Neil Cowley on the peculiarly independent hands and indecipherable brilliance of his favourite pianist, Erroll Garner. Illustrated by Jonny Hannah.
“Errol Gardens” my mother used to say over the phone when giving our address. As in “Errol Flynn, not as in Erroll Garner”. It was perhaps a long shot that the person on the other end of the phone, maybe a young desk worker at a utilities firm, would know who Erroll Garner was. Sometimes in the confusion we would get a letter addressed to Mrs. Cowley, 35A Erroll Garner. Much the same as when my father (Wallis Clive Allen) joked with the pension office that his initials were “W.C. as in water closet” and they wrote down his name as ‘Walter Closet’. My mother and father were inextricably linked by the legendary jazz pianist Erroll Garner. A shared love of the great mans lyricism, romance and inter-performance grunts.
That album in fact will give you all you need to make an informed decision as to whether you like or don’t like Mr Garner. It was reputedly recorded on a cheap old bit of kit, testament to the idea that it really doesn’t matter how you get it down just as long as you do. He also gives a good outing to the aforementioned ‘grunts’. They’re not Jarrett style grunts where you’re not sure if he’s in pain or not. These are rapturous growls that mirror your own pleasure. And at the end of this album he gives probably his one and only vocal performance. The concert announcer informs the audience that “Erroll has a great voice and you haven’t heard him say one word” To which Erroll briefly replies in reference to his gravelly tones... “It’s worser than Louis Armstrong.”
He epitomised so much of what they were about. From an era where jazz ruled the world, Erroll still knew that entertainment was the reason people paid their ticket price. From the moment when he would sit on a pile of telephone directories to counteract his diminutive stature, to the changing of drenched shirts mid set, he was an entertainer of enthralling idiosyncracies. But the greatest quirk of them all and the one that stumped and fascinated all pianists who followed after, from Dudley Moore right through to little old me, was the ‘drag’ between his right and left hand. That indecipherable brilliance that was the Garner split brain.
Recorded in Carmel, California in 1955, this record may sound old, but it sounds alive. The vibrancy of the man himself guarantees that. And of course once again, prevalent throughout is the legendary right hand/left hand axis to give us the Garner physical equation that always equals ‘swing’. It was this strange and wonky automaton that made everything he played feel so emotion driven, human, cheeky.
The Allure of the Machine-Made The left hand seemed to simulate the vamping big band from whence he had learnt his trade in his early days. Relentless in its strict tempo, it nailed the tune to the floor, yet somehow seemed to roll and lilt at you like the rumbling sax section of the great Basie band. But this one handed ensemble was just the scene setter. For the right hand was where the freedom of expression came from, dragging back so far at times that it barely arrived in the same bar. This juxtaposition between left and right created the unsurpassable, magic Garner swing. Listen to ‘Teach Me Tonight’ on Concert By The Sea to hear it in full swing so to speak.
My parents were humour lead in everything they did. Mostly because they simply liked to smile. Erroll Garner’s romance was the smiling kind and I reckon that was the mode of their love. Laughter and love inexorably linked. Maybe that is why he remains my favourite of all favourites and why the physical equation of Erroll and his peculiarly independent hands feel like the perfect place to start every musical thought.
Photographs by patrick harrison
Pianist and composer Neil Cowley has released four albums with his band, Neil Cowley Trio, scooping awards for Best Jazz Act and Best Album. Their fifth, Touch and Flee is out on Naim Jazz Records. www.neilcowleytrio.com
Words by phil abel
Jonny Hannah lives in Darktown and enjoys listening to jazz whilst painting, printing and drawing.