England

There are a lot of really good things going on in England. Especially the generation of 18-to 23-year-olds. They’re very enthusiastic, very positive - musically, and attitude-wise as well. It’s not muso.

Before me were the Woodstock generation. Their roots were in rhythm and blues. My generation have our roots in jazz. Not that we’re actually playing jazz, but it’s just kind of Lego - building blocks we get to make things out of. Like, chord-wise, musically, that’s definitely where I come from. There are a lot of people of my generation making jazzy-house, jazzy-punk, jazzy-techno, whatever. A lot of these jazzy, funky sort of people are playing in London, like, really live.

A lot of people who were playing when I was brought up were misunderstanding jazz, in an academic way. They just thought jazz was like a formula, which is rubbish. Young people now are playing jazz when they don’t even know a note, ’cos they like the sounds, ’cos it’s in their blood.

TimeOut, 11 august 1994