in their different ways and I suppose you could say the only obvious common denominator from my point of view was that they didn't object to having me on drums!
The only groups which appear under my name from time to time these days are piano trios which I put together whenever the opportunity presents itself. QOW is very much a cooperative of musical equals who each contribute. I am the "elder statesman" simply by age, but the inter-generational factor is essential.
GC: How did Michael become Spike?
SW: Nothing to do with jazz. If it was, I guess I would have to be a bass player! No, it started at school when I and my contemporaries were 9 or 10 years old. We used to play cops and robbers. I always preferred to be a robber and "Spike" seemed a suitable underworld nickname. It has stuck for life.
Further confessions and anecdotes can be found on the “Musings” page of my website
www.spikewells.co.uk
QOW Trio’s The Hold Up tour is as follows:
3 Feb Verdict, Brighton QOW
5 Feb Stroud QOW
6 Feb Leeds QOW
7 Feb Sheffield QOW
8 Feb Leicester QOW
9 Feb Vortex, London QOW
12 Feb Cheltenham QOW