by Peter Oxley

Tom Ollendorff is a fresh young British Jazz guitarist making a name for himself on the London scene.

Born and raised in Bath, Tom studied Jazz Guitar at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama from ages 18 to 22, under tutors such as Paula Gardiner, Huw Warren (Quercus, ECM, Billy Bragg), Dave Cliff (Nina Simone) and Martin France (Gwilym Simcock, John Taylor trio). Tom in his last year became a Yamaha Jazz Scholar with other rising stars from the other UK conservatoires. Since then, he has moved to London, and gigs frequently with the Tom Ollendorff Trio amongst other bands, with members including Conor Chaplin (Dinosaur), Dave Hamblett and many others. He also teaches privately, and teaches 1 to 1 and groups at North London Music Academy.

I managed to pin Tom down for an interview on a hazy afternoon in early September.

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Peter Oxley: What’s your earliest musical experience?
 

Tom Ollendorff: My Mum’s a really good Pianist and when I was a young kid we used to kind of play piano together. Probably one of the earliest memories I have…just really by writing random notes on the score. Just writing pitches down and getting my mum to play them to me and see how they sounded. That’s probably the earliest..

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PO: That’s cool!

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TO: I don’t know I was, 5 or 6? Around about that kind of age?

 

PO: I remember doing a similar thing when I was very small actually. I didn’t understand the difference between rhythmic values and...

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TO: Oh no me neither!
 

PO: …pitch values

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TO: I suppose there was a level of curiosity about music but no, I didn’t understand anything. I mean I wasn’t writing anything, it wasn’t, I was just writing random notes down! My mum was..

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PO:…yeah sure

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TO: ...Playing them for me and maybe helping me a little bit

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PO:..Oh wicked!
 

TO: Yeah that’s probably the earliest thing I can remember

 

PO: Well that’s really cool. A bit further on now, do you remember if there was a turning point in your wanting to be a musician? Was that a sort of slow thing or can you remember it quite clearly?

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TO: No. It was something I had, it was something I was interested in since I was a kid and then something I kept coming back to. There were definitely times when I wanted to do something else, when I was, even you know, when I was at school.

But I suppose it’s something I had and I was OK at, and I was interested in! I kept coming back over a long period of time, and eventually I felt like ‘I want to understand, I really want to understand certain things better’.

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PO: I remember meeting you in 2013. You were in second year and I remember most weeks you were playing at Dempseys. From what I remember, you were there many times in lots of different line ups. Can you tell me more about your time at college, was it a formative period?

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TO: Yeah sure. Well I definitely wasn’t playing there the whole time. As you said I studied at the Royal Welsh College in Cardiff.  It was kind of a reasonably small tight knit community of musicians and so, often you’re in different people’s projects, and you had your own project and then well, this great club in Cardiff called Dempseys which you mentioned, which is now, the people who run that now are running the regular jazz nights on a Tuesday and Wednesday at a different place (The Flute and Tankard).

But yeah I had the opportunity to play there a reasonable amount. I don’t think I played there loads and loads but I definitely played there a lot and those are in a way, the first proper small band improvising gigs I’d done.
I played a little bit of big band. But I’m most interested in playing with smaller bands and that improvising and those were some of my first experiences. There’s another great venue in Cardiff called Café Jazz where I did my first gig of all my own music.

 

PO: Oh right!

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TO: But yeah those was the things, I was probably in my first year of college when I did that. Yeah I mean those were very very important experiences, I suppose.

 

PO: Was it like, the teaching staff and community you found yourself in.?Those things must have been important in creating your identity as a player at the time? Or at least giving you some cool experiences with music?

 

TO: Yeah I mean one of the great things you know, about studying anything I suppose is, a totally new experience for most people. You get to meet a lot of new people and you get to meet people who are interested in the same things as you, and so you know you make friends and important friendships, and when you combine that with playing the music, yeah of course it adds to the…I suppose the amount of enjoyment you get out it.

Yeah those things were very formative really. That was where I really started to think about how you play music and started really listening to things and not just listening…but listening and thinking “oh I love that, I wish I could do that”. And being surrounded by musicians is a crucial part of that I think.

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PO: Yeah! I suppose in my experience of being a Jazz musician, I suppose because you have this improvisation element which is so important in what you do; I remember reading Fred Hersch saying that he used to literally like try and channel the spirit of different piano players. I was wondering for example, your influence of Gilad (Hekselman); do you do a lot of listening and when playing, let it be what it is?

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TO: Of course, it’s the same as with anything really. You know if I listen to something and I think ‘wow this is amazing’ or it really moves me, there’s that element of uh… yeah you want to be able to do it. There’s definitely a balance to be found, looking at yourself; your strengths and your weaknesses, but also looking at other people at their strengths and weaknesses.

You mentioned before Gilad Hekselman, he’s one of many there are TONS of others as well, he’s just one of many really, they become your idols in a way, and you aspire to be like them, and I think that’s really normal. Ultimately you can never really sound like them, but I suppose in the process of trying to sound like them and kind of failing you end up.. a part of that is I suppose developing… some things you can replicate a bit, other bits are impossible…you end up developing your own ideas and your own sound. I think that’s the most important part of the music really, at least that I’m interested in….

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PO:…developing one’s own…sound?
 

TO: Well yeah I think so...it’s a complex, kind of myriad of priorities sometimes

 

PO: Sure

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TO: But you know, I think for me, all the great musicians who I’m really into all have such a strong identity….you get a sense of how developed they are and so I suppose that’s something I do think about a lot, there’s a lot of things they have in common.

And so.. yeah it’s a process of trying to study and improve on, you know the fundamental things of the music, you know time harmony, melody, repertoire…you know it’s an endless list of stuff really but also thinking, you know, be comfortable in the fact that, at some point you might have, something interesting to say you know, if you really focus on trying to sound like yourself and not be focused on imitating too much, that’s something I constantly feel like I need to do more of.

 

PO: I know the sort of schools of… people say with piano, you’re either a Monk player or a Bill Evans player. Would you say Metheny, Scofield Frisell is the equivalent for Jazz Guitar? Would you say those are the three most prominent guitar influences and therefore the sort of, schools formed in contemporary playing?  

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TO: For me, no actually although I’m a big fan of all of those guys. They’re all amazing musicians, um, they’re all amazing musicians, and they’re all um, you know, amazing players and I do love all of their playing and I’m definitely fans of all of them and they definitely influence...but I, you know, the scope of possibilities of Jazz, the kind of scope of possibilities of Jazz Guitar has really broadened well beyond the instrument.

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PO: That’s really interesting, yeah

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TO: And I think there are guitar players now who are doing things which I think are just kind of exploring you know, the technical aspects of the instrument in a very, very new way. Large Lund is just I think, I’m going through a huge phase of listening to him at the moment.

 

PO: Yeah

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TO: What he’s doing harmonically, particularly harmonically actually, and particularly with the way he, harmonizing melodies, his knowledge of harmony, his kind of depth of knowledge of his harmony and how he’s developed that, in to kind of, to be able to practically, how to practice applications on the guitar. In terms of his knowledge of voicings, is sort of amazing actually, so you know, he’s incredible and you know….I think Julian Lange is incredible, he’s doing stuff, you know.

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PO: Yeah

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TO: But I think, for me it sounds like you know, um, Classical harmonic ideas, he’s kind of developing a flexibility within that and able to kind of use it within Jazz, and kind of apply it to Jazz harmony sequences…

And I think Gilad who you mentioned earlier… I think his sound.

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PO: Has he influenced you on a personal level?

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TO: Yeah, I mean I know him quite well, so, definitely he’s an inspiring person, you know I’m inspired by his guitar playing. And he’s a really nice guy as well, so he’s just, you know definitely an inspiring person for me. And you know he’s an incredible, I was just kind of saying in terms of his playing he’s doing something quite unique as well. Kind of, developed a kind of a sound, a lot of different interesting sounds, you know, he’s really becoming quite a voice in that sense, I’ve listened to him a lot in a lot of projects, a totally kind of new original voice in my opinion, obviously, playing often in situations where there’s no bass. He’s really developed quite a strong sound in those things, and I think in his sounds, his fluidity, legato phrasing and technique, I think, there’s a lot of things I think he’s a unique musician as well.
Another huge influence I suppose is Kurt Rosenwinkel, who just you know, for me he’s maybe the absolute master of, of all the people I’ve checked out Kurt’s the kind of total master, whenever I come to listen to him I always oh this is just the absolute..

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PO: Yeah

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TO: You know the best just the total master of, I don’t know, the tradition of Jazz in a way. Incredible phrasing, incredible amount of…. language, incredible composer, technically amazing and…
 

PO: He’s up there with the very best of…well, musicians really

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TO: Incredible time, just totally amazing. There’s so much inspiration as a guitar player, there’s so many amazing guitar players in the jazz world today, it’s very inspiring. 

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Interview length= 15 minutes

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Tags:

 

Tom Ollendorff, Jazz, Guitar, Gilad Hekselman, Large Lund, Kurt Rosenwinkel

 

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