Jazzmatics by Monty Oxymoron

Music from the late 1980s/early 1990s: I was training to become a psychiatric nurse, qualified, worked full-time for a year and then undertook the Related Arts BA course at WSIHE (down the road from the asylum.) After exploring psyche acid folk and prog I went on to explore jazz: I was interested in what patterns it made in my brain! Jazz roots for me went way back in my lifetime: Grandma and Grandad were in a swing band playing for the forces in WW2. When getting into Prog-rock I was fascinated by both the Soft Machine’s approach and that of Keith Emerson (the Nice). Suddenly Oscar Peterson had a show on TV (on which both Keith and Rick Wakeman were guests.) I LOVED Oscar’s technique and enthusiastic joy of playing.
Then later…the second gig I ever saw was the Soft Machine with John Marshall on drums: that was incredible! Jazz Rock was going to be an abiding interest for sure after that!
I was exploring folk, World and Psychedelic music in the 80s and was reminded of Jazz when I wandered into the King and Queen pub one Sunday lunchtime where Vic Richards and other Brighton Jazz masters were playing a Sunday lunch Jazz session. I really enjoyed this and went regularly for years (decades even!) Vic was good to me though he said “He writes the worst songs you ever heard in your life!” ( Vic’s son Bernie Richards played drums for the Dr Space Toad Experience briefly years later.) Through him I met legendary Jazz singer Joe Lee Wilson. After I played him my stuff he hollered to a neighbour: “This is Laurence; he plays ALL the instruments!” Also as a result of that I met local bass legend Adrian Kenton who introduced me to the ideas of Carl Jung along other things. I attended his Jazz workshops in Southwick and as a result played in the Trevor Kaye Quintet (also featuring fantastic guitarist Nigel Clark who later came to fame in the band “Hue and Cry”.) Trevor was a wonderful (and slightly mad) saxophonist who had run the Jazz club in Cambridge where I was born. The quintet was the second band I was in the first being “the Second Attic”; the next band I would join was “the Sweetcorn Experience”: a New Wave/Punk covers band! After that ‘twas the “Dr Space Toad Experience”, Captain Sensible’s “Punk Floyd” and finally in 1996, the Damned.
In the 1980s I was looking in every direction for inspiration: both to the past and around the world as I felt totally out of touch with what was going on then. When I went to Eastbourne Art College I met Alasdair Willis who was a huge influence as he knew about all the really “out-there” free improvised Jazz music: he played me Cecil Taylor, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and so much other stuff that showed me what real music freedom could be!
I even got my grandma into the experimental music; she was listening to all the avant-guard Classical composers on Radio Three and coming out with us to see Keith Tippett play; I attended a piano workshop run by Mr Tippett in the 1990s. After that we saw “In Cahoots” play at Brighton’s “Concord” featuring Jazz Rock legends: Hugh Hopper, Pip Pyle and Elton Dean (Soft Machine, Gong, Ian Carr’s “Nucleus”.) Well her verdict on it was: “Well, it’s very good…but a little old fashioned.” Of course I had to blurt that out to the band as she was a veteran! Hugh (God bless his good musical soul) looked fed up, but Elton said: “Good! I’m glad she said so!” (He was into the free-er improv stuff) and, yes, it did sound like 70s Jazz rock of the sort I’d seen in 73 with the “Softs”. So, I proceeded to create the usual mimic of these styles myself…and these are the results!

Monty Oxymoron keyboardist for the Damned since 1996, Monty is a multi-instrumentalist who’s musical range is as diverse as the instruments he plays keyboards, piano, organ, guitar, Bass, clarinet, veena, marimba, and all sorts of hand percussion. Heavily influenced by British psychedelia of the 60’s, prog and punk of the 70’s Monty merges rhythms to create a kaleidoscope of sounds.

montyoxymoron.com