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So how did you become associated with the Dirty Dozen?
I was already, unbeknownst to both of us, associated with them anyway. I had their first record and Demon (Records, E.C.'s personal record label) had picked up on the Montreux one and put it out. I was delighted when I saw that record come out because I loved the first record.
I can't claim to have any input into the label beyond the odd suggestion of what album we maybe could seek out, you know. There 's all these back catalogues, all to be exploited. If anybody can find the tapes and somebody's willing to spend the time... really what the reissue business comes down to is somebody's love for the individual act. Most of the Demon catalogue is defined by the record collections of the people who work there.
They have to be keen enough to feel that those records are both worthwhile persevering with and worthwhile putting out again. Obviously, when it comes to licensed records which are current, the same thing applies. I'm always delighted to have any New Orleans music on the label. We've got Johnny Adams and the Nevilles, as well.
Do you own Demon?
I'm a director, whatever that means. I'm one of four directors of Demon... five... however many there are these days. I think there are four. I'm like the quiet one, the "sleeping partner" if you like. Demon also has my back catalogue in England so that's quite a big chunk of what they sell.
I've just been a fan of the Dirty Dozen. The curious thing is I always had to miss 'em. The couple of times they came to Europe, I always had to go out on tour. The same thing with the Nevilles, in fact. I'd always just miss 'em by a week or something. Lots of good stuff I miss. That's the trouble. All year, all winter, there are no good concerts. Then, the minute summer comes around, people start travelling around Europe and you're away, over on this side, touring. It's very frustrating.
Ever since I've been in the record business, or music business or whatever you call it, I've been promising my mother to take her to America. To somebody of her generation, America's a dream place. Finally, after ten years of always being too busy or being on the road constantly, I had a little time. So I said, "Let's take a holiday." And we went to New York.
We did all the tourist things. We went up the Empire State Building. Come the evening, I said, "Let's go see a show or something." I took her to see a Broadway show. After, I said, "Do you want to go to a jazz club?" She's a jazz fan. Billy Eckstine was playing at the Blue Note. It was an early show so we were through by about 10:30, maybe earlier.
We were driving back through Greenwich Village and I saw Sweet Basil and I knew the Dozen were on there. I was hankering after going but I didn't know if my mother wanted to go. But I thought she'd really dig 'em because their repertoire encompasses a lot of things from when she was a jazz fan and she ran a jazz club in Liverpool. My father was a trumpet player and he had a little quintet. They used to have to take over venues, much the same way as when I lived in Liverpool. I did the same thing. I used to get nightclubs and take 'em over on a slack night, on a Tuesday night, and me and my partner would run a club in there for the night and take home what we'd get at the door. My parents did the same thing in the late Forties.
So my mother and I ended up staying at Sweet Basil for two more sets. We got there at the end of the first set and stayed for the next two sets, until the place closed. I spoke briefly with Gregory (Davis, leader of the Dozen) but we didn't make any plans or anything. I just met the guy. I think this was even before Demon put the Montreux album out. 1 was just saying as one musician I could dig the sound. They were just fantastic. They were even better than the record. It couldn't even compare. They had a richer sort of sound. It's hard to describe without sounding pretentious but it sounded like something you'd dream and then you wake up and it really exists. It's that sort of effort, their sound to me.
The familiarity that people reading this in New Orleans will have with the structure and the substance of the music, I hope the record doesn't diminish that quality to them. Because I know I'm not as familiar with all of the other alternatives to the Dozen. They are what that sound is to me.
At the same time, they also sounded a bit like something I already knew, which is really strange, because it obviously doesn't have a connection with anything else. They're extremely happening. They're about as swinging as it gets. Particularly, that night in New York... they were absolutely storming.
I suppose that club was kind of their home away from home. It was a very loose show, people wandering on and off the stand. I don't know whether that's the way their shows always go.
It was the only time I've ever seen 'em live, except on television. I was just absolutely struck with it. I filed it away in the back of my mind for future reference. And then when I started writing the songs, a couple of the things just started to come together. I was very apprehensive...
You wrote the songs with the Dozen in mind?
I don't know... the songs sort of developed simultaneously with the idea of getting in contact with the Dozen. I suppose that's not quite the same thing. I don't really know. "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"... I really kind of heard horns in it when I was writing it and I really didn't want it to fall into either too much of a folk thing or too much of a... When I was first writing it, I thought I was writing "Dark End of the Street." That's what I was trying to write. Now that's a very tall order. That was like the Holy Grail to that song. That was the beacon. Now if I've fallen way short of that, I think what I've done is gone down another road that's as interesting in its own way. "Dark End of the Street" has already been written. To write a song that clear, I just think it's impossible. I mean, that's one of the greatest songs ever written, isn't it?
Toussaint fits in "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" perfectly. It sounds almost like a Toussaint song.
Yeah, that's the funny thing. I suppose we're all looking for that kind of purity, when you're going into that territory, into that sort of area or feeling. But then the nature of the song really defeats that kind of clarity anyway, it being about this deluded guy wandering around at night. He won't go home first of all, and then when he starts to go home, all these horrific hallucinations come to mind. Now that's much more in the realm of dreams than any song like "Dark End of the Street," which is very realistic and very brutal.
It was then that horns sounded essential to me. I suppose it could've been essential in a different way if the Dozen would've said No, they didn't want to play on it. But once they said Yes, it was really clear to me the way in which the instruments could be arranged. The way in, which we approached the record really, I think, assisted the prominence with which the Dozen are featured throughout.
By method and as luck with schedule would have it, we had to adapt away from the original way of doing layered
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