In April, Louis Stewart plays a week at the prestigious Village Vanguard in downtown Manhattan, backed by Tommy Flanagan’s rhythm section. It is one of the most significant events in Irish jazz. Stewart has, of course, played in places like the Vanguard before, but this time it’s different. As leader of a quartet, it’s his name which will be on the ticket and, in New York, there’s a definite buzz of anticipation. They know him well in the US - probably better than we do.
It's certainly ironic - maybe even predictable - that someone so highly regarded internationally is taken so much for granted at home, but then Stewart made decisions many years ago which meant that life as a professional musician would never be easy. First, he chose jazz. "You can make money," he says, "playing other stuff, but you just sit there thinking, this is all a lie." Second, and crucially, he chose to live in Dublin.
Stewart grew up in the very heart of the city. Although born in Waterford in 1944, his parents moved back to the capital when he was a baby. They lived just off Clanbrassil Street, in what he describes as "a two-room artisan dwelling cottage". Surprisingly, it wasn't a particularly musical family but his mother once told him that, before they were married, his father had played the mandolin. That apart, the only real musical force was an aunt who owned a piano. She arranged for the young Stewart to have lessons but, despite her best efforts, he resisted with vigour. "Playing the piano just wasn't the in-thing in the inner city."
Music finally began to take hold of Stewart when his parents bought him a £7 guitar. Nobody imagined, as he began to struggle with the first three chords in the tutor book, that he would become a professional musician, though he was soon happily playing the skiffle and pop tunes of the day. A friend later introduced him to the records of Les Paul (“a fantastic musician and guitar man”) and, bit by bit, he learned more about the possibilities of his instrument. Jazz in Dublin, however, was a minority interest and only available to those who sought it out. When Stewart first heard it on the radio, he was immediately hooked. “I used to listen to a programme called Guitar Club. It went out on a Saturday night about 6 p.m. on the BBC and they had all kinds of guitar music: flamenco, classical and jazz. “The programme which came on afterwards was presented by Steve Race and I think it was called Just Jazz. The very first record he played was by Barney Kessel and I had never heard guitar like that before. I kept asking myself how does he do it? What’s happening there? So I went down to a record shop and had them order some records and began to find out about other guitar players. I always remember that the record on the radio was Fascinating Rhythm.” In his early teens, Stewart became set on a career as a professional musician and began playing in showbands. It was thanks to the band led by Chris Lamb that he first found himself in New York at the impressionable age of 17. He eagerly bought as many jazz-guitar records and books as he could find and, perhaps most importantly of all, spent his evenings wisely. “The band I was with only played at the weekends in an Irish ballroom, so all the nights during the week I was down in Birdland listening to Stan Getz. It was unbelievable. They had a section for minors so I’d order a Coke with loads of ice to make it last longer and when the waiter got to know me he’d say `a little change for your waiter and I won’t bug you no more’. He knew I didn’t have much money but I just I sat there listening to Stan Getz for two weeks. Being in the showband, I really thought I was getting into being a professional musician - but in fact I was getting further and further away from music. So I quit and I spent about six months doing hardly any gigs at all - just started trying to figure out the guitar.”
His first real jazz gig was with Noel Kelehan on piano and Jimmy McKay on bass. They played five nights a week for a year or two and Stewart remembers it as: "a joy - to a play the material I wanted to play. I'll always be indebted to Noel for that". Shortly afterwards, guitar in hand, he moved to London. "There just wasn't much happening in Dublin. And the word "jazz" was like a crucifix to a vampire, so I went to London to see if things would get better. I was very fortunate because a guitar player called Cedric West told Tubby Hayes about me and he asked me to go to an audition for a new quartet he was putting together. Tubby Hayes was a musical giant - a sensational musician - and I didn't want to go to the audition. I was at a stage where I wanted to learn more and this was really jumping in at the deep end. But my wife convinced me to go and I got the job." Stewart played with the Tubby Hayes Quartet and Big Band from late 1969 until the early 1970s. For the new kid in town, this was a magical time. "There was a wonderful atmosphere about the jazz scene then. And playing with Tubby was one of the highlights of my life." It was also a time when the young Irishman first came to the attention of the big names in jazz, many of whom would one day be queuing up to enlist his services - Dizzy Gillespie, George Shearing, Benny Goodman, Joe Newman and many more. Winning major awards at the Montreux Jazz Festival may already have given him some self-belief, but it was surely a daunting prospect to be on stage with the American greats who were nothing short of legendary. "I suppose most of the time I felt, what the hell am I doing here with these people? I was, in a way, overwhelmed that they thought my playing could make a contribution to the proceedings. But it's like a lot of things in life. You won't get better at playing chess if you keep playing people you can beat. That connotes a competitive thing that I don't mean to imply but these people inspire you to be your best. These guys just don't have time for excuses. There's no point in saying that you didn't have time to change your strings - they don't want to hear about all that - they just want you to play. "But they also want you to be good. I've only worked with one guy in that big league where it was a very unpleasant experience - and it wasn't Benny Goodman. It was an American saxophone player. I know all the derogatory stories about Benny Goodman, but it's most unfair. "I think he spent 85 per cent of his time thinking about music, so he forgot people's names. I did three tours of Europe with him and he was always very nice to me."
During the 1970s, Stewart spent a further five years in London working with the Ronnie Scott Quintet. It was steady work and it also meant that he got to play opposite a procession of famous visitors to the Soho club - Bill Evans, Cedar Walton and even Stan Getz - the performer he had watched in Birdland at the age of 17. Around this time, he also made some recordings with Sam Jones, Billy Higgins and the best of the London musicians. Soon Stewart was widely regarded as one of the top jazz guitarists in the world. Living in Europe, never mind Dublin, must have made him feel very isolated indeed?
"Only in Dublin. I feel I've had a far better look-in in London and Europe than I ever got here. The American thing goes without saying, but there are wonderful musicians in Europe and it's a joy to play with them. The reason I returned to Dublin is because our two daughters had been born in Britain and I really thought Dublin was a better place for them to grow up in, at that time. So I came back. "There are some great young musicians in Dublin and you have players making inroads in America now. And not just because (through their grants and all that) they can buy Americans to play with and stick it on their CV. I'm working with Stephen Keogh at the minute and he's such a wonderful drummer and musician." And so Stewart, who is about to lead a high-powered quartet at the Village Vanguard, is still playing to audiences of various sizes in Dublin. His evangelical followers constantly lament the lack of recognition he receives at home and their passionate testimonies sometimes appear in the letters page of this paper. The last such occasion was when his eligibility for Aosdana was raised - the ensuing argument focusing on whether or not he was a creative or an interpretative artist. Stewart won't be drawn on the specifics, but in reference to his compositions, such as Joycenotes, he says: "I wrote some things years ago, and I enjoyed doing them at the time, but I always feel I'm at my best when the rhythm section is cooking. For me, composition means that when we play a gig, I try to compose on the bandstand - the spontaneous thing". And then, choosing his words carefully, adds: "the fact that I don't write it down interferes with a lot of the concept of what composition should be - in the arts world".
IN 1998, Stewart was conferred with an honorary doctorate by Trinity College, but there are still those constant reminders that nobody at home really appreciates the man as much as his peers in London and New York. But in some ways, things must surely have improved considerably for a musician such as Stewart? With the jazz sections of record stores expanding, more live jazz available and visits (and return visits) by some major American stars, there is clearly a growing audience for the music. Surely some of that interest is filtering down to the smaller venues in which he continues to perform to the faithful? "There are people I've known for 20 years who come along and there are young people coming in who really seem to enjoy it, but is it filtering down? I think probably not. I think it's true of most countries that when they get a lot of American stars playing, then they'll come out for that. The problem is that there are people who will go to the National Concert Hall but wouldn't set foot anywhere else to hear the very same music. "Concerts can be wonderful, but I always feel that there's something about playing in a small venue with people who really want to listen and really want to enjoy it. "But I can still keep my head above water. The manager of that showband I was telling you about took me aside once and said, `This jazz stuff is all very well in your own spare time, but you'll never make a living out of it' - and he was almost right".
Louis Stewart tours Ireland in the Music Network/ESB Windows on Jazz Tour: Febuary 14th, Cork Exhibition Centre; 15th, Coach House, Dublin Castle; 16th, Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford ; 17th, Tinahely Courthouse Centre; 19th, Draiocht, Blanchardstown; 20th, Kilmurry Lodge, Limerick; 21st, Queen Street Club, Galway; 22nd, Ardhowen, Enniskillen; 23rd, Market Place Theatre, Armagh; 24th, Civic Arts Centre, Downpatrick; 25th, Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart; 26th, Station House Hotel, Clifden; 27th, Arts Centre, Letterkenny; 28th, Arts Centre, Ards.
Website: www.musicnetwork.ie/mainframeset.html - click on Diary
