Interview, Tom Ollendorff: Études

Since his professional career began in 2016, Tom Ollendorff has worked alongside many renowned and respected artists including Geoff Simkins, Ben Wendel, Bill McHenry, Jeff Williams, and Ari Hoenig. As well as performing at venues and festivals across the UK and internationally, he has been a guest tutor at universities across the UK, Europe, and Asia, and currently teaches at the Royal Welsh College of Music in Cardiff. His highly distinctive sound blends virtuosic guitar playing with sophisticated harmonic and melodic ideas, whilst always keeping room for nuance and sensitivity, making him one of the most exciting young guitarists to emerge on the UK and international jazz scenes.

Tom spoke to me last week about his new sheet music publication Études and his experience in the jazz world..

It is fairly common nowadays for classical and pop artists to release sheet music collections, but much less so for jazz musicians and composers; how did the collaboration with Faber come about?

This collection of music really started as something for myself. I wasn’t thinking about writing a book at all actually. I was just trying to develop some technical skills on the guitar which I felt were holding me back musically. There were musical ideas that I wanted to express, and I found that there wasn’t that much literature discussing these techniques. So, I started notating some of these pieces – or little excerpts of these pieces - for myself.

During covid I started singing in The London Symphony Chorus. There was a friend of mine there who sent me a connection [to Faber Music] and they were very enthusiastic and great to deal with, so that’s kind of how it came about. A lot of the content is inspired by jazz and classical music, but it’s hopefully something that guitarists from any background can enjoy. That’s the main energy of the book – it is for everyone.

You reference Debussy, Bach, and Mendelssohn in the book. How much did classical music play a role in your own musical career and education?

In terms of education, I started learning classical piano (and briefly clarinet), but I was never at a really high level. A lot of it was actually self-study. The people you’ve just mentioned there; Debussy, Bach – I transcribed some pieces of theirs because I felt that there were some musical things going on in them that I wanted to be able to express on the guitar; there was a lot of detail in terms of sound and in the control of the instrument which I felt that I really had to improve and develop in my skills as a musician. So, I think it is more from that aspect really; transcribing by ear and finding a way to make these pieces work for the guitar to make them sound like actual pieces and performances.

There’s a part of the jazz process, which is trying to analyse and understand theoretically, but also musically, how music functions or works. That’s a very big part of it, and a big part of my practise every day. Taking some of that jazz approach into analysing classical pieces, taking musical ideas - that has become part of my process over years of studying.

What would you say is the most memorable or important piece of advice that a teacher has given you that has stuck with you?

One of my big guitar influences is Gilad Hekselman, I met him from going to New York and studying with him. He gave me a lot of advice about how important it is to develop your sense of rhythm and timing. That has stuck with me and is something that I still constantly try to develop and work on. I think that he was highlighting the importance of how great musicians of all genres, not just jazz or classical, have an amazing sense of time and feel. They can play something incredibly simple, but it sounds great because the rhythmic intent behind it is always so clear.

Do you have a favourite format to compose for: solo, ensemble, big band?

Definitely not big band, I would hate to compose for big band! I just did a composition for a ten-piece ensemble for a new record which is coming out next year, but generally I prefer to compose for trio or quartet: a double bass, drums, guitar, and then maybe a saxophone or a piano. That’s the kind of general line-up I like. Obviously, as with this book, I also love writing for solo guitar. Generally smaller bands, if the band gets too big, too much Sibelius work you know!

Do you tailor your compositions to suit particular musicians at all?

Generally, there’s a musical idea at the heart of every piece which is just from me; the starting point is never really thinking about another musician, I think it is more form and structure that would be influenced that way. I’m just about to record with a great saxophonist from New York, Ben Wendel. My previous record was a trio, and this will be the same trio plus the saxophone - so there is some re-arranging and working out how the music is best expressed: who plays the melody, who improvises on certain sections, making sure there are enough drum solos - all the usual problems. Or not too many drum solos actually!

I think the world of jazz can often seem quite daunting to a classically trained performer. How easy is it for a classically trained musician to start learning jazz technique?

That’s a great question. If I was doing a classical guitar performance, there would be things that I would really have to change and adjust, I would have to do a ton of practise to be honest. I guess there is a multi-faceted answer. Part of it is improvising, and whether you are comfortable improvising, which I don’t think is exclusively a jazz issue at all. Lots of people outside of the jazz world improvise – in blues, rock, metal. A lot of classical composers were great improvisers. I guess what makes jazz complicated from that angle is that it is difficult to learn how to almost compose melodies on the spot which navigate their way through a complicated harmonic sequence. I think that can be difficult for anybody.

The other side of it is the approach to the performance of the music. I think the biggest thing is the feel aspect, learning how to phrase differently, how to get the right sound and rhythmic feel. It’s certainly not impossible, or even necessarily that challenging for classical musicians to make those first steps. Some of it is just being informed, listening to, and practising the right music.

Your book is aimed mainly at intermediate to advanced guitarists; what advice would you give for a beginner wanting to explore learning jazz?

It is true that to play the pieces you have to have a competent musical understanding of the guitar; theoretical knowledge, understanding of the fretboard, good technique in the right and left hand. But there is some great stuff in the book for people wanting to begin getting into jazz. There is a whole section in the book of how I practise and work on chord voicings for example. There are some huge topics, but I have tried to condense them in a way that is approachable and not too scary.

I guess the most important thing is beginning to learn some jazz repertoire. By doing that you learn the structure, forms, and simple sequences that you can begin to improvise over.

Which artists or composers have inspired you the most in your own compositions and performances?

For this collection, Gilad Hekselman. His approach to playing guitar is dynamic, with a lot of sensitivity, and a lot of nuance in his sound. Other jazz composers: Brad Meldau, Peter Bernstein, Kurt Rosenwinkel. Away from that, some electronic music: I really like the band DADALON, a kind of minimalist group of just guitar and drums. In terms of classical music, I love Mahler, Bruckner, Debussy. I take different things, technical and musical, from a wide range of music.

Your etudes have descriptive titles like ‘Aqueduct’ and ‘Confluence’. Could you tell me more about your compositional process?

Most of the titles are places or inspired by places. For example, ‘Confluence’: There is a place in Lyon in France where I play quite a bit, where these two rivers meet, the confluence. It wasn’t that I was standing there and suddenly the idea popped into my head, but experiences of visiting different places inspire or help resolve ideas. The process for me generally is finding a musical idea which moves me in some way, whether it is something I think is beautiful, or I find rhythmically interesting – and then how I develop that into a whole story, into a whole piece. With this collection of pieces, the first idea was finding something musical whilst practising a specific technique to improve myself as a guitar player.

When you compose a lot, you have different musical techniques: modulations, rhythmic variation – different things that help you turn your idea into a whole piece. I transcribe a lot of music, whether it is classical, jazz, pop, folk - it could be anything – you build up a repertoire of composing ideas just like you do with rhythmic, improvisatory, or harmonic ideas – build up ‘composing chops’ if you like.

Where has your favourite gig been/who with?

There’s one really special gig which stays in my memory. I’d been living in London for a few years, and I played at Ronnie Scott’s for the first time – and I was playing after George Benson. He stayed and listened to my whole gig, and there was this incredible atmosphere in the whole room; there was this great energy because such a musical legend was there. That was very fun for me, though nerve-wracking.