'Delta': Gary Brooker's ballet

A revealing press-conference: part II

'They were spokespeople for that generation'

[Part I is here]

Niels-Erik Mortensen
But you did actually score it for a complete symphony orchestra?

GB
Yes, no rock-band.

NEM
But as a modern ballet, wouldn't it be a more adequate form to compose for a -

GB
I don't think this was the conception for this thing. The idea was that Laura's dance and my music should be put in the setting here [at The Royal Theatre], which is with these dancers and this orchestra.

LD
It has a classical base to it. I think when you see the work it definitely has a classical base to it. For me, some of the greatest collaborations I feel close to are Ballanchine and Stravinsky. The dancers here are very strong individuals, they have a strong sense of themselves, and I wanted to work with just that. So, it is really a dance for 16 soloists.

What Gary did was brilliant because when you hear the orchestra, he's taken the traditional full-size orchestra with some added percussion which I think is fascinating but with the strings, with the bass, with the wind instruments and made a piece of music that can only work for orchestra. If you hear the mock-up tape that he made for me which he needed to do for me in order to choreograph it, it belongs for the orchestra, you know.

NEM
Did you find it difficult to write a piece of dance music?

GB
Uhm - no, I didn't have any great difficulty, because Laura had been able to communicate - you know, when I was writing. I could see her ballet, and I thought this would be: "Yes! This will work alright." There was one bit particularly, where I slowed it down a bit, which I was a bit worried about. A lot of it is very rhythmic but I had to get a bit of a tune in there somewhere. It was like writing a long song.

LD
- you did that very nice! When did you and I meet for the first time?

GB
I know exactly when it was. It was about last Thanksgiving in November [1989], wasn't it?

LD
There was a couple of telephone calls after that, and the next time when we met that was when I was dancing 'round the living-room. One of the reasons why the ballet was important is the emotional content of Gary's music - even though it were abstract. The human quality, the honesty that occurs on stage is very, very important for me and there's a lot of humanity in Gary's work. It comes out through the melodic quality which hopefully will match with the steps.

KO
But you have done these long tunes before, I mean: In Held 'Twas In I and The Worm and the Tree -

GB
Well, the Tree could make a ballet, actually!

(All speaking at once:

NEM: Why didn't you?
LD: Well, that's the next ballet!
GB: A lot of mind in that actually.)

UNKNOWN REPORTER:
I was told that you didn't know about Procol Harum before -

LD
Well, I didn't have any of the music or access to any of the music, and I didn't have any of the music back in the 60s, when I was a poor dancer and didn't have any money to buy records. So, I was either listening to my friends' records of Procol Harum or when it was on the radio, so for many years I hadn't heard that music again. But I knew AWSoP well.

Procol Harum was an emotional support to what was happening to us guys, who were in our twenties back then. In effect an emotional support to what Bob Dylan was doing - they were spokespeople for that generation.

NEM
Did you have that in mind when you wrote all these songs back in the 60s?

GB
No. Probably for a part of the generation, unconsciously what they were thinking, but we had a slightly different approach. As a group we used a lot of European influences, we were listening to a lot of different sorts of music and it just got put in part with everything else, so you've got a combination of psychedelia and Bach - and a bit of Dylan.

A couple of us were coming from the classical influences, I'd always had piano lessons, and the organist was from the Guildhall School of Music, so that was quite a strong influence, a very strong aspect. I thought we used a fairly disciplined format with a lot of improvisation over the top, particularly from the guitarist. Anyway, it seemed to work all right - at the time.

LD
It still works!

KO
When I heard your solo-album, Echoes in the Night, I thought this was almost a resurrection of Procol Harum. You had a lot of the original Procol Harum contributors to the album, Matthew Fisher and BJ Wilson with his very characteristic drumming, and also Keith Reid. Will there be another solo-album from you, maybe including this new ballet music?

GB
As far as the ballet music goes, you know, after having written it it would be nice if there was a record of it. I don't know what form that could take. Obviously, you got to get somebody who wants to do it, and also, you got to find the B-side.

It's about 25 minutes long, so I think I have to go away and write another one or something. I've got one in mind just now. Also, with Keith Reid I have the last year written a whole new set of songs which hopefully will come out, and they are kind of Procol Harum songs, because his words mate with my music, which I will be singing and some of the old boys might turn up. You mentioned BJ Wilson, but he unfortunately passed away two months ago, yeah, so make him a tribute while you write your ...

UR
Under which circumstances?

GB
He'd been very ill for about three years and in a coma, and he finally succumbed to - I think, to some lung infection or something. So sadly, he departed us in the beginning of October [1990]. He was a great drummer, although we always used to call him a percussionist, actually, perhaps a bit twee, but wherever you look on record, it always says, "BJ Wilson, percussion", because he wasn't just a steady time-keeper, he would play quite intricate rhythms and had lots of dynamics. [Gary's not quite right: Only the sleeve notes of the first album present BJ as "percussionist"]

Sadly missed.

He was the original drummer on Joe Cocker's With a Little Help from my Friends. You know, there's no drums in it, but suddenly, there's a whacking great fill-in there, that's BJ - and Matthew Fisher on organ [sic]

UR
You haven't put out any albums lately, but you won a prize, didn't you?

GB
I did put out that album our friend mentioned, Echoes in the Night, I think in 1985, which doesn't seem so long ago, of course it's five years, it's a long time, but that came out and I didn't tour or anything. Then I went fishing for a couple of years. But after some years of fishing I realized that - despite being European fly-fishing champion once in 1987 - I decided that I couldn't make a living out of it. So I got back to music, started a band in which we played rock and R'n'B for a year which was during that time that Mr Andersen phoned me about this. Then my concentration has been on that for the past few months or a year - plus doing these new Procol Harum songs. I'll see this ballet on its way in December [1990], then I have to go into the studios. Then - I'll go fishing until 1995…

These Procol songs will be released as a Procol Harum album - yeah, a rebirth. It's not certain yet who will play, the rules have always been that the music has to come out right and if Robin Trower wants to play on it and he was right - these are new songs, it's not nostalgia or anything, so they are new efforts and a new style, you can still identify it so it doesn't mean that we've got to get together in the same format and resurrect something. It's more a question of just being here today and going on from 1990. We just persuaded quite a few record companies that they should - as we have to renegotiate the deal - to get a label and we're in the process of doing that and hopefully that should be done very soon. We have not booked any studio time yet.

KO
I hope you can find a drummer who of course is not BJ Wilson. You may excuse me for saying so, but I think Henry Spinetti is a bit dull, maybe he would be offended, but…

GB
No, he wouldn't. He's Welsh. [Loud laughter] He'd go, "What does 'offended' mean?!" No, you're absolutely right - I think that Procol Harum songs without some flamboyant drumming would seem to be missing something.

KO
It is very difficult in Denmark to get the original albums on CD. I think that only four or five of the original albums are available here. Do you have any plans of perhaps a remastering of the original albums?

GB
Yes. [Reaching out for my copy of the Edmonton CD, which was lying on the table] What label is this, Chrysalis? Well, Chrysalis, who got a lot of our albums - about six of them - have not been very good getting the catalogue out on CD. I met them in 1986 and said, "I think we should have the Procol Harum catalogue out on CD." But it really fell on rather deaf ears and now, four years later, as we're not with them anymore, there's a little bit of a legal situation about the ownership of the catalogue. When that's sorted out, hopefully, we can get it and - I don't think we can remix anything, at least you make sure you go back to the best quality master and not use a third generation tape which is not what a lot of people are paying for.

Thanks, Niels-Erik Mortensen