MELODY MAKER - UK - October 10, 1964

"GRAHAM BOND says: R&B? It's only in its infancy"

"I'm not one of those people who is ashamed of playing blues and earning money out of it". A characteristic statement from Graham Bond who admits his "agressive honesty" frequently gets him into trouble. Graham, whose facial displacement of hair makes him look rather like a French postman, deserves full marks anyway for calling his group the Graham Bond Organisation and resisting the temtation to fool with names like 007 or Smersch."

As a former modern jazz altoist, does he find the blues restricting? "Certainly not" retorted Graham. "It doesn't have to be a 12-bar. Blues can be 9 1/2 bars, or 14 bars, and in any time. You can play so many different sequences, or no sequences at all."

"Talk about 'Free Form' - there is a tremendous parallel with the blues, because it's so free. We are playing the blues of today and I can get away with playing practically anything."

"There is no reason at all why you can't take the blues and and put technique of modern jazz on it. After all the greatest blues player of all time was Charlie Parker."

Graham first got the blues bug when he heard the Alexis Korner band: "There was Ginger Baker, Cyril Davies, Jack Bruce and Dick Heckstall-Smith", he recalls. "Ginger, Jack and Dick are with me know. It was the embodiment of most of the things I wanted."

"I joined Alexis and it was marvellous tution. If it were not for him and Cyril Davies this scene wouldn't have been what it is today."

"After I'd been with Alexis for a while I got a Hammond organ. Now I sing, alto and organ things with the other hand."

"Playing with Alexis also showed me I wanted to sing and play alto and organ - the last two at the same time sometimes."

"Although that has good gimmick value it is also very valid, in that I get a lot of things going by playing single-note lines on a great deal - I really love singing the blues."

"The Organisation is a co-operative group in that there is no star and everybody is indispenable."

"I think the visual thing is extremely important, but the point about both our music policey and presentation is that at least 90 per cent is completely improvised."

"At first things were very hard because our sound was too way out at that time. Then groups like the Stones, Beatles, Animals and Manfred Mann helped the transition which made young people able to appreciate the sort of blues and gospel things we do."

"I first heard the Animals in Newcastele - it was my manager, Rohan O'Rahilly, and I who gave them their name."

"Before I joined Alexis I used to go to Butlin's at Clacton where Manfred Mann and Mike Hugg were playing. We used to talk a lot and, as a result, they formed the Blues Brothers. Then Mick Jagger used to come and sing with Alexis."

"The point is that this whole thing is very closeknit."

"A Hit record? Of course we want one, but want one that is really us. All of us feel that we are not in this business for just a year."

"We can all play our instruments, we love playing and we want to do it for a very long time indeed."

"And 75 per cent of our material is original - there is hardly any other band that can say that."

"We think the R&B thing is only in its infancy. We are working six nights a week, and sometimes seven. we have just done 6.000 miles in five weeks and each week we play one or two new clubs."

"I don't care waht anybody says about rock-n-roll or R&B, a lot of these youngsters playing guitars have the basic, natural talent."

"I guarantee that in the next few years there will be many very good young musicians concentrating on expressing emotional feeling as well as technique."

Bob Dawbarn