Andrea Rinciari on Soho Sessions

Amid the late-night buzz of Soho’s jazz clubs, guitarist Andrea Rinciari developed an unwavering love for bebop. This dedication only grew through weekly gigs at Soho's Piano Bar, and amongst musicians who valued ensemble interplay just as much as he did. His latest release, Soho Sessions, is a snapshot of that energy, recorded in just one day at London’s Fish Factory Studios. Featuring a powerhouse quartet with tenor saxophonist Alex Garnett, bassist Lorenzo Morabito, and drummer Mark Taylor, the album breathes new life into classics and looks to keep the bebop tradition alive in today’s jazz scene.

A couple of weeks ago, Andrea spoke to me about his how this love of jazz and bop came to be, the power of going above and beyond the language of guitar, and his selection of top musicians that you should listen out for...

What first drew you to the guitar, and specifically to jazz?

The two things were quite separate, actually. We had a guitar in the house, it was always in the corner, and I just randomly picked it up when it was about fourteen. It was a classical guitar and I began learning through YouTube to start. My stepdad and my dad demonstrated a bunch of open chords and then from there I became obsessed with it, but the love for jazz was actually a bit of an epiphany for me. My guitar teacher played me the incredible jazz guitar of Wes Montgomery and I was completely blown away by it at about the age of nineteen or twenty. I decided then that that was what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

You had a mentor in American pianist Barry Harris. How did this impact your musical development?

So what was really interesting to me about Barry's approach was that he was giving you guidelines, but it was mainly down to what you did with the information that he gave you. I attended three or four workshops that he did, but in those workshops he gave me enough work to explore for a lifetime. I went back to the recordings that he suggested transcribing, began doing it through methods that I acquired either from Barry or teachers at Trinity Laban where I did my masters. During that time I was able to understand and get really deep into the language of jazz and bop. The fact that Barry was talking a lot about Bud Powell meant that I was really drawn to Bud, to Barry, and to many other piano players. So I kind of shaped my playing around piano players, which is quite unusual for guitar.

That must have been relatively challenging…

Yeah, there's many difficulties in that; it's really tough. On guitar we have only six notes available, whereas the piano has up to ten.  A very closed voicing on piano is the simplest thing, but on a guitar it translates to very wide fingerings. I also tend to hear that a lot of guitarists only transcribe guitarists and I think you can really hear that – the language of a lot of players is based around the guitar, but I don't think that there's a limitation within the instrument. I think every instrument is universal in terms of the language that they can speak. 

Could you share the story behind the album's title, Soho Sessions? What significance does Soho hold for you?

Soho is a beautiful place. The album was born around this residency I had for around two and a half years in the heart of Soho on Carlisle Street, at a place called Piano Bar. I used to have a weekly session there called ‘Giants of Bebop’ or the ‘Soho Jazz Jam’ – they kept changing the name, but the core was the same all the time. We had to prepare two sets of music to play, because it was two houses; so the first one was like a gig and the second one was more of a jam. For the first house, we used to prepare a different artist every week, so I have a lot of charts! 

I kind of tried to use some of the tunes that I liked the most on the album, and the outcome is a representation of that period. We've basically built up a massive repertoire, but what's funny, was what happened on the day of the recording. Alex Garnett, the tenor player, writes all of his parts onto paper. But when we arrived at the studio, he couldn’t find his bag full of all the charts… he’d left them on the tube. But because we’d played with him so much and for so long, we’d really gotten deep into these tunes. He realised he didn't really need the charts, he knew all the arrangements. The one he didn't remember, he just transcribed us playing. I think it was ‘John's Delight’ and he just transcribed us rehearsing it.

What was the importance of your ensemble for this project? What did each member bring? 

Alex Garnett was a host for around ten years of Ronnie Scott's Late Show and he's been a huge influence on me. I used to go there every week, and as we lived in a similar area in the northwest of town, he used to drive me back. We used to talk for hours until the very early hours of the morning and I felt that he saw me, musically. So now that I get to play and have this project with him, I'm just really happy about it. 

Lorenzo is my brother. We started playing together at this gig I used to do in Acton, called The Castle. He subbed once because a guy couldn't make it and I just fell in love with playing with him – I haven't stopped booking him since that night! We've been studying together and he would come to my place, we’d share food, opinions, work on arrangements together – so he knows all the tunes I know and way more. He's a wonderful soul to have in the band.

And then legend that is Mark Taylor. He's been living for around 30 years in New York and played with all the greats, including Barry. A really heavy player to have in the band. We got to bond quite well and we're now really good friends. What I think is a bit different from the records that are out there is that this record is made with friends first and foremost. We don't really use charts that much, it’s really down to the playing and the feeling.

How do you approach arranging familiar standards to make them your own while respecting their original essence?

That's a good question. I just try to look for a lot of versions and I steal some bits of this, some bits of that, and then I make something up to connect them. Building my own arrangements all comes from the previous transcriptions and studies I've done. The fact that I've transcribed loads of piano players, and I know how they move harmony, means I can change it to the way I like it and try to connect it to something else. 

A good example of this is my arrangement on the album of ‘Tea For Two’. That tune has the first A section which is standard but then the second part is coming from an arrangement of an intro that Barry Harris and Monk did of the tune. And then the last part is Bud's version. So I look for what I like the most out of each version and try to make it mine.

How did recording in the studio differ from performing live for you? 

I think I speak for every single musician here when I say that the studio is very tough. You know you're exposed and under the spotlight, but at the same time you’ve got to try to keep it as honest as possible with your playing and with the band that you've been developing relationships with.  

I was practicing a lot during the lead up to the recording, and I actually entered the studio injured with tendonitis. The lucky thing about tendonitis is that once you're warmed up, you don't really feel it - it's more afterwards. So it was quite intense in that respect, but it was pretty straightforward overall. I'm happy with the result!

Is there anyone currently on the jazz scene that you can’t stop listening to, or think people should know about? 

Internationally, an incredible guitarist that is a joy to listen to all the time is Pasquale Grasso. His brother Luigi Grasso is an incredible alto player and plays a bit of everything, including bass clarinet and baritone sax. Peter Bernstein I listen to all the time, and Grant Stewart the tenor saxophone player, I really love his playing. 

Taking it back to the UK scene, there's so many amazing names that come to mind, including Nat Steele. There’s a guy called Lewis Taylor, maybe he appears on a couple records, but he hasn't released an album of his own yet. He's an incredible trumpet player. 

Finally, how are you celebrating the album’s release?

Well, the album launch is on May 19th, a Monday at Pizza Express in Dean Street. It’s just across from Piano Bar where the project was born, and now we’re celebrating the album launch literally four meters away!