Ben Crosland on North York Skies

Ben Crosland is one of the UK's most respected jazz bassists, composers and bandleaders, with a career spanning more than four decades. A lyrical and thoughtful writer, his music often draws inspiration from the people, places and stories that have shaped his life, combining memorable melodies with an unmistakable sense of warmth and narrative. Alongside leading his own acclaimed ensembles, Crosland has collaborated with many of British jazz's finest musicians, earning a reputation for music that is both deeply personal and expressive.

His latest album, North York Skies, highlights this personal approach to music-making perfectly: a heartfelt musical tribute to the landscapes of the North York Moors and the memories they hold. Ahead of the album's release, I caught up with the bassist to discuss the emotional journey behind the record, the stories woven into each composition, and how his long-standing collaborations with an exceptional quintet shape his music today…

You describe North York Skies as ‘a love letter to the North York Moors.’ At what point did you realise these landscapes had become such a profound source of musical inspiration?

Well, probably in the early 90s. I used to take my mum on holiday up onto the moors to a little village called Goathland, which was where the TV series Heartbeat was filmed. We used to stay at this very nice hotel for a number of years, which was kind of the start of it. It's just such a beautiful area.

Later we found this gorgeous country house hotel in a little village called Lastingham, just on the edge of the North York Moors, and we started staying there because once you get drawn into this place you never want to leave. It's a family-run hotel, and they were particularly kind and helpful to my mum in the latter years when we went together. 

As time went by, we'd be visiting areas and seeing some of these stone crosses dotted around the landscape. After she passed I continued to go there with friends, and probably I was more able to explore other things. For example, I discovered that Back Door, the legendary jazz-rock group, started playing at the Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge, and I went there. 

I guess just walking up on the moors, particularly after Mum passed, was a source of great comfort and solace. They're a very special place. 

I can imagine that translating something as vast and as visual as a landscape like that into music can be quite challenging. Compositionally, where do you start with that?

That's a very good question. I guess with the title track, 'North York Skies', it started as I nearly always start every composition. I sit down at the piano and have a title which suggests to me the mood and the feel I want to create, the tempo, whether it's major or minor… I just mess about with chords on the piano. If I can find a couple of chords that actually go together, that's the starting point.

What I try to do is then expand that to maybe three or four chords, and while I'm doing this, melodic fragments tend to suggest themselves to me. I usually try and expand it to around eight bars so you've got a whole section, and it's like an organic thing. Then it's a case of developing: I've got this one section, so I need a contrasting section, and it's usually that same process of trial and error, to be absolutely honest. I'm lucky that usually the little angel on my shoulder helps me to create something.

So you do find that compositionally you actually start at the piano rather than the bass?

Yes, absolutely. I sometimes work out a bass groove or a bass figure and try to work that into the piano to help create the feel. But, yes, in the main it's nearly always working on the piano.

Can you talk us through some of the tracks and how they connect to the theme of the album?

The opening track on the album is ‘The Optimist’, which is named after a steam engine on the North York Moors Railway. I did a bit of research, and it turned out that the steam engine actually started up in lockdown - to try and attract people back onto the railway after all the isolation we'd been experiencing. I had an idea for a train theme, and I worked it through until I ended up with that piece.

I've already mentioned ‘North York Skies’. I wanted to have a really long melody (so it was quite a big blow for Steve Waterman) because I just wanted to try and capture the expanse of the moors.

Then there's ‘Howardian Undulations’. There's this beautiful country house, Castle Howard. It was the backdrop for Brideshead Revisited, the television programme. To get to it, you drive down this extraordinarily long, straight road, but it has these amazing undulations in it, almost like a big dipper. I wanted a melody that rises and drops to imitate the rising and falling of the road, so I just found a nice sequence that seemed to match that. 

‘The Ballad of Lilla Howe’ is the first tune which represents one of these stone crosses I mentioned. There tend to be burial mounds on the moors, and this marked the point where King Edwin of Northumbria was marching over the moors with his retinue, when vagabonds came upon his party. Lilla was his chief of staff, and by putting himself between one of the brigands wielding a knife and the king, he was struck down and killed. His death prompted this burial mound at the particular point where he fell, and there is this lovely stone cross. It's on Fylingdales Moor, and the stone cross is about two and a half miles up.

I was staying at the hotel and chatting with the owner, Bertie, saying I'd really like to go and visit the cross. He said, ‘Well, that's fine, there's a path up there,’ so I set off, drove up and parked the car, got onto the moor and saw there was indeed a path… for about 800 yards. Then it disappeared! It was just moorland, and I was scrambling, determined not to be beaten. I finally got up there and found it, and was able to take the photograph of the cross which appears on the album artwork. I wrote the tune actually on Christmas Day, 2020. I remember it so vividly; I sat at the piano and I just wanted a respectful, almost folk-like melody. I thought it was nice to have a lovely solo flugelhorn statement of the tune by Steve Waterman, who of course did it beautifully.

‘George and Monty’ celebrates the Dalmatian and a Border Terrier of the Wood family, who run the hotel. George was the Dalmatian and Monty the Border Terrier, and my mum loved them, and they loved her. I just thought I couldn't make this album without referencing them.

It's a kind of throwaway, playful little tune. ‘The Blakey Lion’ is obviously back to Back Door, which I've already mentioned. I didn't try to imitate the style of the band – that wouldn't have worked and I couldn't have done that. It was just my emotional response to that story, which I think is a lovely one: these three guys playing in the middle of nowhere, and somehow building an audience simply by playing there week after week. Then they go to London, play at Ronnie Scott's, get a great review and suddenly they're making albums for Warner Brothers. I just think it's a lovely story.

It's lovely to hear all that background information, from your compositional process to the personal stories behind it. You get so much more from that wider context…

I did a previous album called Solway Stories with almost the same band, except Dylan Howe was on drums. I've realised in retrospect that Solway Stories and this new album have formed part of a ‘coming-to-terms with loss’ process after losing my mum. We recorded Solway Stories during lockdown, and that album was very personal to a visit we made together to the Solway Firth in the south-west of Scotland. This album obviously has a huge connection with my mum as well, and I just feel pleased that I've gone through this process and, hopefully, written half-decent tunes along the way.

For me, there has to be an emotional reason to make a record, and this has been a very positive one. I couldn't think of a better reason to do it. It reminds me of another tune in this context: ‘The View from Room 12’. That's a ballad, and it specifically relates to my mum because she always had the same room in the hotel every time we visited: Room 12. It overlooked the beautiful rose garden, and she would spend hours just sitting there, looking out and enjoying the view. I just felt I couldn't overlook that part of her experience of visiting the hotel, so I wanted to capture it in music.

In terms of working alongside the members of your ensemble and having played with them already, did you write with their individual musical personalities in mind?

The core of the band is a trio called Threeway, consisting of Steve Waterman, Steve Lodder and me. We're now in our twenty-second year as a band. We were formed in 2004 and we've made four albums together, so that was always the core of the group, and over the years I've come to know their playing very well.

I started working with Chris Allard in about 2017. I have another project where I've written jazz arrangements of Ray Davies' songs for The Kinks. It's called the Ray Davies Songbook, and it's been a really successful project. John Etheridge is the guitarist in that band, but in 2017 there was a period when he couldn't do a couple of gigs. I asked him who he'd recommend, and he recommended Chris. Right from the start I thought it was a terrific recommendation because he's a great player, a lovely guy, and has a really individual voice on the guitar. The bonus was that he'd previously worked with Steve Waterman, so there was already a musical connection there. He became the obvious choice.

Similarly, Nick France became the drummer in my Ray Davies band, so again he was the obvious choice, and another lovely guy.

The recording process itself was wonderful. We recorded over three days at Temple Music Studio, recommended to me by John Etheridge and Theo Travis because Soft Machine had recorded there. Immediately I felt at home. It's not a grand studio, but I just felt completely comfortable there. Ru Lemer, the engineer, is also a musician, and he worked so quickly and so intuitively.

Although we'd never actually played these tunes together before the recording session, we rehearsed each one a couple of times, did a take, and somehow everything just fell into place really comfortably.

What drew you towards having an ensemble of that size rather than simply recording with the trio?

Steve Waterman and I have worked together since 1998, so it's a long-standing musical relationship, and he's always going to be in my band. We thought about doing it as a quartet by simply adding drums, but I felt I wanted another voice to add a certain richness to the harmony. I could have added a saxophone player, but I just felt that the guitar was the right voice alongside Steve on trumpet and flugelhorn. It's a nice combination – slightly different, and we'd already done that on Solway Stories, so it seemed the obvious thing to do again for North York Skies. I just think a quintet is a very flexible vehicle: you can reduce it down to a duo or a trio whenever you want, but it also has a really powerful ensemble sound.

Given that you've been part of the jazz scene for such a long career now, what still excites you about making new music?

That's a good question – creating something new, I suppose. I've never written what I'd call ‘clever’ music. I don't have that ability. I'm self-taught as a musician, composer and arranger, so I can't do the clever stuff, but I just try to write from the heart as well as the head, hoping to make the music interesting to play.

Are there any upcoming events or future plans people should know about?

Well, it's actually quite an exciting time because we’ve released a single. I've never done this before, but my distributor suggested it might be a good idea to release a single ahead of the album as a taster before the official release. So the title track, ‘North York Skies’, has already been released, which is really nice.

Then the album comes out on 7th August, and we have the launch concert at the 606 Club in Chelsea on 22nd September. I'm also starting to look for gigs next year. I already have one in October at a beautiful festival in Melbourne, South Derbyshire, where I've played before. They're keen to have this music there, which I'm really looking forward to.

North York Skies is available from Friday 7th August.