Mark de Clive-Lowe: Ask Me Anything

Mark de Clive-Lowe said:
i grew up with japanese folk songs and kids songs around me - my mother made sure of that! so there's always been a familiarity and kinship with the sound, even before i realized it and also while i rejected it (the teenage years!). i started touring in japan with my first tokyo trio in 1996 and one of the early gigs was an improv trio + kagura show. that was a trip and something i'd love to do again now that i have a much deeper understanding of the culture, music and specifically how i fit in with it. it wasnt really specific albums in japan but my last year of high school there was a life changer - i spent more time in the jazz clubs than at school and really got into some local musicians at the same time as i fell in love with the whole lifestyle i saw them living. in the early 2000s i collab'd with japanese beat contemporaries dj mitsu the beats, grooveman spot, kyoto jazz massive and others. it's such an amazingly rich culture there - both in traditional and contemporary terms.

NZ doesnt - in my opinion - have a fully formed musical identity of its own. much contemporary music comes out of a melting pot of roots/reggae, dilla and badu - not to over simplify, but yeah. saxophonist nathan haines was always prodigious and he was an influence and later mentor and friend in london too - one of my first collabs there was for goldie's metalheadz label with nathan's sci clone project and he also introduced me to phil asher/restless soul which was the gateway for me into my entire UK experience. growing up in NZ there was a period in high school when i was part of the voodoo rhyme syndicate - a collective of djs, rappers and producers heavily influenced by US hip hop of the day and new jack swing. for a while there i wanted to BE teddy riley (cue up the first Guy album)

one more recent album i love is hozan yamamoto's ginkai - an ECM style jazz record very heavily japanese with gary peacock on bass too.
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Thanks for taking the time to answer! I felt the same way about Japan while I was visiting there for a month. Do you have any plans to tour Japan in the near future?

Also that's amazing you got to collab with DJ Mitsu the Beats, and Grooveman Spot, I knew them from the Mellow Beats, Friends & Lovers compilation, which is a fantastic mix, so I began to wonder if you happened to have the chance to meet or work with Nujabes at all during that time?
 
SKOT FREE said:
Mark De Clive-Lowe

I don’t have a question but more a comment. First off you name Dropped Leimert Park, Little Tokyo,etc in your last comment and amazingly that vibe is what I got listening to your album. It’s an utterly amazing album and one I will cherish because I’m from L.A. now living in Atlanta, and I used to frequent Leimert Park(Kaos Network, World Stage, 5th street Dicks) and Little Tokyo all the time just to chill and vibe. Again Thank you for this amazing album.
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thanks! that's a really special thing to hear too - leimert park has become a touch stone place for me too - whenever i play the world stage it's always a special vibe and the late great Nate Morgan is a pianist i can really relate too as well. btw, LOVE the A ! hope to get back there again. mostly to eat ;)
 
Thackeraye said:
Hi @Mark de Clive-Lowe!

Thanks for doing this, really appreciate it.

My question is about the flow of the 2 records. Did you compose the pieces separately and then decide on the running order when they were done, or did you always have the flow over the 2 albums sorted in your head?
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i envisaged it as one album. once i finished editing it - more than anything, making the tracks shorter - many of them clocked in at 15 min from the original live recordings - i realized that as one album it was asking a LOT of the audience to digest it all. personally, i dont listen to any double albums start to finish. even Songs in the Key of Life - i'll listen to one record one day, another another day. i figured that for people who wanted to really experience the music i was sharing, i needed to separate it into two albums to give them a chance to really digest it. in creating that tracklist/sequence it started to become clear that the music does have two halves - portrayed in the artwork as day and night - and made total sense once it was separated into two releases. incidentally, the japanese CD which came out ahead of the album anywhere is a 2CD release with both albums.
 
agutierrezb said:
Man, come down to play do Mexico City, and I'll promise to welcome you with a bottle of the best mezcal you've ever had.

There's a ton of super talented jazz musicians down here, and I'm sure you'd enjoy playing with them. Check this guys out if you have the time.
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i've only been there once (on vacation) and loved it!! had an amazing meal at La Capital too. i'd love to get back there and play, and eat and drink! as with almost anywhere in the world, making that happen is all about connecting with the right like-minded local promoter who is willing to make it happen. will check the youtube thanks - one of my favorite things is collaborating with capable local musicians when i travel :)
 
Chucktshoes said:
This video is the first piece of your music I listened to yesterday. Phenomenal. I’m giving Heritage I a first listen as I’m typing and it’s taking longer than it should because I keep getting pulled away into the music. I’m admittedly not huge into jazz, or very knowledgeable about it, but I’m really digging the hell out of it.

I was heavily into electronic music during the late 90s through the late aughts and often heard folks claim that electronic music was “jazz for the modern age” and never gave it much serious thought. I haven’t seen much of folks bridging the two, (I’m sure they are, it just hasn’t ever been my wheelhouse) but I’m blown away by how natural the traditional jazz and the electronic elements are melded together.

There’s no questions in this, just my brain dumping out its thoughts.
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cheers!
you might dig Carl Craig's Innerzone Orchestra too :)
 
blissfullychaotic said:
Thanks for taking the time to answer! I felt the same way about Japan while I was visiting there for a month. Do you have any plans to tour Japan in the near future?

Also that's amazing you got to collab with DJ Mitsu the Beats, and Grooveman Spot, I knew them from the Mellow Beats, Friends & Lovers compilation, which is a fantastic mix, so I began to wonder if you happened to have the chance to meet or work with Nujabes at all during that time?
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i didnt get the chance to connect wtih nujabes sadly, but i do collab with our mutual connection/friend Shing02

i'll be in japan in july for a 2 week artist residency, maybe a tokyo show too; in october at the blue note playing with Harvey Mason; and in late november doing something fun !
 
Mark de Clive-Lowe said:
cheers!

off the top of my head...

Tommaso Cappellato - Butterflying
Ronin Arkestra - First Meeting
Shun Ishiwaka - CLNUP4
Horace Tapscott - Why Don't You Listen?
Resavoir - album forthcoming
Myele Manzanza - A Love Requited - about to drop
Culross Closs - Forgotten Ones
Dwight Trible - Mothership
Kassa Overall - Go Get Icecream and Listen to Jazz
Brandee Younger - Soul Awakening
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Black Mirror soundtrack
14KT - For My Sanity

and plenty more i'm sure!!

UK dates - tbc, there's a handful of dates still to be booked for 2019. best to check my website or track me via songkick or bandsintown - https://bandsintown.com/markdeclive-lowe
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Thanks will certainly try that list out and keep an eye out for UK dates !

Edit : Mmm 2Aug your in Italy. I'm looking for an August holiday location, my wife is part Italian, we love Italy.....
 
Mark de Clive-Lowe said:
cheers! glad you're enjoying the sounds. the ronin arkestra project is a special one too - and the album just got mastered ;)

yes, i'm well aware of what's going on in the UK. a large part of the blueprint for what's happening now is what we did in the west london/broken beat scene 1998-2008. if that hadn't happened, i believe a lot of what you're hearing now wouldnt be happening. key to to the new movement as well is the jazz refreshed crew which came directly out of the west london scene. kaidi tatham and i were the first artists to play that event and certainly helped establish it. my freesoul sessions clubnite was a fully improvised live event that featured the likes of richard spaven, jason yarde, bembe segue, kaidi tatham and more - there's an album of recordings from it on my bandcamp if you're curious. things like that laid the blueprint for sure.

shabaka hutchings is the stand out artist there for me - his three projects are all fully realized - great writing, concepts, execution and he, as an instrumentalist, composer and band leader, is fully realized. i'm excited to hear him evolve. i played the jazz refreshed festival a few years ago and had shabaka and soweto kinch on horns with me - that was super fun. last year's uberjazz fest i hosted a session with makaya mccraven and we had shabaka, theon cross, nubya and others join us on some freestyle vibes - there's always connections. 10 years ago i brought united vibrations into studio to collab with me and they had an amazing young - then unknown - drummer named yussef dayes. he was killing then too. i've had moses boyd on drums with me for a london show too. there's so much talent there and i'm always about collaboration. of all of them shabaka and moses are the ones i'd want to get in the studio with first. jason yarde too - he's my age, but still for me, the illest sax player to ever come out of the UK. my only reservation about the UK jazz explosion is that i hope the hype doesnt dilute the artistry. there's a lot of young players in it and they're mostly super capable - in some cases i do want to hear deeper work compositionally and conceptually :) excited to see it all grow tho!

all time top 3 ?!?!?!?!??! you're crazy. some faves tho off the top of my head...

ahmad jamal - the awakening
cesar mariano - sao paolo brasil
robert hurst - robert hurst presents
flood - herbie hancock ( pretty much ANY herbie tho!)
my funny valentine/four and more - miles davis (same - ALL miles!)
welcome to detroit - j dilla (and all dilla)
fantastic vol.2 - slum village
roni size - reprazent
carl craig - innerzone orchestra
keith jarrett - death and the flower
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So glad to see Cesar Mariano on your list. That album is incredible and doesn’t seem to get mentioned enough in conversations of favorite albums. I was lucky enough to see Cesar as a special guest at Taylor Mcferrin’s show in NYC a few years ago and it was amazing.

Love your work as well and hope to see you live one of these days! Thanks again for coming into the site and doing an AMA! All really insightful stuff and it was awesome of you to swing by and do this.
 
Mark de Clive-Lowe said:
i didnt get the chance to connect wtih nujabes sadly, but i do collab with our mutual connection/friend Shing02

i'll be in japan in july for a 2 week artist residency, maybe a tokyo show too; in october at the blue note playing with Harvey Mason; and in late november doing something fun !
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Man I wish I could be there for those Tokyo shows!

Shing02 just finished his Tribute to Nujabes tour, did you happen to make it out for a show? I wanted to make it but no Cleveland dates were scheduled and it was hard for me to make it out to Chicago. Hoping to get the chance to see him perform one of these days him and Uyama Hiroto are two people I can't stop spinning these days
 
Captainfog said:
What's your favourite memory of when you were living in London and making beats and tunes with the likes of Kenny Dope?
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i couldnt possibly choose a favorite memory. that was an incredible 10 years and an entire lifetime that i'd be happy if my career was just that (and very happy that it's not just that!).... being called to studio and pino palladino is there waiting to play... which is right up there with pino turning up at my house with his bass and me thinking 'oh, i guess we're making music today!'; touring europe every weekend with some of my best friends and great musicians - kaidi tatham, richard spaven, bembe segue, cameron undy; collaborating with bugz in the attic, ig culture, domu, restless soul - waking up every morning knowing that by the end of the day we would have created some new music that didnt exist in the world before that day; being at co-op club and hearing what each other had made that day/that week and every single jam was pushing the envelope of what had been done before; the first time i almost met kenny i freaked out - he was in the club when phil asher was playing my then new track 'el dia perfecto' (2000) and kenny was loving it asking who it was. that alone freaked me out so i went and hid in a corner LOL. then we met properly and hit studio - that day we made the soul fuzion track 'i got rhythm' which at the time was vocalled by raheem devaughn, and we made a second track which the late great Leon Ware vocalled and is imo, easily the best thing he did in his latter years. it was the track that got him a new record deal, but politics meant that it never saw the light of day sadly. after studio we went to a club and i tried to keep up drink for drink with kenny. BIG ASS MISTAKE. lesson learned.

it was a real honor a few years later when he and louie signed my single Relax... Unwind for 12" release on MAW records too. it's an amazing life when your heroes becomes your collaborators, peers and friends. i'm lucky to be able to say that for so many people - especially in the last 10 years living in the US. having played with harvey mason, patrice rushen, darryl jones, ndugu chancler, bernie worrell, eric harland, chris dave, kamasi washington... the list is endless. as is my gratitude
 
Mr Moore said:
Mark, thanks so much for joining us, hope breakfast was good.

Heritage and Heritage II are clearly intrinsically linked. What made you decide to release these as separate entities rather than a traditional double album? As a vinyl nerd, I love the decision btw because the artwork on both is gorgeous and the 12” format shows them to their full potential.

Thanks for the great music.
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thanks! i answered this in another reply, but to the artwork - MASSIVE shout out to tokio aoyama. he's an amazing artist and truly captured the spirit and narrative of the albums in his work. instagram.com/tokioaoyama
 
Kris said:
Hi @Mark de Clive-Lowe. I'm a big fan of the "Late Night Tales", "DJ Kicks, and "Back to Mine" series. What kind of music would you play for a late night chill out party? Usually a few of the artist's own tracks are included if you want to point out any specifically :)
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hmmmm.... maybe
ahmad jamal
herbie hancock
antonio carlos jobim
d'angelo
minnie riperton
bjork
ryuichi sakamoto
nils frahm
 
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