MARTIN BLACKWELL: A JAZZY ROULETTE 

 

Martin Blackwell played  bass in pre-Roulettes groups The Fenders and The Strangers and co-wrote the b-side of The Strangers’ demo with guitarist Peter Thorp. When The Strangers became The Roulettes in September 1961, Martin Blackwell remained their bassist - only to say bye-bye to both the bass guitar and pop music after a mere six months. Less than two decades later, he was an in-demand jazz pianist.

Learning the Game

 

MORRISSEY-MULLEN ON TOUR IN THE UK
Left to right: Dick Morrissey, Jim Mullen, John Mole, Martin Blackwell. Picture taken by drummer: Dave Sheen with Blackwell's camera.  
Courtesy / ©  Martin Blackwell 

Martin Blackwell: ‘I’ve always essentially been a piano player. You know, I started to play at the age of five or six, sitting for exams and all that, doing the classical side. When I started a local skiffle group, I picked up the guitar because skiffle units didn’t have piano players. Groups like The Strangers and The Roulettes didn’t have an outlet for piano players either, so I became their bass-player. I didn’t have a choice, really. In fact, I didn’t even own a bass! It wasn’t until we were on tour with Adam Faith there was always a grand piano on stage, because the John Barry 7 were part of the show and they consisted of top British session players. I’d play the piano during rehearsals and these seasoned guys would tease me a little and say ‘Play us a tune!’, like older musicians do.  Once I played piano with Adam Faith when the electricity went off as he was singing. I went on the piano and when the power came on I would continue on bass guitar. After leaving The Roulettes in March 1962, I never played bass again!’.

‘At that time, I hadn’t got anything very much and I went back to studying with a jazz pianist in Sutton, South London. He was semi-pro, had a band, and he started teaching me everything about harmony, chords, bass-lines, alternative chord structures, how to substitute chords, how to change the whole thing around, jazz basically. You should know I was into jazz before The Roulettes. In Croydon -  where I lived at the time – there was a place we’d go to after school because they had a juke-box with jazz records only, like Dave Brubeck and Benny Golson. 
Anyway, I  got myself a job up in Scotland with a dance band and when that finished I did summer seasons, cruises and gigged all over the place with many different musicians. I spent a lot of time in Newcastle, where I met John Steel, the drummer of The Animals [and a great jazz fan – EB]. I eventually moved back to London and I had a residency in a jazz club / night club in Streatham for most of the 70s. I was able to dep it out when other things started and it all followed from there actually’.

Ronnie Scott

Martin Blackwell: ‘I recorded an album with jazz guitarist Louis Stewart which had Ron Mathewson on bass, Martin Drew on drums and Geoff Castle on piano. Geoff and I both played piano. They all worked for Ronnie Scott, who wrote the liner notes’ [‘Milesian Source’, Pye, 1978].

 Around that time I met up with jazz saxophonist Kathy Stobart. I did a couple of gigs with Kathy Stobart and Harry Beckett [who also played with Keef Hartley – EB] at The Bull’s Head in Barnes, London, and she asked me to join her. We started touring all over the country and even appeared at the famous jazz fest in Nice, France. We also did an album together [Kathy Stobart & Harry Beckett: Arbela, Spotlite, SPJ509, 1979].  It was a really good unit, a happy band.
I left Kathy when Ronnie Scott asked me to join his band in 1980 - but I didn’t stay all that long and I started working with Jim Mullen and Dick Morrissey’.

Morrissey-Mullen 

Guitarist Jim Mullen and flutist-saxophonist Dick Morrissey started out in New York, where they recorded the jazz fusion album ‘Up’ (1976), produced by Herbie Mann and featuring The Average White Band as the rhythm section.  Upon their return to the UK, the Morrissey-Mullen band met with great success in famous clubs, holding a residency at The Half Moon, Putney (London), for many years, touring the country and recording a string of albums in the jazz-funk vein well into the second half of the eighties, beginning with ‘Cape Wrath’ on the progressive Harvest label (1979) featuring Max Middleton on keys (Jeff Beck Group, Nazareth) and Kuma Harada on bass (Ginger Baker, Snowy White, Mick Taylor).

Martin Blackwell: ‘Dick Morrissey went to Sutton High School for Boys like me, but I was in a younger class and I only went for a few years so we didn’t really meet then. Morrissey had a group with Terry Smith on guitar and Brian Miller on acoustic piano, but the group changed and Jim Mullen came into the band replacing Terry Smith. Because of Jim’s influence the group turned into more of a jazz- rock outfit. Brian Millar started looking to dep out the gigs because he didn’t feel comfortable. When doing a gig in Torrington, Brian asked if I’d fancy to dep and I said ‘yeah, fine’.  Although my main thing has always been the acoustic piano, I was heavily into keyboards and synthesizers – ARP and Moogs and all that  - and Morrissey Mullen was the ideal setting for that type of stuff, it suited the rock style. Brian stopped and this is the beginning of my role in the Mullen-Morrisey band,.
We did quite a few tours of the UK, went to Germany and Poland and landed a residency at The Half Moon (Putney, London) on Thursdays. Anyway, it went down really well, it used to get absolutely packed out. It was really a great gig, it went on and on, and Dick said, ‘those Half Moon gigs paid off my mortgage’.  In 1979,  we put out the first digital single ever, ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’ [a hit for Rose Royce the previous year – EB]. After the recording at the Abbey Road studios, I rushed off to Ireland immediately as I was touring with Kathy Stobart!’. 

Don Weller 

Martin Blackwell: 'It was a busy time for me, since I also recorded with tenor saxophonist Don Weller. I play on ‘Commit No Nuisance’ by The Don Weller Spring Quartet [Affinity, 1979], but also on an LP titled ‘Poem Song’ by Hannibal, that’s  trumpet player Hannibal Marvin Peterson, alongside Don Weller, Bryan Spring (drums) and bassist Dave Green (bass). The set was recorded live at the 100 Club in London on 2nd November 1981’ [Mole Jazz, 1981].

Interestingly, Dave Green played with Charlie Watts, as did Don Weller (‘Live at Fulham Town Hall’, 1986). In fact, Weller played with many a rock star, for instance David Bowie (Absolute Beginners), Tucky Buzzard (1973), East Of Eden (1976-1978) or Cat Stevens (Back To Earth, 1978).

After this most intense experience with the crème of British jazz, Martin Blackwell returned to gigging, cruises and entertaining the troops at home and abroad, with a slight penchant for dangerous zones like Northern Ireland and the Falklands. When the first Gulf War ended in 1991, he was on the last 747 of Kuwait Airlines to leave the theatre of war.
 

He continues to play clubs in London on a very regular basis as we write …

Text  is © Eddy Bonte and pictures are © Martin Blackwell, coursesy of Martin Blackwelll, unless stated otherwise.  FIrst publicaton on this site 09Feb2022