Feature: Lewis McCallum

What is so evident on the album however, is his wealth of experience gigging, recording and writing with so many other artists. Having cut his chops with Mark de Clive Lowe at legendary club Manifesto, Lewis featured on de Clive Lowe's album 'Six Degrees', was a member of the renowned Relaxomatic Project, has collaborated with UK producer Phil Asher (producer for Nathan Haines), and played with Ray Charles. More recently he's been collaborating with a swag of New Zealand's up and comers - Julien Dyne (on his EP 'Phantom Limbo'), Hollie Smith (on 'Long Player') and earned himself a Silver Scroll nomination for his work with the Opensouls, namely on the track Rise Up, Part 2. 

One might reasonably think, having such a roll of credits, that Lewis would have been tempted to forge his path overseas. It was considered, but he ultimately made the decision that New Zealand had more to offer. "In the age bracket of musicians just older than me, there was the notion that you had to go overseas to really get anywhere, and that's changed in my age group. I made that conscious decision myself not to go, I mean I've travelled and checked out places, but I decided 'Here's where my network is and I want to actually get on with working here, and get my project off the ground'."

He has no illusions about the local music industry, acknowledging that the best his CD can expect to do is cover costs, but is interested in the way in which those  with jazz backgrounds here seem to be utilising those skills in making all sorts of music.
 "There's been this jump into an awareness of what's going on around the place, playing electronic music, and trying to absorb the new forms. So we end up with groups of live musicians playing like electronic groups. There's so many examples of jazzers playing 'beatsy' music - TrinityRoots, Shapeshifter, Opensouls, Solaa..."

The influence also works in the other direction, with his studio and beats experience leading to some innovations in his live jazz performance.

 "When we go and do jazz types of gigs, we'll approach them in different ways, by doing drop outs - dropping the bass out - which is something that you don't really hear on swing tunes. And that's an innovation that's grown out of the computer, because you just mute the bass line, and think 'Oh yeah, that actually sounds kinda cool', and then you turn it back on again 8 bars later. And that's something people didn't think of so much when they were just playing live."
 Lewis is surprisingly articulate about how he goes about writing his music.

"There's two ways I have of making tunes. The first way is where I'll find some chord changes that I like, and I'll write the A section and then the B section, put it in the computer, and listen to it for a bit. Develop a bass line out of the chord changes, and then fit the beat to it. But the other way round is to start with a beat, then I'll come up with a bass line or chord changes.

 I guess if I start with a beat,  I might not come up with a song form type of tune, it might be more DJ-based, like a terraced arrangement, dropping various instruments in and out, creating an arrangement rather than being a verse-chorus kind of thing. A good example of this would be Fly or Die. There's the same chord changes the whole way through, there's no chorus or verse, just sections."

So now that he has an album, studio skills and writing technique down to a fine art, what else is in the pipeline? A tour of NZ and Australia for starters, and then more recording.

"I've got more tunes on the computer already...I'd like to work more with Chris Cox. He just writes great beats all the time, so working with him, it's kind'a like a writing explosion. It's good to work with other people, 'cos I often find it's faster. There's less second guessing - they say 'Yeah that's great', and then I have to stop and think, 'Oh yeah, actually it is'.' I can second that.