Kevin Brady: I really don't know why jazz musicians come up with such bad names for their bands; maybe it's because we all stay up so late talking about music and leave no time for the name. I suppose we just go with the first name anyone suggests. The guitar player came up with Woodshed - he's Swedish, which probably explains that. I'm also in a band called Fruitcake - I've no excuse for that one!
I played the piano as a kid and took up the drums when I was 18. I didn't take it all that seriously at first - I just wanted something which was a bit of fun for myself. But I got really interested in it and started doing exams in classical percussion. I've been playing jazz for the past two years. Before that I worked as a session musician, playing every kind of music. I try to rehearse for four to five hours a day - people who devote their lives to jazz love playing their instrument.
If you want to play well you have to put a lot of time into it. I got into jazz for the improvisation. It's technique-based and there is a huge amount of preliminaries you have to learn before you can really improvise properly. With jazz you have to really get into the music in a lot of depth, really listen to people play - even transcribing the music to practise yourself. I think there can be an attitude of snobbery among jazz musicians - not so much in Ireland though. I think it's pretty foolish, but I suppose there are some musicians who, having put such an amount of time and effort into learning to play well, may not want to play with beginners.
Some jazz can seem strange to people if they aren't used to it - it depends on the era and the style of the jazz being played. Free improvisation is based on a melody which the players all play off, it's not very cohesive, so maybe it can be difficult to understand sometimes. But you get such pleasure from jazz, and it's not all that complicated. To wake up every morning and do this is an honour for me, I love it. The only thing I don't enjoy all that much is carrying my drum kit around the place.
Charlie Foley: I had been playing electric bass for about 10 years; I was working as a computer programmer, but after about five years of that I decided I wanted to play bass for a living. I lived in Galway, playing in different bands and studying music theory myself. I got interested in jazz after seeing a few bands play, but there wasn't really the infrastructure to earn a living playing jazz in Galway.
The scene is a lot more healthy in Dublin - it's the place to be if you want to develop and explore the whole idiom. I did a one-week course in jazz in Belfast a while ago and met lots of musicians from Dublin there, including Ronan Guilfoyle who runs the jazz course here.
I came to Dublin last September to do the London Guildhall School of Music diploma in jazz performance skills. We put Woodshed together for the part of our exams which is based on performing. We've done some evenings in the school, but this isn't a commercial venture and we haven't gone looking for gigs. We're all involved separately in bands we gig with - though I'm so tied up with the course at the moment I haven't much time for gigging. In the summer we'll be free agents so we might do something together as Woodshed.
You do get a "hit" from playing; it's as exciting as going out on stage with any band. But, to be honest, you don't get into jazz for the money. The best way to survive in the jazz world is to do something like this course where you pick up all sorts of skills. That gives you a bit of an edge, and you can find work right across the spectrum - including composition and arranging as well as playing.
In interviews with Jackie Bourke
