Page 81 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

Tell me a little about the different instruments

you play on the recording…

I used my C trumpet for the Gershwin and Copland. When I was a kid I played the B flat
trumpet exclusively, but while I was studying at the Paris Conservatoire I started on the C
trumpet, and that sort of became the trumpet for me. In Paris the trumpet is treated almost
like a woodwind instrument: of course it’s just a tone higher in pitch, but it’s got a slightly
more focused sound that’s much more soloistic and feels exactly right for that American
classical repertoire.

For the Evans/Davis pieces, I decided to use my uncle’s copper-belled trumpet, and it was so
much fun to play on an instrument that I wouldn’t normally go near on a recording! It’s a
beautiful trumpet, but it’s also very old and noisy: it doesn’t have the triggers that you get on
modern trumpets to allow you to tune as you’re playing, and the sound is very airy so I think
it may even have had a little bit of a leak as well! It really made me put aside my classical
background and just make the sound that I imagined Gil Evans wanted for this orchestration.

Which jazz trumpeters particularly inspired you

as a young musician?

I always joke with my friend Simon Wright (who’s the arranger of the Gershwin on the
album) that there would be a lot of competitors at the Trumpet Olympics! But I do think
Miles Davis approached the instrument unlike anyone else who’s ever lived: he was a very
cerebral, esoteric person, and he channelled all of that deep thinking into his playing.

The other trumpeter who inspired me greatly who plays a different instrument is Dizzy
Gillespie. He had immense power in the upper range (hence his nickname!), but it was his
middle register that absolutely stabs you in the heart – it’s so intimate and sophisticated and
suave, but it’s also so vulnerable and communicates with you so directly. These people made
me think ‘This is just the best instrument ever – I’ll never be able to achieve what they’ve
achieved on it, but let’s go and explore what I can do!’.

Did you ever consider going down the jazz route

yourself?

Not really! I had so much admiration for these guys, but I didn’t ever feel the need to copy
what they were doing: when I first discovered them I was doing my grade exams at school
and had some really great formative experiences of hearing the English Chamber Orchestra in
Mozart and Haydn and Bach, which just felt like it was my path. My first trumpet-teacher
was actually a jazz-player, but he didn’t teach us in a jazz way – I remember us playing little
Bach chorales in our brass group when I was about seven, and I just found so much joy in
that. But I’ve always loved to take inspiration from lots of different genres and sort of
disregard the labels: I understand why they’re there, but there’s really only two types of
music - good and bad!