Jazz for breakfast

HOT’s Sean O’Shea talks with Mike Hatchard, the acclaimed jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and entertainer about his journey in music, his current breakfast jazz tour and other passions.

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Could you tell us about your early background and what brought you to Hastings?

I was born in Poole in Dorset, which I think instilled in me a craving to live by the sea. My early background was one of very little music, but for some reason I decided to play the piano when I was ten and I went up the road and found myself a piano teacher, which my parents rather reluctantly agreed to pay for. I started playing in pubs two nights a week when I was only fourteen, and joined Mick O’Hara’s folk rock band at fifteen. At sixteen, I applied for a job playing piano in a bar in Calella, Spain and spent one summer playing every night till three in the morning and crawling back to my digs, drunk on drinks bought me by factory workers on holiday.

I must have been a very strange chap, playing ‘singalong’ in the evening and practising Bach all day – and then somebody requested some jazz. I played something that I thought was vaguely jazzy and they said it was good, so I decided to become a jazz pianist as soon as I got back to the UK. Shortly after, I joined the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and did a post grad in composition at the Royal College. I lived in London for many years out of necessity but always wanted to move out, and did so in stages, going from Epsom to Northiam and eventually to Hastings, where the sea prevented me moving any further.

Though you are perhaps primarily know as a jazz pianist and composer, you are an all round entertainer. Could you say a bit about your journey as a musician and entertainer?

In my twenties I made a living playing the piano and, very occasionally, the violin. I never sang and I was too shy to ever talk to an audience, even when I was asked to do something mundane like announce the bingo. I certainly never thought of myself as much of an entertainer, just a jobbing musician. I always feel I peeked too soon; I toured with Cleo Laine for a while and I was musical director for Matt Monro. After that I made a reasonable living and worked with people like Barbara Thompson, David Essex, the Drifters, Pasadena Roof Orchestra and various gigs, but I guess I’d developed a bit of a yearning to try something different.

This agent, Charles Cassell, told me he’d got me an audition for Opportunity Knocks and thought I should go on, singing one of the many comedy songs I’d written. I went to the audition for a laugh, never imagining I’d be asked to do the show, but I was. At first I said flatly no, but the agent said although it was up to me, he felt I should accept as they auditioned about nine thousand people and only accepted fifty. So I said I’d do it but not under my real name. He asked me what I wanted to be known as, so I said ‘Marvin Hanglider.’ And so it was. I came third to an opera singer and a children’s brass band.

Once I’d done that I’d totally blown my credibility. I often used to play the 606 club in those days and all that kind of work vanished instantly. The phone stopped ringing.

Painting and illustrations, particularly caricatures, is another passion of yours. Could you describe how this interest developed?

When I was eight I wanted to be a painter. I used to stand in fields and paint oils. My parents used to leave me for four or five hours so I could get on with it, extraordinary really. Then I decided at the age of ten that I wanted to play the piano for a living, a promise to myself that I’ve never reneged on. They wouldn’t let me do art and music at school, so I sacrificed the art. Painting is a wonderful release when I feel I’ve got too much music in me, which happens from time to time.

Then, bizarrely, I was drawing a caricature on a serviette at a friend’s wedding when an agent saw me. ‘I never knew you could do that,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for a caricaturist for weeks. I can get you work.’ I thought he was joking but sure enough, a few days later, I found myself working for Coca Cola in that capacity. Within a few months I was drawing for magazines, doing advertising work, I even made a TV series for CTV in which I drew people as I interviewed them, and somehow that led to doing the Edinburgh Festival with a show that incorporated music and sketching. (A then unknown Graham Norton was often a guest if I couldn’t find anybody more famous.) I discovered I could make people laugh and I started doing gigs at Jongleurs, Up the Creek and The Comedy Store – and did my one man show at the Purcell Rooms a couple of times. I even did a series of cruises where I was billed as a comedian. But I found doing one show a week too frustrating, I was always jamming with the band.

After this strange detour, I made a very conscience effort to return to full time music which I’ve pretty much done now. I think I’m unusual because I practice for hours, probably rare in somebody of my age. But I’ll still do anything I’m asked to do: I suppose I’m just a performance/experience junky. Working with Herbie Flowers opened up many strange opportunities including Rockshops in prisons, colleges and places of mental health. Nowadays I pretty much play music I want to play and I’m lucky that I work with some truly great musicians from all genres. So, I’m sorry that’s such a long answer, but it’s been quite a journey…

You perform regular breakfast and afternoon jazz sessions with a variety of talented musicians. Could you say a bit about these sessions?

Jazz breakfasts started at St Mary In The Castle about twenty years ago and they’ve always been extraordinarily popular; they’re a phenomenon unique to the South Coast. I try and make everything I play accessible by using cheesy banter rather than make musical sacrifices. Sometimes I get away with it…The ones I do at the Ropetackle in Shoreham now usually sell out every month. I still get people ask me when I’ll do them again at the De La Warr Pavilion.

How do you see the future of jazz?

I think it’s in fairly safe hands: there are some great players coming up and it’s been my privilege to play with quite a few of them lately. I direct the ‘Jazz Project Bigband’ based in Tonbridge; recently we played a gig where the oldest member of the band was in their eighties and the youngest was fourteen – a trombonist called Harry Whitty: tremendous. The help given by technology is a bit of a double-edged sword, but I still feel very optimistic.

I’ve sometimes heard Hastings referred to as the ‘musical capital’ of the South East and there’s been research which described it as ‘the most musical town in the UK’. What is your view of this description?

Descriptions like that have to be a bit suspect, but it could well be true. There are some great musicians in this town in every genre.

What do you do to relax?

I work to relax. When I’m not working, I’m unbearable.

What of the future? Any new projects on the horizon?

A project I’ve had on a back burner for quite a while is 1066 the Musical, which is almost complete, but there’s such a lot of work involved and the time never seems to be right to launch it. I have written and produced musicals in the past and one year I took a cast of forty up to the Edinburgh Festival to do my setting of The Mayor of Casterbridge.

I’m working on a number of albums: one with Alan Barnes, Herbie Flowers and a string quartet that I’ve been working on for years that I go back to from time to time and promise myself I’ll finish one day. I’ve recently recorded an album with the brilliant Finnish violinist, Mikko Ville, that should be ready soon – and also a trio album with the wonderful Paul Hart on bass and Bobby Worth on drums. And I’m also trying to get my quartet ‘Gypsy Blue’ more established.

• For more information about Mike Hatchard, check out his Facebook page.

SOS July 2015

 

 

 

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