Shirley Smart on Middle Eastern musical influences and upcoming recordings

Cellist, composer, educator, and bandleader Shirley Smart is a remarkably versatile musician, comfortable playing jazz, Middle Eastern, and Western classical music. Those styles converge in her trio with John Crawford and Demi Garcia Sabat, which comes to NQ Jazz on Monday 13th September. Ahead of the performance—which will also be livestreamed online—we asked Shirley about how she spent the twelve months between Spring 2020 and 2021, what she has been listening to lately, and plenty more.

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

Obviously, being able to play for people again, and the whole experience of travelling to play, meeting new people and old friends in audiences.

Also going to hear other artists perform, and hanging out with friends at their gigs!

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

My set is based on music from my album Long Story Short, in which I tried to bring together various strands of musical influence into a trio context.

I spent a long time in the Middle East, so there is a heavy North African/Middle Eastern tinge to many of the tunes, as well as swing, tango, classical, jazz and French musette influences.

There's a lot of improvised solos, and my colleague and friends Demi Garcia Sabat on drums and John Crawford on piano are both ideal partners for this music, as they are both great improvisers with strong backgrounds in both jazz and Latin music especially - so there's a lot of grooves, and pretty lively improvising!

I also like to tell a few stories to give some context to some of the pieces - as there is a long story behind the development of my interest in a involvement with both jazz and Middle Eastern music, so whilst I generally like to let the music speak for itself, I think people often also enjoy both a bit of musical context to some of the sounds that may be unfamiliar, and also the odd bit of personal background here and there!

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

I've been practicing and composing throughout the whole period, and have also recorded a couple of new things which will come out in due course! There's a duo album with pianist Robert Mitchell which we recorded last year, and we've been working on producing that ready for release on Discus Records later this year. I've also recorded quite a bit of free improvisation with Demi and my friend James Arben on tenor sax and flute, and we have another session or two to do with that! I've been composing music for a new sextet project as well.

A lot of my time actually was taken up preparing materials and getting my head around online teaching for City University, where I teach Musicianship, and also took over the role of Head of Performance this year - so that was a challenge in these times!! It was in some ways good, though as it gave me a focus and a structure to my time. I'm fairly self-motivated anyway, but with so little else going on, it was useful to have that focal point, and students have needed quite a bit of support as well, so it was good to feel useful!

I have had more time to spend listening to recordings, which I have really enjoyed. one of my favourite things to do has been to perch on my bedroom windowsill in the evening, put on a couple of albums and watch the sunset - I live in an attic flat, so I get a great view of sunsets!! And I've had a bit more time to read also, which has been nice.

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

I'm not sure yet - I think that's something I may need to reflect on after a year or so of being in a post-pandemic situation.

There are obviously many questions as to how and what form things will take coming back - in all areas of the profession, from West End shows to the scene for independent artists. I think that there will be a renewed appreciation of live music, which could be a huge positive, and also that livestreaming, now that venues have equipment and are familiar with setting that up, could be a potentially valuable addition to live events in terms of reaching wider audiences, and generating extra income streams.

I'm reasonably fortunate in that I had a teaching job to support myself financially, and I am quite happy filling my own time, so there was no chance of me giving up the profession, as I know many have either chosen or been forced to do.

I think that I've appreciated the slower pace of life during lockdown, and it has made me rethink a few things coming out of lockdown in order to preserve perhaps a better balance - although I really do enjoy being busy as well, I would like to preserve more time for quiet listening and reading. I don't know if that is a change in perspective musically, or in terms of the industry or just a life perspective change, but it's one I would like to keep as one of the results of this is that I have time to broaden my listening into new areas of music that I'm unfamiliar with, or more time to check our new artists, which is also nice!!

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

I don't know if there are particular individuals as much as particular lines of tradition for me. Certainly my exposure to North African and Middle Eastern music, especially the Algerian and Morrocan chaabi traditions, and the music of pianist Maurice El-Medioni (there was a whole circle of musicians in Algeria around Medioni also, rather like a North African Buena Vista Social Club - and the music is amazing!). And quite a few Israeli jazz musicians who also have brought these influences into their music - Omer Avital particularly is someone whose compositional approach I admire very much. As a string player in jazz also, the French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood is someone whose playing I admire immensely - his sound is just one of the most beautiful things I have heard a violin do! I'm not a huge gypsy jazz aficionado, but I do very much like the acoustic sound of people like Bireli Lagrene also.

Q. What music are you listening to at the moment?

I've actually been listening to a fair amount of classical chamber music again recently, it's always nice to come back with fresh ears, and re-hear works like the Brahms Piano Quintet or the String Sextets! I've also been listening to Itamar Borochov, an Israeli trumpeter whose albums Blue Nights and Boomerang I like a lot. And I'm also right now in the middle of a research paper centred around recordings of one particular Algerian/Andalusican piece, so I'm digging around recordings of that which vary quite a lot in approach and style, but not in any conveniently organised way, so its quite interesting.