Misha Mullov-Abbado on Avishai Cohen and seeing his peers perform again

Photo by Aga Tomaszek

Bassist and bandleader Misha Mullov-Abbado is an Edition Records artist and active player on the London scene. Ahead of his group’s performance at NQ Jazz on 30th August 2021, we asked Misha about his past twelve months, major influences, and the music he is most looking forward to seeing as live performances return.

Q. What are you most looking forward to about the return of live music?

God so many things. The feeling of having communicated something to someone directly in a way that you can only really do so when you perform and see an audience listen and react is something I miss greatly. The nature of live-streams has achieved this to an extent but as we all know it isn’t the same. So that satisfaction of having an audience (and also feeling a local audience if the concert is away from home) is whatever I am looking forward to most. 3 days ago I had my first concert to an audience this year which was amazing, although I also can’t wait for the audience face masks to go so you can actually see people properly.

Q. What can audiences expect from your NQ Jazz performance?

My band has been itching to get back on the road since we had an album release tour booked for 2020 (that included the original version of this gig) and since the album came out last June we’ve had (at the time of writing) just one gig to an actual audience, so we’re so looking forward to playing the music that we recorded for that album “Dream Circus” loads this summer. My band always performs pieces I’ve written for the band (and also some adaptations of pieces I originally wrote for other groups) and by now we have a collection of 3 albums’ worth of material, plus some new music I’ve written recently that I’m (again, at the time of writing) yet to bring to my band. The music is very varied in terms of style and character, with a lot f influences ranging from all different types of classical music, jazz and folk music from all over the world.

Q. What has kept you busy during the last 12 months?

During the last 12 months I have been doing a lot of recording engineering and producing, which includes making musical arrangements for people (which I have done for many years now) but more recently I have got into being a producer for various colleagues, so for the first time moving onto the technical side of things. While I am conscious of hoping it doesn’t completely take over my life in the long term, I have been grateful to have had a lot of work to keep my busy over the last year, and have got to be involved in many fantastic and musically rewarding projects.

Q. Has your musical perspective or perception of the industry changed over the past year?

I don’t think my perspective has changed much, except for developing more appreciation for how difficult it must be to manage big things like active venues and big groups such as orchestras. This feeling often turns into despair when I am not feeling optimistic about how things in the industry will recover.

Q. Who has had a significant influence on your music?

A hell of a lot of people have had an influence on my music over the years, so to be honest it’s hard to single anyone out. As a musician in general I would have to say I am most influenced by classical music and especially Bach, though also many composers in the 20th century. I also admire when musicians build bridges over different genres, for example with Avishai Cohen combining elements of different types of Israeli music with jazz, so added to the fact that he’s a jazz double bass player and band leader I couldn’t not at least mention him.

Q. Who are you most looking forward to seeing perform when live music returns?

The two things I am most looking forward to in relation to going to concerts are (a) hearing the best live music, and (b) going to see friends of mine perform and get to socialise afterwards, which I miss just as much as socialising after concerts of my own. My partner and I have just booked for two concerts as part of the Spotlight Chamber Series which is being organised by our good friend and former housemate. One of them is performed by the Doric String Quartet who are one of the best quartets around, and the other is a Schubert Octet concert with most of the group being dear friends of ours.