Misha Mullov-Abbado is widely regarded as one of London's most talented instrumentalists. Born to two superstars of the classical music world, his remarkable skills are surpassed only by his charm and unassuming nature. With such an illustrious background, it’s no surprise that Misha, now in his mid-thirties, would continue the family tradition in some form. However, rather than following a classical path note-for-note, he has carved out his own identity in recent years as a double bassist and composer in and around the capital’s jazz scene. His work, including last year’s Presto Award-winning Za Górami with Fred Thomas and Alice Zawadzki, has earned him widespread recognition. With three solo albums already under his belt, Effra marks his first full-length project since the pandemic. This return to the spotlight comes amid a busy period of promotional tasks – and, on a personal note, balancing new parenting duties as he and his wife, violinist Bridget O'Donnell, welcomed their first baby shortly after Christmas.
I began our conversation by asking Misha how this new chapter in his life might influence his career going forwards…
Congratulations on becoming a father for the first time! How has the new arrival changed your life as a working musician and composer?
Thank you! Today Orla is exactly one month old, and I can certainly say my work has been pretty minimal so far. In fact, aside from promoting the album, I’ve hardly worked at all. I’ve been going through a bit of spring cleaning of the different types of music-making I do, and have been saying no to more things in the upcoming year, knowing that anything I take on is time away from my family. So, I’m trying to prioritise projects I’m particularly invested in. I also have a few large-scale writing projects coming up. In some ways, that will change least of all as I can do it from home. But in terms of influence, I’m sure things will be different when I finally get back to a bit of writing.
This album has been described as your most personal to date, with its title being a nod to your local South London neighbourhood. Was community something you were thinking about as you were putting it together?
I don’t know if this album is necessarily any more personal than my previous ones (at least the ones where I’ve written all the music), but I can definitely say that the period of my life it represents has been my most nourishing yet, and a huge part of that has been down to feeling very at home in South London. So yes, I was thinking about my love of Brixton and London generally, and also my family – two of the tracks were named after my wife-to-be and (though I didn’t know it yet) kid-to-be, the latter since both of them share the middle name Rosemary.
Effra is released through Ubuntu Music, the founder of which, Martin Hummel, passed away earlier this month. What role did he play in shaping the record?
I was devastated when I heard that Martin had passed away. He put so much love and energy into every project he took on, and this was no different. I was still signed to Edition when I recorded Effra, but shortly after the label and I agreed to not release it, and so I then sent the unmixed (but edited) album to Martin. He immediately listened to it and told me he wanted to release it on Ubuntu, and so we started to make a rough timeline. Although the music had already been recorded, he was a great sounding board for any ideas throughout the release process, and organised for the front cover to be designed. In fact, he organised pretty much everything that needed to happen to make the record come out, and I will forever be grateful for all the hard work he put in. I’m sad he won’t get to see the album released.
Read our tribute to label-founder Martin Hummel here.
Your previous releases are stacked full of quirky, effervescent compositions. For me, ‘The Effra Parade’ strikes that tone here. How would you say your musical voice has developed in the years since your last release?
I would say that while there is still a diverse range of influences and moods across the different pieces I write, my voice is getting a little more streamlined. There are a few main musical elements at play over the course of the whole album – first, there’s crafty melodies with their twists, turns and surprises, then there’s slow-moving harmony that slowly builds over an inverted pedal-point in a minimalist way. Finally, there are melodic lines I wrote on the bass. Pretty much all the album can be boiled down to those few things.
A track like ‘Rose’ features an extended bass solo early on, before giving way to Liam Duchanie’s piano and a multi-layered explosion of feeling from the wider group. Tell us about your role as leader in the context of the band?
As leader of the band (which is cemented by the fact that I write all the music), it’s my job to decide on how to arrange the pieces for the sextet – though I am always open to suggestions from the rest of the band. In Rose, for example, I’d had the idea of adding horn backings to the piano solo, but it was Liam who suggested having them come in right from the start so that he could enjoy a rare solo where he wouldn’t have to comp underneath himself. I also love instructing musicians to go off on one and to take the piece somewhere else in the form of a group improv, particularly if it involves the three horns. Often, I will decide to delegate roles to other people, such as when to cue moving onto next sections, and the only way I influence it after then is by giving feedback afterwards. There are also some moments that I cue myself if I’m able to do so, with limited use of my arms!
As always, you’ve employed an enticing range of musical styles. What inspired the Latin feel of a track like ‘Cançao’, for instance, and how does it still manage to sound so ‘Abbado-esque’?
At the time, I wanted to write something in that samba feel that was a mix of a load of Brazilian music I’ve been into for a while, and my own jazzy melodic and harmonic voice. I also based it loosely on Jobim’s ‘Chega de Saudade (No More Blues)’ which is also in two halves, with the first being in the minor and the second in the major. My piece’s title came from the Jobim too, as its original name was ‘No More Booze’ (I had been drinking a bit too much during lockdown around that time).
Something one immediately picks up on throughout the recording is a strong sense of melody. Where does your compositional process begin, and is writing as fun for you as it is for us to hear the end results?
The process is different for different pieces. Some of them (‘Bridge’, ‘Red Earth’ and ‘Canção’, for example) started with a melody at the piano, which I then harmonised and eventually fully arranged. Others (‘Rose’, ‘Subsonic Glow’) started with harmony. ‘Traintracker’ started with the one-bar loop and then led me to come up with the bassline. And ‘Nanban’ is a rare example of being made up of several elements that all started at once – a bass line, repeating piano figure and slow harmonic progression – but no real melody. It’s hard to say whether the first bit or the end result is more fun – certainly it feels more of a challenge to get the end result sounding the way I wanted, but it’s especially rewarding when it works. In particular, this recorded version is very special to me – it’s a rare moment of how an idea for a piece has come out sounding exactly how I wanted it to, and it’s probably the recording I’m proudest of more than anything else.
Is there anything else beneath the surface that audiences might not pick up on first listen, or what do you hope they may experience as they interact with the music?
I think it’s up to people listening to find their own story and feeling when listening to any piece, and so while all eight tracks on this record are about different periods of my life in recent years, it doesn’t necessarily need to be made super explicit – I’d rather people got to appreciate the music in a way that means something to them, and experience it in their own way. All I would say on top of that is that there are a lot of details in the music which had a lot of care and attention put into them, and so the invitation is to appreciate all the small moments (whether they were planned by me or played spontaneously), how they fit into the overall pacing and narrative of each track and the album as a whole.
