I  N  T  E  R  V  I  E  W Growing up in Manchester in a musical family environment, Martin France was suitably encouraged by his parents when he took up piano, violin and, finally, drums. He studied with local teacher Geoff Riley and played local gigs before moving to London in 1983, where he became a member of the group Loose Tubes, which fostered many of today's leading British jazzers including Django Bates, Mark Lockheart and Iain Ballamy. His first major recordings (in 1986), Erendira and Cantilena, with British group First House were on Manfred Eicher's prestigious ECM label. Today, Martin is in demand as a freelance drummer (recently working with John Taylor, Huw Warren and Mark Feldman, Justin Quinn's Bakehouse, the German NDR Radio Orchestra and even Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour) and as a member of Django Bates' various projects (his band Spin Marvel have) just released (their) first CD, which can be purchased directly from www.spinmarvel.com. Drummer caught up with Martin shortly after he completed the 75th Birthday Celebration Tour with Kenny Wheeler's Big Band…..and that's Kenny's 75th not Martin's! "I first played with Kenny back around 1988 and we have done various projects, many of which have included pianist John Taylor. Kenny's music plays itself; even though his latest suite was quite complicated the drum charts didn't have too many notes on them so a big part of my job was working out what to play and what not to play. In one way, that can be liberating as you don't have your head buried in the music so much but you have to use your experience and knowledge to come up with something appropriate. (You have to really) listen to the band to hear what's going on compositionally. You have to be aware of all the changes of rhythm, harmony, dynamics, mood and the feeling of what the music is trying to convey. In Kenny's latest suite there are a lot of different feelings and movements so I wanted to feel that I really understood each section. We only had 2 days rehearsal but the members of the band know Kenny and his music so it came together pretty quickly." Martin has appeared on many albums over the course of his professional career but, when it comes to recording, he much prefers the studio environment to the stage. "We have recorded several shows on this tour and there is talk of a studio recording also. I'm not too fond of live recordings in some respects as it feels like you're concentrating on the gig whereas in a studio you can concentrate on the recording. On a gig, you may be thinking of certain aspects like putting the music across or monitoring issues, which you don't have to worry about in the studio. I find you can just concentrate on the music and take more care when recording in a studio." Playing bass alongside Martin in Wheeler's Big Band is the fantastic ex-Miles Davis sideman, Dave Holland. Martin explains how the experience is equally inspiring and challenging. "I had played with Dave before on another big band gig with Kenny and I recorded (an album) with him about 8 years ago. Playing with Dave is very inspiring as he's such (an incredible) musician; apart from his bass playing, he brings so much knowledge and experience with him. He's worked very hard to get where he is. I think that sometimes people think that if you have a natural talent, then that's enough but actually it's not. All of the best musicians that I have met, no matter how naturally talented they are, have worked (extremely) hard and Dave's an excellent example of that. It's interesting to see how he feels the time and groove of the music. His time and feel and, importantly for a drummer, where he puts the beat, is very interesting. It feels to me like he plays right in the centre of the beat; he gives the note lengths their full value. You can rely on his consistency, so if you want to, that allows you to play a little ahead or behind the beat to give a different feel, knowing that he will always be there. For a drummer, he's a dream to play with. He’s (an amazing improviser in the true sense of the word); his solos were different every night. It was interesting talking to him about how he got his time together. He has worked a lot on time and subdivisions and playing in odd times. He has worked on odd times a lot, probably more than a lot of drummer’s, by investigating the many was (you) can phrase or divide an odd time signature. For example, if playing in 9, one could subdivide it into 3 twos and a three, so (you) could play 2-2-2-3, 2-3-2-2, 2-2-3-2 or 3-2-2-2 and Dave would play all of those combinations and often not play the '1', so if you weren't concentrating it would be easy to get lost. On another tune in '3', we were playing along and I became aware that something weird was happening and Dave was playing in '5' over the top! In those situations, especially in a big band where everyone is relying on the drums, it's very important to (feel rooted and) count". After many years as an in demand sideman, Martin is finally releasing his own project, Spin Marvel. Surprisingly, it is not some odd-time-meets-ECM extravaganza, but a dark, textural album of electronica, featuring Martin's electronic set up and making much use of studio sampling and editing. Martin explains how it came to fruition. "The birth of the project was when I was commissioned to write some music for Cheltenham Jazz Festival in 2002, the organizer was planning a “Drummers Day”. (The following year) (we toured in the UK) with bassist Tim Harries, saxophonist Iain Ballamy, guitarist John Parricelli, keyboardist Django Bates and myself. During the tour, Tim, and I spoke about recording a project and the CD has just been released. It started off with just bass and drums, myself and Tim, and a lot of the music has remained just bass and drums. We recorded the music in stages and added a lot of electronics afterwards. We spent quite a while re-sampling and editing it, after the initial recording, and it took on a life of its own. We experimented a lot with the electronics and effects. We mostly used samples of us, along with some 'outside ' samples, then John Parricelli came in on guitar and I mixed it (in Oslo) with a Norwegian drummer friend of mine, Terje Evensen. It's a minimal approach to music; we weren't intent on filling up all of the spaces. It seemed like a nice idea to make a record that left something to the imagination of the listener. As it turned out we ended up using very little of the written music as Tim and I built it up step by step, however there are traces of it still left. This enabled us to be to be totally open to the contributions of everyone else and let the music develop organically, even down to the artwork. I just let people listen to the music and come up with their own ideas. Obviously, (we) could then fine-tune the ideas, but I wanted the input of others. I don't see it as solely my creation or my vision; I see it as a flexible, organic group of musicians. People may come and go, and make suggestions and I like the idea that someone could add something to take it in a different direction. It just felt like I was pulling people together to make music that was common to us. The next project or album will probably be something entirely different. I have always been quite interested in electronic music but generally play music that changes a lot within one piece and, even though that can be interesting, I sometimes yearn to play a feeling, mood or groove and just keep it there. Sometimes, when music changes a lot you don't have time to really get into each section." In addition, Martin has also been involved, as a sideman, in a number of diverse projects. "I recently recorded a trio album with John Taylor and bassist Palle Danielson for (CAM in Italy). John, like Dave is a very inspiring musician. He is totally in the music and a very rhythmic player. He throws out lots of stuff for a drummer to play with and he plays with such force and intent; it's very special. We are planning to do a second record in October. I also recorded the album Before I Forget with guitarist Justin Quinn's Bakehouse. I got a last minute call to do the album and hadn't met Justin before. We recorded over 2 days and it was very inspiring to meet and work with such a talented bunch of young musicians - the next Generation. Additionally,I have also been playing with a tremendous pianist, Gwilym Simcock. Gwilym has an enormous amount of  vocabulary and technique together but his playing is so musical which of course is the most important thing. We (will be recording) a trio CD later this year which I look forward to very much. Most recently, I just recorded a track for Dave Gilmour's new album and it was great pleasure to work with him and producer Phil Manzanera. They were both very focused, knew exactly what they were after in terms of mood and feeling and they got a lovely sound too. The piece we recorded was quite slow and it took a lot of concentrated effort to get it exactly right. The track is for his next solo record and from 150 songs he'd whittled it down to twelve pieces! I think there's going to be a lot of variety on the record in terms of the music and orchestration and it's going to be interesting to see how Dave will put it together. I think it will be really nice."

Gear Box Drums Noble and Cooley 10" by 9" Tom 12" by 10" Tom 14" by 14" Floor Tom (all suspended by Purecussion Rims Mounts) 22" by 17" Bass Drum 13" by 5 3/4" Wood Snare Ludwig Metal Snares   Heads Evans Genera G2 Clear - Top and Bottom (Toms) SD Dry 2 ply Coated (snare) EQ1 (Bass Drum)   Cymbals Zildjian 14" K Custom Session Hi-Hats 15" Azuka - 3 Rivets. 12" K Custom Dark Splash 20 K Custom Dry Light Ride 18" K Custom Session Ride   Sticks Vic Firth SD11 Slammer's Vic Firth Mallets ZIldjian Brushes   Electronics Roland Octopad Roland Pedals Roland Outboard Pads Ensoniq Sampler Roland/Boss SP303 Dr Sample Soundcraft Mixer   Hardware Gibraltar Yamaha DW