Elliot Moss
Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Hello and a very warm welcome to this special edition of Jazz Shapers live from the Love Supreme Jazz Festival. [cheering and applause] Fantastic. As you can tell, I’m not alone. I’m Elliot Moss and Jazz Shapers is where I get to bring the shapers of the business world together with the greatest musicians shaping the world of jazz, soul and blues. My guests today are pioneers in both business and music, Gary Crosby OBE and Janine Irons OBE, founders of Tomorrow’s Warriors. [cheering and applause] Tomorrow’s Warriors, the creative producer and talent development agency, increasing opportunity, diversity and excellence in and through jazz. As a founding member of the Jazz Warriors, an influential collective of young black musicians, Gary had a long held love of supporting younger people, rooted in his time in youth clubs in the seventies and later working with apprentices at his construction job. Meanwhile, trained in classical piano and contemporary dance and hating her City job – find out if that’s true, Janine – as a PA for an international bank, Janine blagged her way – perish the thought – into one of Gary’s Jazz Jamaica gigs and was driven to try and make the young black musicians she saw there more visible in a jazz scene that was, as she says, ‘pale, male and stale’. Janine and Gary founded Tomorrow’s Warriors in 1991, aiming to nurture aspiring young artists from diverse backgrounds to, and I quote, ‘discover their magic and realise their creative ambitions’. They’ve since supported an incredible 15,000 individuals and accredited with tearing up the international music scene. Not bad. [cheering and applause] And why they are able to say that? Because with wildly influential alumni at Tomorrow’s Warriors, including a shout out for Nubya Garcia [cheering and applause], Denys Baptiste [cheering and applause], Shabaka Hutchings [cheering and applause], Moses Boyd [cheering and applause], Soweto Kinch, the member of Ezra Collective, Zara McFarlane, Nathaniel Facey, Binker Golding, I could go on.
Gary Crosby OBE, Janine Irons OBE, for those of you in the know, and most of you are in the know, these two people are probably the most influential people behind what I think has been the resurgence of British, and now international jazz, it’s extraordinary. It’s an absolute honour to have you two here, Gary and Janine. I’m going to start with Janine, just because everyone always starts with Gary – I know it, it’s tempting. Working together, married together. Good advice to people? Go do that?
Janine Irons
Well, we’re not actually married so we’re, although I’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should you know.
Elliot Moss
How many years have you been together?
Janine Irons
32, 33?
Elliot Moss
33.
Janine Irons
Yeah, something like that.
Elliot Moss
And, and in 1991 when you started working together, did it seem like a sensible idea?
Janine Irons
Well, he, he started it off, didn’t you at the Jazz Café but I came long two years later. I mean we didn’t think about, you know, immediately we didn’t think we were going to do it together, it’s only when we’d kind of got together and we thought actually, we make a really good team. Yeah, but I think, it’s kind of worked for us hasn’t it?
Gary Crosby
Yeah, of course it’s worked.
Janine Irons
We’re still together.
Gary Crosby
But I think we, we were having, I was having fun for two years, then I invited Janine to a club where I used to play and she said, ‘this is not fun, this is work’, so it starts two years after, well Janine started at Tomorrow’s Warriors, prior to that it was just Gary and friends hanging out at the Jazz Café.
Elliot Moss
And you know that, that place in between, the Gary and friends hanging out and then Janine bringing some structure and some business to it.
Gary Crosby
That’s exactly the wording I should have used.
Elliot Moss
Was that, you were obviously open to that and I guess you’re, one of, one of your mantras has been young musicians need to know how to run the business.
Gary Crosby
Of course, although I was a musician and have been and come from a musical background, I was also an engineer that used to work, you know, for the local council, for private individuals, so I understood not only just dialogue between different individuals but trade. Input must equal output so I was always aware of that. And I was always so aware that the jazz community didn’t like money and didn’t understand it, hence why we always had managers or agents looking after us. So I was fully aware that we needed structure and Janine took some photos of me at Union Chapel and about six months later I needed some photos…
Janine Irons
It wasn’t six months later, it was about two weeks later.
Gary Crosby
Was it two weeks? It was that quick.
Janine Irons
There’s a story here.
Gary Crosby
Alright, alright.
Elliot Moss
We’ll come back to the story.
Gary Crosby
But anyway, when she showed me the photos, there was like an invoice, how much I could use it and everything was just perfect and I hadn’t even bought it yet and I just thought that’s who we need.
Elliot Moss
There’s something I think about a lot and I named some names which you are both associated with and I think about this in terms of sport and in business as well, how do you know when you’ve got a super talented person in front of you? Because it’s a game isn’t it, I mean not everyone is super talented, there might be and I know we’re going to come on, Janine to your, your feeling that everyone should have access to music but Gary, how can you spot ‘em?
Gary Crosby
Manners. Generally, I base the first time I meet somebody, if they have good manners, just good basic manners, that’s it. There’s, there’s obviously an artistic side to it as well but that starts first. Just have good manners.
Elliot Moss
And beyond the manners, you know, you see, you see young people who work really hard and make it and you see young people who are super talented and don’t make it, is that…?
Gary Crosby
All the time. All the time but it can go, good manners, they’re not coming close to me and…
Elliot Moss
What do you mean by, for you Gary, what do good manners look like?
Gary Crosby
Polite, realise that there are, obviously an artist but they’re, they’re no more important than the, somebody who may help them to the next stage whether it’s a person in marketing, media, on the radio, just have good manners.
Janine Irons
It’s about not having ego.
Elliot Moss
I was going to say, it sounds like humility.
Gary Crosby
I wouldn’t say not having ego because you need ego.
Janine Irons
Well not letting your ego get in the way.
Gary Crosby
Yes. If you’re an artist…
Janine Irons
Yeah. And also showing [clapping], yeah, that showing, showing real promise and passion for music and what they’re doing, you know, and showing interest, I think in the music.
Gary Crosby
Yeah, of course.
Janine Irons
And, actually, being able to play, you know, whether it’s to play their instrument or to use their voice, but a lot of the time when they come to us, they won’t, they won’t know how good they are, you know.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, I think I read Nubya Garcia was super shy.
Gary Crosby
Sorry?
Elliot Moss
Nubya Garcia was super shy.
Gary Crosby
Yes, very, exactly. Can I be more, I’m beginning to feel comfortable now so I can let go…
Elliot Moss
Go for it.
Gary Crosby
My dad had it one word, but you may not understand it, it’s a Jamaican term. He said, ‘broughtupsy’, right, that’s five of us in this house and he had to control us and it’s, I learned from that, just that word.
Janine Irons
Good broughtupsy.
Gary Crosby
Of course there are people who don’t have that, chance to have that experience but once you’re over 17, 18, you gotta learn or you fail, it’s…
Elliot Moss
Broughtupsy.
Gary Crosby
Broughtupsy.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more broughtupsy here on this live edition of Jazz Shapers and recorded live at Love Supreme Jazz Festival. [applause and cheering] They’ll be back in a couple of minutes, don’t go anywhere.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your favourite podcast platform. We’re live at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival and there is a live audience as well ladies and gentleman. [applause and cheering] That’s the live audience, just in case you didn’t know. My, my guests today, Gary Crosby OBE, Janine Irons OBE, founders of Tomorrow’s Warriors, the creative producer and talent development agency championing emerging and established jazz musicians. Janine, I read somewhere and I sort of go back to my studying of Marxism in politics, you said the structure just doesn’t work for young black musicians and this was thirty years ago, just tell me a little bit more about why there was a, a mini revolution, why in reality what you’ve gone and done is created a parallel universe for these musicians. I read, again, something about your sense of injustice and how that was triggered, just tell me a little bit more about that.
Janine Irons
Ooh, well I, I’ve always throughout growing up and being at school, you know, I didn’t have a good experience at school, I went to some very good schools but I’ve actually been thrown out of every school I’ve been to apart from one and that was because it was a one year course and I started two months in, so I didn’t really have enough time to get myself into trouble. But it was really this sense of, you know, I was in the wrong place, you know, I was in a very academic place, although I, you know, I passed my 11+ and got my O-Levels and all of that but I was a creative person, you know, I studied music, I studied dance, my parents saw the value of the Arts but in the schools I was in, there was no space for that creativity and hence why I was always, you know, head to head with, with teachers and everything, but there were a couple of people who championed me at school, so even when I was getting thrown out, you know, they were saying you know come round afterwards, I’ll help you with your homework and all of that so you don’t fall behind and I think that was one of the most important things, to have somebody championing you. I was also one of very few black people in my school, in all of my schools in fact, so you know and there was definitely a racial element to what was going on, but when I met Gary and I, I saw, you know, this, this amazing talent on the stage but I couldn’t see, there was no visibility of, of these young people in the media or, or anywhere and you know I just felt we need to do something about it and part of why they weren’t getting those opportunities was because, you know, they were not getting the opportunities at school, a lot of the parents as well were more focussed on you know they need to be doctors, accountants, lawyers, all of that, so the creative and the artistic side kind of went by the wayside. We also didn’t have the teachers, you know, we couldn’t see ourselves represented in people teaching it, the people presenting it, the people on the stage or in the audience, right, so all of this needed to change and it needed sort of systemic change.
Elliot Moss
We’re live at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival and I’m now going to ask Gary something I’ve been thinking about which is this point about, this conversation you, you had I think it was in Jamaica actually, and it was, apparently, this is, this is what I, this is what I was told Gary, you can say, ‘Elliot, it was not in Jamaica, it wasn’t my cousin, it was my friend’. When, when did this conversation, alleged conversation, happen where Gary Crosby went, ‘you know what, I love being a musician but there’s more to life than that?’
Gary Crosby
No, that’s always been, I’ve always loved being a musician and always will be and it always comes first, but the job that needed to be done required something slightly different so I’ve never gone away from being, I never considered myself an educator, I share and I help others but I’m not an educator, I’ve never worked in any of the colleges, although I’ve had close relationships with them so I don’t know how I’ve got this title of being an educator.
Elliot Moss
I think it…
Gary Crosby
I know I suppose it happens by, what do they call it, osmosis?
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Gary Crosby
It’s maybe that but it’s never been…
Elliot Moss
But you obviously relate to people, just the way that people talk about you, Gary. I mean, so forget the educator thing, what is it do you think as you look at a young person that you can really help unlock for them, how, how do you do it?
Gary Crosby
Um, a lot of the like the, can I say the, the black players, a lot of them, I’m from the same background and I knew that and I knew how to unlock the strengths based on I understand what their fears and insecurities were. Is that sounding too technical, sounding too technical?
Elliot Moss
No, no, no.
Gary Crosby
Because I’m basically um, it’s magic, I don’t know. Why should I be giving away my secrets? Then everybody else is going to do it. It, it’s…
Elliot Moss
It’s magic and a box.
Gary Crosby
Also, I had studied, I know I’m from a, a very working-class background, I had studied a bit of Freud and I understood the psychology of people and I used a lot of that too because I knew myself what I was like, I knew guys my age, how they would respond to a microphone in front of them or somebody from a different background asking them questions about a supposedly African-American music, I understood that so I just manipulated those situations that I had experienced.
Elliot Moss
We’re going to come back to you actually.
Gary Crosby
Jamaica? Yeah, it was my cousin, he was the one that ignited, not what I should do but to do something for, for my people. Basically, we’re up in the mountain in St Thomas and he had been there 25 years, had built up a very good business, I was sitting around with him and his workers and he, he blew this smoke in my face, a plume of smoke, I don’t know what it was but, and the plume of smoke came with a question, ‘What are you doing in England?’ and I told him I was going back to play with Bheki Mseleku in London at Ronnie Scott’s and he looked at me bemused, carried on talking, another plume of smoke hit me about ten minutes later, ‘What are you doing in England?’, answered the same question, and on the third time I realised what he was actually saying because he had already told me what he was doing for his local community, although he was a landowner, he was also an electrical and mechanical engineer and he had contributed a lot of his skills to his local community for free, so I believed when he asked me what I was doing in England, he was questioning what I was doing in England, it’s there and then I realised how selfish I had become, I was just basically playing music and having a good time.
Elliot Moss
And just a, and thank you for being so open about that, but the, a quick question before we go into some more music, it’s going to be Nubya Garcia, the buzz Gary, of course you’re a musician, the buzz of playing versus the buzz of seeing A, at the highest level the incredible kids that have become adults and become brilliant musicians, well brought up, great manners, or B, you playing your music, which gives you the bigger buzz?
Gary Crosby
Neither, because it’s usually at different times and the thing about feeling elated happens in a spontaneous moment, you can’t carry it to another moment, your experience is your experience, it can’t be, you know, this experience we’re having now, ten seconds later, I can’t have the same experience, it’s, so they’re both equal. As you get older, of course, seeing other people do it, it, it’s quite exciting, it’s just as exciting as playing because I don’t play as much after, eight years ago, you know, I had to slow down a bit. So it’s equal. I mean, you agree? I don’t want, I believe Janine gets the same…
Elliot Moss
I think, I’m, I’m guessing, we’re going to come to Janine but I’m guessing if she disagreed, she might have… not sure?
Gary Crosby
She can’t, she can’t disagree from my experience. My experience is my experience.
Janine Irons
I can disagree whatever I like, Gary.
Gary Crosby
Yes, you can disagree but, here we go.
Elliot Moss
Final chat, yeah, just hold that and maybe just let it go. Final chat coming up with Gary Crosby and Janine Irons and we’ve got some Nubya Garcia, as billed earlier for you too, that’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
We’re live at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival, Gary Crosby and Janine Irons are my Business Shapers, my founders, just for a few more minutes. Janine, you’re quoted as saying, and I think I know what you meant, that ‘Gary saved you’ when you, when you met each other and obviously, I don’t think you needed saving but I imagine you were referring to something specific, would you explain what that is and where life has taken you since you and Gary Crosby met all those years ago?
Janine Irons
I think Gary saved me in, in, in different ways actually. The first thing was he got me out of the City, you know I’d been working in the City of London in an international trading company, not on the money-making side, on the admin side which is where I learnt all my skills but, and I hated it because it was all just money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, the whole thing, you know, and you were surrounded by a lot of philistines frankly, so I wanted to get out of it and so, finding Gary and then sort of him helping me find me and what I was really good at, which was championing other people, you know, I was, I left the City to become a photographer and I wasn’t, I was rubbish at selling me really and I very quickly found that out and I, I wasn’t comfortable selling me so, once I had somebody else to promote, to champion, I found it so much easier and it made me feel great because I could see others really benefitting from something I could do and seeing them start to excel so, that was the first thing. The second way he saved me was that I had kind of lost myself culturally because I wasn’t around anybody who looked like me and I was getting lost, you know, there was, I mentioned this before that, you know I worked in an Austrian bank and I have a horrible, horrible memory of turning up in an Austrian national dress and it’s like what the hell, what the hell was going on, you know, to, what was going on in my head? And so I really had lost myself but it was that whole thing about looking for acceptance from people who were tolerating me perhaps, you know, but I was trying to get an ‘in’ where there wasn’t one and so when I met Gary, I found me, you know, and he introduced me to people who looked like me and you know that’s where I kind of found myself so, that also feeds into what we wanted with Tomorrow’s Warriors so that young people will come into a space where they see people who look like them, they walk like them, they talk like them, you know, and they’re interested in all the same things. So that’s the environment we’ve tried to create and it’s not an environment just for people who look like me, it’s for people who look like all of us, you know, we want Tomorrow’s Warriors to be about all of us so, yeah, that, that’s where it is.
Elliot Moss
That’s a great answer, thank you. Gary, I’m, I’m going to fork as we’re going, we’re going to be running out of time very shortly before we open up to the audience. Thirty years plus of doing what you both do, you’ve created this space, you talk about people sharing the gifts and teaching the next person, what does the next few years look like in terms of you shaping the future of British and international jazz? Is it more of the same?
Gary Crosby
In terms of shaping the music, not shaping music but shaping…
Elliot Moss
Shaping the next generation.
Gary Crosby
I think Janine is better answer because I’m not that concerned about the structure side, I mean I’m confident that the people I work with will look after it, it’s, it’s not really down to me, the future is not down to me, I’m 70, you know, I’ve had a stroke, a brain haemorrhage, it’s got nothing to do with me, what I’m concerned with is passing on the skills and the attitude, a certain attitude for them to continue, it’s not down to me, I, to be honest, you’ve mentioned all these, now I’m going to be real honest with you, I remember speaking with Moses Boyd about the music some of those guys were playing, I’m teaching them Duke Ellington, Cold Train, and they’re playing Afrobeat and I remember asking Moses once about it and he said ‘they’re not actually playing for me, they’re playing for their audience’ which is the correct thing. So it has nothing to do with me. As long as the art of improvisation, jazz improvisation survives and develops, I’m happy. I play with Denys Baptiste one, four times a year, Denys Baptiste, Andrew McCormack, Rod Youngs, I’m happy, you know, I’m, I’m cool.
Janine Irons
Gary just wants to play bass, he’s…
Elliot Moss
I was just going to say, this is a guy who’s like just give me my instrument please and leave me alone.
Janine Irons
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Fair enough. Please.
Janine Irons
That’s why, you know, we’re really, we’re well matched.
Elliot Moss
You go and he was like you’ve got the structure, you’ve got that, just…
Gary Crosby
But we never argue.
Janine Irons
Yeah, yes we do.
Elliot Moss
No. I’m loving it. No, no attention at all.
Gary Crosby
I could have put that…
Elliot Moss
Both got smiles on your faces.
Gary Crosby
I’ve never won an argument.
Elliot Moss
That’s a different matter. It’s been fantastic talking to you. Our last, we’re going to play out with our last track, we’ve actually chosen Duke Ellington’s Second Line. Gary, would you just explain why Duke Ellington is, is the man for you.
Gary Crosby
That’s, that’s one of the hardest questions I’ve ever asked because there is no other reason why he shouldn’t be one of the greatest, not just musicians but one of the greatest people that ever came, it’s just too much. Looking around, most of you should know Duke Ellington. If you don’t…
Elliot Moss
Lots of nodding.
Gary Crosby
…please start, start now. That particular track, don’t listen to that while you’re cooking, you’ll burn it up.
Elliot Moss
Brilliant right questions, anyone got a question in the audience. I know we haven’t got very long. Yes, can we chuck a mike over there? Fantastic.
Hi thank you that was an amazing speech. I work with 8 to 10 year olds and I find it really challenging to get volunteers to work with that age group either parents or other volunteers. Have you got any advice that might work?
Gary Crosby
Don’t do it. Um no I did, I tend to aim for…
Janine Irons
We go, we go older.
Gary Crosby
Slightly older.
Janine Irons
So we are just up a bit, 11 upwards and there’s a reason for that.
Gary Crosby
Yeah, I know I personally seem to get involved more with 15/16 year olds. They’ve made a decision that they want, you know, there’s so many unused instruments in all of our houses, I know it, I know it you know. It happened to me as well.
Janine Irons
Yeah but getting volunteers is hard enough anyway.
Elliot Moss
So start a bit older?
Janine Irons
Yeah and I think for, for that age group is also pretty difficult.
Elliot Moss
We’ve got time for one or two more questions. Gentleman with the Yamaha cap.
Hi you do an amazing job of bringing through new talent but who will carry the torch when you finally retire and decide you know, you are too tired to do it?
Janine Irons
I’m glad you asked that because succession planning is, is a big thing for us at the moment you know, we’re both getting old and but we are very determined that tomorrow’s Warriors will live on well beyond us so currently we are working on getting our own building for a start and to set down permanent HQ where the organisation can continue. We’ve also just taken on a fantastic full-time chief operating officer who is none other than Denys Baptiste’s wife so she is a hugely experience COO, she’s set up an international charity with offices in Sierra Leon, in Ethiopia, Kenya, America and London so she has a wealth of experience plus she’s kind of been by our side since we started Tomorrow’s Warriors you know so she understands jazz musicians, I mean if she understands Denys she definitely understands the jazz musicians but you know, we’re also – our ethos is each one to each one. So all of our young people have it sort of imbedded within them that they have a responsibility to keep this going so I’m confident that you know, it will still be there after we decide to hang up, well hang up the double bass and hang up my, I don’t know, my computer or whatever it is.
Elliot Moss
One last question if there is one? Yes.
Hello, thank you, that was, you said some really inspiring stuff. I was just wondering what advice you would give to young musicians who have the time, the passion and the talent but they quite haven’t found their direction yet in the industry?
Janine Irons
At sort of what stage?
So I have just finished a music degree, saxophone and clarinet and I love hip hop, funk and soul but I’m finding it hard to find a solid direction of where to take it next.
Elliot Moss
So it’s going to be a quick answer, I’m being asked. Two quick answers.
Gary Crosby
Try and get as much as wide as functionality as you can yeah. Just think why. Stop thinking about yourself, your audience, your age group, think about people in hospital. Just think wide yeah, try and get your music to as many people as possible, that’s… it’s not a direct answer that you can work out just yet but within time you will see what I am trying to say. Functionality is the key.
Right.
Gary Crosby
It’s not about you, it’s about them.
Janine Irons
Yeah. Can I say, find your tribe right. It’s really important that you find the group of people around you who are going to be able to support you and keep inspiring you you know, the thing that works with Tomorrow’s Warriors, it’s a bigger and bigger community of people that just keep inspiring each other. It’s important you find your people within the music who are playing the music that you want to be playing yeah. Of course there’s all this other community stuff you can do outside of it that Gary alludes to but you know, for you as an artist you know, to express yourself, you need to find the people who are going to nourish you musically you know, and socially. That’s really important.
Elliot Moss
Nice words.
Thank you.
Janine Irons
And find a mentor if you can.
Thank you very much.
Gary Crosby
Can I add in one more bit too, also Janine mentioned something, you are an artist or an entertainer. Try and blend the two. Think that way.
Elliot Moss
There you go, there’s a thought for the weekend. [cheering and applause] Fabulous please put your hands together for Gary and Janine. [cheering and applause].
We hope you enjoyed that addition of Jazz Shapers, you’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search ‘Jazz Shapers’ in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.