Horsham-based jazz drummer makes big statement with new vinyl release

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Horsham-based jazz drummer Pete Cater admits he’s making a bit of a statement by putting out his new single as a 45 RPM vinyl.

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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts, Entertainment and Sausage Newspapers.
00:06Lovely this afternoon to speak to Horsham-based jazz drummer Pete Cato, who's got a new single
00:11out, Hoops and Stuff Like That. Now the really crucial thing, and you are speaking my language,
00:16you're putting this out as a 45 rpm vinyl.
00:20I absolutely am.
00:22What is? That's, oh, that's how it should look. That's perfect. And what is this?
00:29What is it that you're saying when you come up with something that looks like that?
00:35I'm very much attracted to this whole resurgence of interest in vinyl. And that's not the first
00:42vinyl I've put out this year. That's not the first vinyl I've put out this year. I've done
00:46this fabulous, gatefold album with Simon Spillett's great big band playing the Tubby Hayes music,
00:54which is a massively awesome recording. And what an honour it's been to be able to produce
01:02an album like that.
01:03You were saying the key thing, you're moving away from this modern notion that music is
01:09somehow a disposable thing.
01:12Well, it just feels like that, doesn't it? I mean, you can't put a download on a shelf,
01:17can you? You can't pick up a download and read the liner notes or anything like that.
01:23And I just think, I mean, it's great having music on the go, you know, having music wherever
01:28you go, as the nursery rhyme says, because it's really nice sometimes to shut the modern
01:35world out and just be in your own space with your music. Okay, that's great and fine. And
01:39I'm all for innovation. But innovation is not always progress. And innovation can sometimes
01:45take things away from us.
01:46You've got to take things away.
01:48Yeah, I love the ritual of picking up, I'll do it again, picking up an album and reading
01:58the extensive liner notes and then getting the record out and just putting it on the
02:05player and just losing yourself in that experience of playing a record.
02:10The important thing is, if you want to hear the other side, you've got to get up off your
02:15bottom and go and switch it over, wouldn't you?
02:17Yeah, and if you want to skip a track, you have to, you know, lift the little queuing
02:21arm and move the...
02:22Oh, you don't skip the tracks, though, do you? No, you listen.
02:26I guess some people do. I guess some people do. But I think there's the whole... People
02:35say, you know, for years they've said, oh, vinyl is extinct, vinyl is extinct. And of
02:40course, look what's happened subsequently. It clearly is not extinct. And it's really
02:45important that... I see these different technologies, these different platforms, these different
02:53ways of consuming music. I see them as being like different musical genres, and they should
02:58all be able to coexist side by side. And just because something new comes along, it doesn't
03:05make what was there previously obsolete. It's like when rock and roll started in the mid-1950s,
03:11when Elvis's baby first left him and he checked into Heartbreak Hotel, and all the rest of
03:18the things that happened. History has distorted the truth in a way in that we're led to believe
03:26that music suddenly changed overnight. It didn't. Everything that was already there,
03:32which at the time was a lot of jazz, a lot of vocalists, people like Sinatra,
03:37Dean Martin and all of that era, that all stayed there. But this new product, this new musical
03:44genre came and coexisted alongside and appealed to a slightly different demographic. And that's
03:51really the way that the history and the evolution of music, I believe, especially popular music,
03:57living as we are in the age of recorded sound, I believe that's the way it's actually developed.
04:04But now you're just slightly swimming against the tide, aren't you? Or is it a battle worth
04:11fighting to get the vinyl out? I don't know. I think having a positive attitude of mind
04:20is very much a part of making these things work. And yeah, it's tough. And I like funding
04:27projects that I think have merit and value. I've got, as well as these two releases that
04:35we've seen here today, I've got a couple of other albums. I've got an album that the single came
04:42from. I've got two other albums currently in post-production. I've got a number of things
04:47that I'd like to do next year. Another project of my own, another album with Simon Spillett's
04:53big band, an album with the saxophonist Tony Coffey. And what I'm also interested in doing
05:00is looking at younger British jazz drummers who have their own projects or lead their own bands
05:06the way that I do, and maybe mentoring them and bringing them through. Because people who record
05:12jazz albums as leaders tend to usually play the saxophone or the guitar or the piano or the
05:19drummer leaders are still very much on the back foot, as far as being present in the UK jazz
05:25scene is concerned. We are a bit of a rare breed. Well, let's chat about those projects as they
05:31happen. In the meantime, Pete, lovely to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you, Phil. It's been my pleasure.