MODE FOR JOE — Spike Wells

We’ve only just taken in the death of drummer Dave Trigwell and now we’ve lost another South coast musician – tenor saxophonist JOE ROBINSON.

He died on Friday 15th January, just six weeks after being diagnosed with that cruel disease pancreatic cancer.

Since his brother, pianist Simon, posted the news on Facebook, tributes have been pouring in from friends and fellow musicians who not only mourn his early passing (aged 57) but have been asking what happened to him since he withdrew a long time ago from playing in public. I understand that in fact he had subsequently been working for some years alone on designing from scratch an original software computer programme for writing musical scores.

Anyway, he had disappeared and we had all been missing him already.

I don’t really know why Joe stopped playing but at one point he was certainly having a crisis of confidence. I remember more than once getting ready for a gig with him and then him cancelling at the last moment because he couldn’t face it. Only he can know how he felt but for everybody else it was a terrible shame because his beautiful playing brought joy to so many.

I hate trying to describe a sound rather than just listen to it – and you can certainly do that now on the Music page of this website – but I suppose he had a style somewhere between Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz, perhaps in J.R.Monterose territory. That doesn’t tell you the half of it – fluent improvisation, a mellow sound which could be both fierce and delicate and a real talent as a composer of original tunes.

I didn’t get to play with him half as much as I would have liked – just a few gigs at the Hare and Hounds in Worthing, various venues in Brighton and the foyer of the Festival Hall.

If he was giving me a lift there and back, there was no way I could doze off. He had strong and highly vocal opinions about almost everything from philosophy to politics to society. He relished an argument and got very angry about any perceived injustice or exploitation.

This explosive intellect was in strange contrast to his mellow and relaxed approach to music. Too mellow and relaxed for some! I remember the late trumpeter Ian Hamer’s quintet gigs at the “Lift” in Queen’s Road, above the Pig in Paradise pub. Ian sacked Joe and replaced him with a more raucous, less subtle tenor player.

I asked Ian what on earth he was playing at. He said he was fed up with Joe’s laid-back habit of making a roll-up when he was supposed to start a solo! (I’m reminded of Thelonious Monk shouting “Coltrane! Coltrane” to rouse him from stoned slumber in the middle of recording the classic Monk’s music album.)

In any case, Joe was at his best in a quartet setting without another front-line.

We did some wonderful gigs with John Donaldson on piano and Simon Thorpe on bass. And then in 2001, this quartet assembled at John Donaldson’s house in St.Leonard’s where Joe recorded us playing several of his originals as well as material by Kenny Barron, Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson.

The results were excellent (as Simon Thorpe has recently attested on Facebook) and Joe made several valiant attempts to get a CD of the proceedings commercially released.

He tried starting his own “Vivid records” label and pressed some copies under the title WITHOUT A SONG but that didn’t take off.. He eventually did a deal with an obscure American company called Beeswax, which I doubt is still functioning. The album was renamed WHILE I’M WAITING and the track list was slightly different.

I did do a Google search and, to my surprise and pleasure, there was an entry under Amazon.com for a copy of the Beeswax CD still for sale. Or was it? Unfortunately, all the customer reviews at the foot were of a religious album by someone called John Waller. I think the confusion arose because Mr.Waller’s album contained a hit worship song entitled “While I’m waiting”!

Oh well. Never mind, eh?

What I would now like to do, if we can get Joe’s estate, John D and Simon T on board is to put together a reissue of the St.Leonard’s recording, perhaps including all available tracks. The aural quality is certainly good enough.

It showcases Joe at his best and would make the most fitting memorial to his talent. Meanwhile, you can go to the Music page for some of this recording session, including originals by Joe. Wonderful stuff.