According to one version of the story, an old lady once approached Fats Waller and innocently asked the question "what is jazz?" Waller allegedly replied: `Madam, if you don't know what it is by now, don't mess with it!' Certainly jazz, in all its forms, seems to be a music you either get, or you don't. Even the "simplest" and most accessible jazz is an extremely complicated product of rhythms, harmonies and melodies which can quite problematic for ears desensitised by wall-to-wall pop on radio and television. Certainly at its farthest, outer reaches, jazz might be described (by those who don't get it) as an unforgivable, unmusical and self-indulgent racket and at times one might be hard-pressed to argue.
But then there is everything else - mellow, swinging, soulful, funky and beautiful evidence that jazz is the 20th century's greatest musical achievement and certainly America's greatest gift to the world - an immediate and glorious music where the listener is, at any given moment, present at an act of sheer creation. The great jazz musicians have always been astonishingly and very uniquely gifted and are perhaps the true elite of the musical fraternity, often enjoying the envious respect of accomplished musicians from other disciplines. A great jazzer has all those qualities that any musician would (so to speak) give their right arm for. Ritchie Buckley from Walkinstown is one of those who has long been regarded by his peers as one of Ireland's most exciting virtuoso musicians. Like Irish jazz guitarist Louis Stewart, his reputation goes far beyond this country's limited jazz venues and now, with the release of his soundtrack to John Boorman's The General, Buckley and his saxophone are finding a whole new audience.
Not surprisingly, it was in the blood. Ritchie Buckley's father Dick is a saxophonist, so is his brother Michael, who also plays flute, and cousin Hugh Buckley plays guitar. It's an impressive family line-up which has been at the heart of the Dublin jazz scene for many years. His was a home full of jazz and well stocked with recordings of the greats. The young Ritchie took to the music almost immediately: "I remember when I was a kid practising all day and waiting for my da to come home from work and show him what I'd learned. I used to make up my own ways of practising, mainly by playing along with the records. I used to put on maybe one of my da's Errol Garner records and I'd play along with it. I'd play the melody and when he started improvising I'd keep on playing the melody. And that gave me an idea of where the chords were and how the improvisation worked and that was just one of my own little ideas for teaching myself."
Buckley describes these self-invented methods as being like "adventures". As he continued to develop as a musician, he served his time as a mechanic - which he greatly enjoyed. Also at this time, he began playing the odd pop gig or doing the occasional session, but the jazz had taken a firm hold. He was receiving great encouragement from the older hands in Dublin - people such as Jim Doherty, Louis Stewart, Noel Keleghan and, of course, his father.
Significantly, he also teamed up with accomplished jazz musicians from his own generation such as Ronan and Conor Guilfoyle and formed a group called Four In One. Vital experience was garnered in terms of interaction with other musicians and in performance itself. And all the time his self-education continued. Buckley has no major regrets about not attending music school, citing the fact that many people know all the theory but cannot play a note. But even so, he always saw the value in study and he taught himself as much as he could, learning from the greats and gradually developing a style of his own.
"When I was about nine or 10 I remember asking my father who was the greatest sax player in the world and he said Charlie Parker. I'll go along with that. Then he bought me a record for my 15th or 16th birthday and it was John Coltrane's Giant Steps, which was actually recorded on the day I was born! So I went through periods of listening to Coltrane all the time or to Charlie Parker all the time and I used to try to play in their particular styles. But you have to listen to everybody and know the history and what happens is that you incorporate all these different players. "I love listening to Lester Young as much as I love listening to Joe Henderson. On the piano there's Erroll Garner and Keith Jarrett. And I love listening to Louis Armstrong too. And yes, there are times when you get a kick out of playing a ballad the way Ben Webster would or Stan Getz maybe. But when you incorporate all of that, then some individuality comes through and you bring out your own sound and your own style. And when people say that they hear something in my playing which is something they recognise as my own sound or style of playing, that is very encouraging and very flattering."
Over the years, Buckley has performed with many of the major names in contemporary music from Bob Dylan to Barry Manilow, from Christy Moore to Elmer Bernstein. Certainly much of his wider reputation was made within the horn section of the Van Morrison band, where he was a regular for many years. His sometimes mellow and at other times fiery solos secured the admiration of audiences right around the world and it was always that spectacular talent for improvisation that caught the ear - a skill in jazz which is baffling and even quite mysterious to any listener. "All improvisation amounts to in jazz is when you take a melody and a chord structure and you play what your own melody would be within that structure. If you know the shape of the tune in your head and you know the structure of it, you can go away off on your own tangent and come back in. If you're doing a jazz gig, say with a quartet, you can go on for as long as you want. But if you're doing a solo with a different kind of band like an r'n'b group, you have to play for those 16 bars or eight bars or whatever and you have to make some sense of that. And that's a different discipline.
"When I was younger I was always flying all over the place, but with experience gained I don't do that as much as I did, although I still enjoy it. Playing jazz needs a certain amount of confidence, even though you mightn't look as if you're confident. And what gives you the confidence is putting the work in and the feeling that when you come to doing your gig you know that you've really done your work. If for some reason you haven't been playing for a while you can get a bit out of touch and scared in a way."
The Van Morrison set-up seemed ideal for Buckley. Morrison's live shows included elements of jazz, soul, r'n'b, folk and country, and Buckley was at home in all genres, bringing terrific spark and dynamism to the sound. In recent years he has taken to playing traditional Irish music with a facility that has astonished many musicians from within that world. He performs regularly with Sharon Shannon and sees traditional music as one of the most exciting and creative areas for any musician to explore. "I love traditional music. In traditional music there are some absolutely amazing players and today there is so much music available from all over the world. Different ethnic musics easily available on CD too. And you can't close your ears off to that.
"I play the actual tunes with Sharon and then I play around them a little bit or she gives me a couple of solos. And they get a great kick out of it. It's a bit of a novelty. But it is very challenging to play traditional music on the sax and I love the challenge - strange keys and everything. But then jazz music is American traditional music!"
Irish jazz fans are inclined to lament the fact that people such as Ritchie Buckley and Louis Stewart are not better known. Certainly both musicians have international reputations and are held in genuinely high regard by their more famous American counterparts, but even so. There is that feeling that if only they had, by some accident of birth, grown up somewhere like New York, they would be considered globally as major stars. This is not something Buckley himself has thought about although he sees The General's soundtrack as a new opportunity and there has been some encouraging interest from abroad. In the meantime, Buckley continues to work. which for him, means continual practice.
"I think you have to treat it as a job. You get up in the morning, prepare yourself and work until maybe lunch hour. You take your lunch and then you do some more. I think that's a good way of doing it because it disciplines you, although it's very hard if you're out gigging and come home at three in the morning.
"There's nothing in a book anywhere which says what a professional is. I think everybody has their own level in their own head. I think you just have to try and play as best as you can and try and present yourself as best you can. If you're playing to an audience you've got to give them the best you feel you've got. Whatever kind of music you're playing, you've got to give people their money's worth."
John Boorman's choice of Buckley to write his jazz and r'n'b based soundtrack was an inspired one. It's good, too, to see an actual composed soundtrack as opposed to a compilation of oldies which seems to be the usual approach these days. Since working on The General, Buckley has scored John Boorman's documentary film The Life Of Lee Marvin and he wants to do more. Certainly he will continue to perform, but his ambition lies in composition and a further exploration of his interest in classical music.
But to return to that innocent question the old lady asked of Fats Waller: what is jazz? Ritchie Buckley offers his own definition without being asked.
"It's a very challenging type of music to play and it's something you really have to keep in with. You have to keep abreast of things and also try out new ideas. If you really have an interest in the music I find it's the best form of creativity in terms of music. It's a sense of freedom, that's what it is."
The General The Soundtrack is on Hummingbird Records