Page 64 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

written down for Miles Davis that he chose not to do, but I did do;
certain notes here and there. I think that was because I just liked what

Gil Evans had written there, and Miles did his own thing, but I wanted

to do what Gil had written. But there are very few of those moments.
That’s the exception to the rule. I just wanted to soak up what it was

that he was bringing to the trumpet and the repertoire. I wouldn’t

describe myself as a jazz musician, so there was no way I was going

to make a trumpet line over the top of what Gil Evans had written that

was going to be anything like what he did! So why would you ignore
that? It was out of my love and respect for him that I recreated that.

It’s a risky thing because you could say that it’s just copying, but I see

what he wrote as composition. So I don’t see what I’ve done as
copying; I see it as reperforming his ideas like you would with any

composition.

What instruments did you use throughout this album?
I used an old, antique trumpet on the Miles track! It’s my uncle’s old

copper bell — I actually need to give it back to him! It’s not a named

brand, it’s just an old, knackered trumpet that has a darkness to it,
and it’s a nightmare because it is so out of tune. It has no triggers. But

it has a dark airiness to it. I felt I shouldn’t use my normal trumpet to

create the sound I wanted. It would almost be like pressing too hard

so my lips weren’t vibrating or changing my embouchure, which I can’t
do. Maybe some people can, but I definitely can’t do that! It would

mess up my technique completely.

But I found that when I played this instrument, it was quite close to the
sound I was looking for, so I just thought, “Right, let’s do this”. There

were a couple of takes where I had to scrap everything either side — I

needed to pull all the tuning slides out in order to just get these few

notes. The joy of being able to record, not live! But in the concerts,