From Kind of Blue to kind of obsessed - The jazz guitar journey of Pete Oxley

Guitarist and Spin Jazz Club founder Pete Oxley takes us on a deep and personal journey through his life in jazz — from being blown away by Kind of Blue to life-changing gigs with Nigel Kennedy and discovering modern jazz giants like Mike Stern and Pat Metheny. He shares invaluable advice for aspiring musicians, reflects on improvisation, and unpacks why jazz still has the power to surprise and connect. Whether you're a jazz head or just curious, this is a warm, insightful conversation that gets to the heart of why the music matters.

Shot and edited by Spin videographer in residence Ryan Quarterman (Future Human Design Co.)

• Video transcript

  I’m Pete Oxley, I'm a guitar player mostly in the jazz sphere and I run the Jazz Club, the Spin which I set up with two other guys back in 1999.(...)

  I started playing jazz seriously back in 1985-ish,(...)

  it was a result of hearing the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue.

  It just blew me away as it has done with so many musicians. It was a seminal point in my musical career.

  I heard that and I remember this feeling of I want this music now and doing anything I could to try and access a way into it.

  When I first started playing jazz, as with many guitar players, we listened to Django Reinhardt, he was one of the first great jazz guitar players and I think pretty much every jazz guitar player has gone through listening to him, and I certainly did, but I didn't have that kind of gypsy technique which is quite particular and I'd heard it Kind of Blue which is very, very different vibe.

  I was interested in accessing that kind of music so I really got serious about it, I started listening to all the records from the period of Kind of Blue, so the very late 50s into the very early 60s so any Miles from that period and all his associated musicians. Cannonball Adderley, Coltrane, of course Bill Evans and then I very quickly discovered Wes Montgomery who was a guitar player of the same period and I loved his playing. So I began trying to take on board the whole kind tradition of jazz playing at that point then there came another turning point in my, way I was influenced with music. When I was living in Paris and I went to the New Morning Jazz Club I heard Michael Brecker's band with Mike Stern in the group and this band just blew me away and I sort of went from one day to the next from listening to late 50s, early 1960s to listening to what was going on in the day which was like, by then it was like the mid late 1980s and Mike Stern of course was one of the guys and next thing I heard was Pat Metheny and his lyrical style resonated with me, and basically I've been a fan of Metheny ever since.

  So when I'm improvising, what I play is really very much based on what I'm hearing from the other members of the band hoping that they're going to first of all me a foundation upon which to play which is comfortable in terms of the rhythm section, the way they're grooving, the time and the soundscape of it that becomes interplay, so it becomes an organic thing, you know, I might play a line somebody might respond to that or somebody in the rhythm section may introduce some kind of rhythmic idea that wasn't there before which might send me in a direction. Aside from that really it's as little thinking, as little conscious thinking as possible and that's where the practicing process comes in, trying to accumulate as much musical information little by little it's a slow process but by accumulating that information when you're actually on the bandstand you don't have to do the thinking and then you're free to play just to play freely.

  (...)

  I would say if somebody wanted to start playing jazz the advice I would give them is to listen(...)

  Find the musicians that they enjoy, transcribe their solos what it is about parts they like. So if they transcribe a line if they love a line they transcribe it, look at the harmony that that line is based upon, and then they can analyse it and learn what makes it sound what gives it that colour.

  It’s an invaluable thing to do and at the same time they're working on their ears yeah their ears are becoming faster, recognising the colour of music in a way if I could put it that way.

  If I could play with any musician would be Lyle Mays the partner of Pat Metheny he was one of the greatest musicians as a composer and arranger, a stylist of sounds I don't think there's any keyboard player I know that had such a mastery over sounds, over the colours with all these, all these keyboards he had and the way he reprogrammed them sounds beautiful and interesting and I. you know, I just figured I could learn a massive amount from spending some time with Lyle Mays.

  I mean every now and again I listen to something of Lyle's and I try to transcribe what he's playing it's just so incredible his voicings they're like, they're really like nobody else's.

  We've had so many great gigs at the spin to be able to point out highlights, there have been so many but just off the top of my head I would say when we had Nigel Kennedy guesting with us a couple of times actually but particularly the first time when he came on stage at the end of the gig with John Etheridge and arrived quite late, I think it was about midnight before we started playing with him, nobody in the audience had left, everybody had somehow got the vibe that he was going to be the surprise guest. He walked on stage, tuned his violin up and then I think without counting anybody in or even asking us if we wanted to play this tune, he kicked off So What at high speed and we were all kind of ready for this and we jumped in on it and then he took his first solo and I was just astounded at the energy and the direction of his playing was just phenomenal, it was something that I hadn't quite experienced, and Etheridge is in the band and of course John is a phenomenal player himself. There was something about the way Nigel played on that night which was special and I remember thinking oh my goodness this is what it feels like playing with a world class virtuoso.(...)

  I find a lot of people have misconceptions about jazz which put them off from coming out to jazz gigs and I think the reason that is that jazz over its 120 year history has gone through all sorts of styles. I think the way people have got put off by it is is possibly they've heard something that they really don't like they may have heard Dixieland jazz or on a completely extreme other level free jazz and it makes no sense to them and they, they say ‘well I just don't understand jazz it means nothing to me’ whereas if you could somehow draw them in and find the right area which appeals and resonates with them I think there'd be a huge number of other jazz fans once they find their kind of tribe of music. It's the thing we try to do at the Spin is to make as least specialist in a way as possible to try and attract an audience that may not think they like jazz somehow you can get them there play them something, they may not even think it's jazz they come to it and say no I like it, I really like this. I mean I've played a lot of gigs where it's been say community type thing like a village hall kind of gig where at the end almost every time I have somebody coming up to me saying I didn't think I like jazz but this was great and it's because they've actually come and then they they realise you're playing things with, with melodies the harmonies and the improvisations are still melodic and still make some sort of coherent sense with the themes that suddenly it's not kind of frightening or weird to them.

  If somebody's never heard jazz before then I would put on Kind of Blue I mean again kind of depending on their musical interests if they're, if they're sort of quite open if they I think if they've got a classical background Kind of Blue is great you know it's not, it's not aggressive music in any way, it’s extremely warm sounding but all the improvisations are fantastic and I find it hard to imagine anybody with a musical ear wouldn't be attracted to that.

  If they’re coming more from a kind of like a pop or a rock background I might, I mean I would probably put on something from the Pat Metheny Group which is really full on with with Pat playing on his guitar synthesizer and the band really going for it because you know, it's pretty blurry the the boundaries between that and a lot of rock music

  One of the best pieces of advice I ever had as I was getting my playing career happening and by then I was already gigging was from a colleague I was playing with and at that point I remember being depressed at the end of the gig I would say nine out of ten times, depressed with my own playing and and this guy who's in the band who was who was on a much higher level than me he said to me ‘look if you're gonna do the gigs accept where you are today because that's all you can be, practice as hard as you can to be that little bit further the next day and then that's where you'll be that day and then enjoy it because that's where you are.’ And that and that made all the difference I went from being depressed nine out of ten gigs to being depressed one out of ten gigs it's huge, huge difference and it freed me up then you know if you're not if you're not anxious about the way you're playing and trying like oh no I'm gonna mess up again or whatever you know with this negative attitude you you are not gonna play as well so just that in itself was kind of it felt like I've made a quantum leap in my playing certainly my enjoyment of the playing.

  One of the biggest challenges of being a jazz musician today is really that there's so much great music out there and to find your own voice. There’s always going to be something that you hear that's kind of in in the genre that you you're writing in and you say to yourself well that's already been done and it's been done incredibly well so to find your niche is extremely hard plus on an actual playing level there are so many great players I mean, there are so many colleges now in the country in the UK that are training jazz musicians and they all come out at phenomenally high level, in fact they go in as a really high level. So, to forge your own niche with your own voice is very very difficult today I would say.

  (...)