Bill Lawrence - The Jazz Podcast

Do you remember the first time you saw a piano when you were a child?

Um, yeah.

I had...

Well, we had one in the house, um, and I was always sort of attracted to it.

I always sort of just, it just, uh, you know, the fact that you could just hit it and it would, it would speak back at you and just as a bit of technology by itself would just kind of fascinate me.

But I think the, the sort of, um, the sort of seed of it all was really my, my first teacher, um, uh, Mel Robinson, uh, who taught me in North, uh, East London in Hackney.

And he was a real kind of cornerstone of the community.

He taught everybody, and he was, he was a ragtime player.

And so my introduction to the instrument was, was again through one of joy, really, one of having a good time.

And, um, and when he played, it was just so transformative what he did to everyone around him and just the atmosphere of the room, and I just, I was so transfixed that I, all I ever wanted to do was play ragtime, basically.

So that's kind of kept me going, uh, through all the grades and stuff.

Um, but now I'm, I'm sort of coming back to the instrument, uh, in a...

It's almost like I'm sort of trying to kind of throw the theory out the window.

Um, you know, all that time of study, which is obviously important to get your foundation.

Now it's, it's all about freedom at the instrument.

I'm trying to kinda see where, where it can, uh...

What is total freedom at the instrument, you know? Um, when I'm performing solo shows, I, I more and more I'm, I'm sort of implementing the kind of Keith Jarrett approach of just wide open improvisation.

And, uh, it's really liberating and kind of daunting.

But to really genuinely say something different every single night in the, in the moment, depending on the piano and the room and the energy and the audience and the acoustic and all those things-

Mm-hmm

... um, and really just kind of committing yourself to the present moment is, uh, is, is a real commitment and requires quite, as Herbie says, like it's, it's, it's quite courageous to kinda do that.

Um, but, uh, it's so liberating, and I find in, in sort of committing oneself to it, it sort of opens you up to a much kind of deeper part of...

I feel like I'm getting closer to the source of whatever it is I've been looking for.

[laughs]

Yes.