Matthew Halsall: Cork jazz festival headliner born of Manchester's club scene
Matthew Halsall plays the Everyman as part of Guinness Cork Jazz Festival.
If there’s one thing an education in transcendental meditation prepares you for it’s a global lockdown.
“It was one of those strange things: it was incredibly peaceful. Everyone got a little bit of mindfulness,” says Matthew Halsall, an acclaimed trumpeter, arranger, bandleader and founder of Manchester-based jazz label Gondwana Records. “You had to go and walk for half an hour every day. I must have discovered every green space within a three-mile radius of my house.”
Halsall was introduced to mediation at age 14, when he undertook a mindfulness-based education at Maharishi Free School in West Lancashire. The disciplines he learned there have stood him in good stead: as an individual but also as a jazz musician.
“Spiritual” jazz is a term often used to describe Halsall’s distinctive sound. That comes across as slightly happy-clappy yet in fact refers to the aura of quiet wonder and soulfulness that infuses his music. And it is certainly a fitting description for his new record, Salute to the Sun, which he brings to the Everyman Theatre as part of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, on Friday, October 22.
Channelling an appreciation for the natural world, Salute to the Sun takes the listener on a quasi-improvised odyssey through the great outdoors of the mind. And it is part informed by what he learned studying meditation as an adolescent.
“At school you did your classes. And you did meditation,” Halsall (38). “That is where the album title, Salute to the Sun, comes from. We used to do yoga in the morning. It felt a really good way to start the day.”
It was around the same time he discovered the boundary-pushing jazz of Alice Coltrane. Coltrane, who was married to jazz icon John Coltrane, incorporated Eastern spiritualism and early electronics effects into the records she made in the Sixties and Seventies. And that same sense of wonder at the vastness of the universe runs through Halsall’s music.
That isn’t to say he has two feet in the past, however. From Wigan and based in Manchester, Halsall grew up suffused in the musical subcultures of the North of England. Manchester’s is one of the richest sonic heritages in the UK: it was ground zero for clubbing culture via the Hacienda nightclub, and gave the world the Stone Roses, Joy Division and others.
“When I was growing up there was a huge boom in DJ culture,” he says. “Clubs like the Hacienda. And later Mr Scruff’s Keep It Unreal. Lots of people digging different genres and putting it into DJ sets. I’m not just influenced by the Sixties and by spiritual jazz. It’s also influenced by more contemporary stuff – sampling and looping, the whole DJ culture.”
Attending one of Mr Scruff’s legendary six-hour DJ sets as a teenager was particularly significant, he says. “My mate made his parents bring us. He said, ‘ you have to come, it’s going to blow your mind’. Mr Scruff introduced me to [John Coltrane sideman] Pharoah Sanders, which led to Alice Coltrane. I’m a big fan of that side of Manchester music. And then you have people like [house legends] 808 State – they’re all into jazz even though they make mad bonkers music. Graham Massey from 808 State could talk about jazz for three hours straight.”
Jazz’s audience has been expanding in recent years. That is thanks in part to streaming services which make it easier for music fans to explore new genres.
“It’s nice to see younger generations connecting with jazz. They’ve come through from hip hop and DJ culture, where jazz has been sampled for many years. And now they’re like, ‘let’s forget the samples and listen some proper live jazz again’. A lot of producers, they’ve either got tired of sampling old records and getting done for copyright or they’ve moved on to working with live musicians.”
He gives as an example Kendrick Lamar and his saxophonist collaborator Kamasi Washington. “All of that has made people think jazz is a lot cooler. I always thought it was cool, of course, so it’s not changed my mind.”
If the lockdown was an opportunity to pause and reflect there was obviously a terrible downside in terms of economic damage and lives lost. But, assuming the government’s reopening plans remain on schedule, Halsall is excited to be finally bringing Salute to the Sun on the road, and to Cork.
“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never been to Cork. My girlfriend is from Tyrone. I’ve been to the North, to Galway, to Dublin. Never Cork, though. I’m a big fan though. I like a lot of the TV from there, stuff like Young Offenders. So I can’t wait.”
- Matthew Halsall performs music from Salute to the Sun with his new band at Cork Everyman Theatre, Friday October 22
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