Noah Stone

PO: If you had to take 3 musicians to a desert island who would you take?

Okay, I guess it would have to be Coltrane, Keith Jarrett and Elvin.

Coltrane for me is just so engaging on an emotional and spiritual level. His tone and approach to music is powerful, proactive and packed full of energy but is also heart wrenchingly beautiful and for me Coltrane is one of the best when it comes to conveying a message through sound. Keith Jarrett is all about phrasing to me. The way he can phrase a melody is just on another level. You can’t transcribe it, it’s in the cracks; the way he pushes and pulls different phrases, I could listen to him play melodies all day and not get bored. And Elvin is just a very special and unique human being that clearly saw things differently. He completely changed the world of Jazz drumming. I love his immense energy and personality through his music as well as his wide rolling-triplet feel. It really speaks to me. Elvin really showed me things I didn’t know were possible on the drums.

Peter Oxley: What are your earliest musical experiences?

Noah Stone: I grew up in a musical family surrounded by a lot of music. As a young child my mother would take my brothers and I, to African drum workshops and camps and this really appealed to me. I played Djembe and Sabah, learning simple rhythms from Senegal and Ghana.

This soon progressed to drum kit aged 7, which I immediately took to and I found that I could keep good time. I used to drum along to my favourite tracks and started to teach myself the basics. I became the percussionist and drummer in the school orchestra and even took up the flute for a while. I finally started lessons with a local drum teacher when I was about 12/13, who among other things liked jazz.

Although we did not do much jazz drumming, my teacher introduced me to various well known drummers such as Peter Erskine and Steve Gadd and slowly I independently began to increase my jazz listening and playing at home. At about this time I joined my local youth jazz orchestra at a Saturday morning music school and shared the drum chair. I also used to do regular gigs with my older brother who played jazz sax and piano and we would play everything from village fetes to fundraisers as well as providing background jazz for a local art gallery, mostly playing well known jazz standards and popular music.

I also was much encouraged by my secondary school music teachers, who appreciated my talents and also liked jazz but fused with pop and rock. I became ingrained in the school music department and loved every minute, regularly performing in concerts, musicals and celebration events. At age 15, I auditioned for the junior jazz course at The Royal Academy of Music. I had attended a few workshops at Jazz School UK under Nick Weldon previously and had appreciated the chance to play jazz with others as none of my contemporaries liked jazz that much.

Now having the chance to play jazz with likeminded young people every week was an exciting prospect! I was successful and attended the Academy weekly for two years under the excellent tutelage of Gareth Lockrane and Simon Colam. I had the opportunity to attend workshops with some of the best national and international jazz artists and performed at Pizza Express, Soho and The Southbank Centre among other venues.

During this time I also auditioned successfully for The National Youth Jazz Collective and attended summer school for two consecutive years and held the drum chair for WYJO - Warwickshire Youth Jazz Orchestra. I decided that this was the career I wanted to follow and happily won a scholarship to Birmingham Conservatoire where I am now an undergraduate in my third year studying for a BMus (Hons) in Jazz. I have been fortunate during my time at Conservatoire to date, to play at Cheltenham jazz festival and gig in Siena and Trondheim, as well as performing regularly near my home in Oxfordshire and in Birmingham.