John Surman

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is a jazz man, baritone saxophonist, composer, leader of various jazz groups, it's John Sermon.

Presenter0:40

John, with what degree of dread would you face a desert island existence for a while?

John Surman0:46

Well, I think I might enjoy it for a while. I there could be something in the peace and quiet that would be a pleasure. But I don't think I would take too fondly to being away from society too much for too long, anyway. And one thing I can be sure of is that I should make definite attempts to escape. There's no question about that.

Presenter1:03

Right. You've got just eight discs. Do you think you'd find those comforting or or frustrating because there were so few?

John Surman1:10

That's a very interesting question. It certainly has been very difficult to choose, and I think as a professional musician we ought to be allowed at least one more.

Presenter1:19

Just a

John Surman1:20

One of the problems has been, of course, my colleagues and so on, it would be very difficult to leave them behind. But I've decided really to just choose records of music that I've enjoyed listening to rather than music that I've made with other people or music of people whom I've worked that I've enjoyed. So I think I would enjoy having the music. I'm not someone who listens to music non-stop from morning to night.

John Surman1:45

I used to do that of course in in my student days and learning to play. It was a point of almost constant music, but now I'm rather more selective. What's your first record? The first record is a record that features the late baritone player Harry Carney, who I suppose was at the beginning of my interest in the baritone saxophone, my greatest influence. The music is written by Billy Strayhorn, played by Duke Ellington's orchestra, which contains so many of the great names of jazz that I enjoyed. It's a fairly early recording, 1940s. It's Paradise.

Speaker 43:03

Mm.

Presenter3:13

Paradise by Duke Ellington and his orchestra featuring Harry Carney.

Presenter3:18

John, you're a Devon man, aren't you?

John Surman3:20

Oh, that's right, Mark. Lover? Where exactly in

Presenter3:23

Dev

John Surman3:23

Well, I was born in Buckland Monacoram.

Presenter3:26

Now tell me where that is.

John Surman3:27

Well the registrar had difficulty writing the name so officially I was born in Taverstock and it's very close to Tavistock. Of course being a a war baby uh in in nineteen forty four mother was moved out of Plymouth so I came into the world uh near Taverstock. Did you go to school in Plymouth? Yes, I went to Devonport High School. Was the music in the family? Yes, dad was uh a very keen amateur pianist and quite a good player too.

John Surman3:53

He accompanied various people in concert parties and so on, and I got to hear quite a lot of music at home. Grandad played the violin, and Christmases were always musical occasions.

Presenter4:03

Were you put to the piano?

John Surman4:05

Yes, I was led to it, but like the horse I didn't drink, really. It didn't actually appeal to me very much, and I began really singing, and I got a lot of enjoyment from singing. So that was my real in with music, although I fiddled about with mouth organs and ukuleles and what not.

Presenter4:22

Did you sing in the

John Surman4:23

Well, yes, I did.

Presenter4:24

Yeah.

John Surman4:25

Were you a soloist? Yes, I sung Over the Wings of a Dove.

John Surman4:29

And that sort of thing.

Presenter4:30

Not a dry eye in the church.

John Surman4:32

I think perhaps not. I was very lucky. I had a quite an interesting voice, which they've got on tape and I've heard subsequently. And quite surprising. It's something that you're almost disconnected from as I hear it now. I you know, it doesn't feel like me, but uh it was quite a voice. Let's have your second record.

John Surman4:50

Well, I'd like to have the whole of the St. Matthew Passion. The first time.

John Surman4:55

I went to an orchestral concert was in Saint Andrew's Church in Plymouth.

John Surman4:59

And I'd never heard an orchestra live before, and in those days the gramophone records at seventy eight and very scratchy were hardly the same thing.

John Surman5:07

And from the moment that I heard the throbbing E I I was just captivated, and it's stayed with me ever since. I've never failed to be moved by the beginning of this piece, or indeed as I've got to know it more and more by its entirety, and I think

John Surman5:22

For me, Bach is a musician, absolutely supreme, apart from his fantastic technical achievements, emotionally it's tremendous. So this would be an absolute must.

Presenter6:32

The opening of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion

Presenter6:35

Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. When did you start to get interested in wind instruments?

John Surman6:43

Well, I think basically it was when my voice broke and there seemed to be a sort of a vacuum, I suppose, looking back on it, and I'd heard some Dixieland jazz. It was the time of a Dixieland revival. So I bought myself a second hand clarinet very cheaply and started on that.

Presenter6:59

You taught yourself.

John Surman7:00

Yes, I did. I bought the sort of teach yourself book and did it that way. In fact, I've always found that an effective method of and I did the same thing when I bumped into the baritone saxophone. How did you bump into that?

John Surman7:13

Well, there were two in the shop window. There was a small alto saxophone, and there was a large baritone saxophone, at the same price.

Speaker 47:21

Hmm.

John Surman7:21

So I chose the better deal, and little did I know that that was a significant choice that I made there, one way or the other. And from that point on, the die was cast for me, I think. Yes, I bumped into Mike Westbrook, or rather, he found me due to one of his mates being in the shop when I bought the baritone and said, Oh, get that chap down here with his baritone. So I went and met Westbrook and started to play with him. He liked large baritone.

Presenter7:40

Uh

Presenter7:51

Banned.

John Surman7:51

Didn't he?

Presenter7:51

Yeah.

John Surman7:51

Well, yes. He's always been very interested in writing for large combinations, and of course Barratton was very important for that. And he came to London at the same time as I did.

John Surman8:02

And uh so we set up to do some work here, too. You got a scholarship to London. That's right. I managed by dint of very hard work and lots of good luck.

John Surman8:11

to get a scholarship to the London College of Music, where I studied for three years with Wilfray Keeley.

Presenter8:16

What did you study?

John Surman8:16

The clarinet was my principal instrument and then I went on and did the year at London University for the teaching diploma.

Presenter8:16

Yeah.

John Surman8:23

And in the meantime, and my spare time as it were, or what spare time there was, I was playing jazz with Mike Westbrook. At that point we'll break off your third record. What's that?

John Surman8:33

Well, this is where we come to the jazz and I suppose one of the greatest of all jazz saxophone players, uh Charlie Parker. And I've chosen a blues, Parker's Mood, which for me will encompass all the things about the blues that I've enjoyed as well, because that's the basic folk form of jazz and that's very important to me too. So this is Charlie Parker.

Speaker 49:40

Dun dun dun dun dun dun.

Presenter9:55

Parker's Mood by The Charlie Parker All Stars.

Presenter9:59

Have you used your teaching?

John Surman10:01

Yeah.

John Surman10:01

Yes. In fact, after I finished college I did uh six months teaching in the East End of London in uh junior school. Before you started

Presenter10:10

Playing profession

John Surman10:11

Yes, that's right. I mean, or before I had enough work.

Presenter10:11

Yeah.

John Surman10:15

To exist on, it was interesting, but I don't think I was ready for it. I think as a as a student coming from college and going straight into the other side of the desk is an extremely difficult thing to do. I mean, one has no experience of life or one thing and another, so that uh that was hard work. Subsequent to that, of course, uh now I do uh quite a lot of workshops and uh summer schools and things of that nature, and that's great fun to do and very rewarding.

Presenter10:41

And finally

Presenter10:42

And of course that's with advanced pupils.

John Surman10:44

That was

Presenter10:44

True.

John Surman10:44

Right, yes, it is. Although we do some straightforward school teaching as well, you know, going into schools and talking about the music to young people. I think that's vitally important because unless young people hear a little bit and get to understand a bit about jazz, then they're unlikely to be able to get much pleasure from it. I mean, jazz is something that unless you look for it, you find it very difficult to hear. I mean, if one turns the dial on the radio these days, it's not very often that one comes up with anything

John Surman11:11

that's uh remotely connected with jazz music or improvisation. And uh as I often quote, that uh people in India don't enjoy Indian music because their ears are a different shape. They enjoy it because they've grown up with the music and they like it. And I think

Presenter11:25

They like

John Surman11:26

You know, we need some more jazz-shaped ears first before we

John Surman11:30

Get a larger audience.

Presenter11:32

So from the time you stopped teaching, you were a full-time musician?

John Surman11:36

Well that's interesting. I don't know if anyone is a full-time musician as a freelance, but uh that was the general aim.

Presenter11:39

Yeah.

Presenter11:43

Yeah. Yeah.

John Surman11:43

And I've been lucky. I mean, I've found enough work to keep going.

Presenter11:47

You were playing with Mike Westbrook. Who else did you play with?

John Surman11:50

Well, after a little while I'd uh bumped into a few people who introduced me to Humphrey Littleton's orchestra after their resident baritone player had left for America.

Presenter11:57

Ah yeah.

John Surman12:00

And uh from that point on I started to work with various people. It was at the time that uh Ronnie Scott had two clubs running in London, the current club and the one that he called the Old Place, the smaller premises, and it was from there I think that

John Surman12:16

There was an enormous upsurge of energy and activity on the British jazz scene and a great number of young players met together there and and I was one of them, lucky enough to be around at that time. The main thing to do then was to play as much as possible. I suppose we rehearsed in the afternoon, perhaps did a gig in the evening and then stayed up most of the evening uh having a jam session or whatever. But uh all very constructive stuff and that was the the breeding ground for me. That's where I'm I suppose I learnt my craft, you could say, really. Mainly small

Presenter12:46

Mainly small.

John Surman12:47

All troops.

John Surman12:48

Yes, I mean it's always been the same way in jazz, that the larger groups are so expensive and so costly to fund that they come now and again and in between and so on and they're they're great fun to play with. But the the important thing I think for me about jazz is the improvising aspect of it. And I think in the same way that it is easier to have a conversation with two or three people, it's the same thing in music. You can't concentrate on five or six in the same way that you can have a real dialogue with two people. And that's why for a good period of my career, when I moved away from England and worked on the continent, I worked with a bass player and a drummer in trio, very intimate.

Presenter13:27

And

John Surman13:28

but very easy to communicate. When did you first play abroad? I suppose in sixty nine, seventy. There was a jazz workshop in Hamburg and I just sort of started to get a little reputation and uh I was invited there.

Presenter13:42

Now this trio you mentioned, y you formed a trio with two Americans. Yes. Why did you go off so far afield as the as the Belgian farmhouse? Was this something to do with labor permits for the two Americans or?

John Surman13:51

Yes, it was. It was very difficult for them to live and work in England, so that was the nearest focal point to go and to and to work.

John Surman13:58

And uh it worked out very successfully, in fact, and we had several years of very productive music making. There was a break for a trip to Japan. That's right. The downbeat poll winners went. European downbeat poll winners was one of them, yes, in 1970. And we went to the Expo 70, which was a marvellous experience. I mean, I'd never.

Presenter14:11

You were one

Presenter14:13

Well yes.

John Surman14:19

dreamt of travelling that far afield and uh it was tremendous and I of course met uh some other very fine musicians of whom I've kept contact with a good many of them over the years.

John Surman14:31

And uh that was terrific.

Presenter14:32

Did that mean the break up of the trio, or is this an interlude in the middle?

John Surman14:36

No, that was an interlude in the middle. We got back together and worked for several years. And then I reached a sort of.

John Surman14:44

Well, a period when I felt that I was playing and playing and playing and I wasn't playing anything that was interesting to me or anything musical, so I actually stopped playing for a year.

John Surman14:55

and moved to the country in England, uh where I in fact I've still got a place now, in Charing.

Presenter15:00

In Kent. This was just to think things out.

John Surman15:03

Yes, really, I think so, yes. At the time it was fairly traumatic, but looking back on it, I think it was a fairly

John Surman15:09

sensible thing to do because after I'd come back to music again I think I had a clearer picture of what I was trying to do.

Presenter15:17

I think this is where we break off your fourth record.

John Surman15:20

And funnily enough, we break off to a a point with Sonny Rollins, who he too for a while had stopped playing and I think sort of had a rethink about his music.

John Surman15:31

I don't think that's why I'm drawn to his music, but it's a quite a coincidence, and I've always been fond of his music, so I'm going to take with me a ballad of his, perhaps not one of his greatest performances, but coming from a time when he wrote the music for the film

John Surman15:48

And this is the ballad from there called He's Younger Than You Are. And for me his sound and the way that he plays is a particular

John Surman15:57

fondness to me because that's an era when I met him and he was such a marvelous person and it gave me tremendous encouragement.

Speaker 416:30

Hmm

Speaker 416:46

Baba.

Presenter16:56

Sandy Rollins, one of his themes from the movie Alfie.

Presenter17:01

Johnny formed another trio, S. O. S.

John Surman17:03

Yes, that's right. That was unusual. That that was

John Surman17:06

On coming back from my uh sort of self-imposed exile, at the same time uh Alan Skidmore, the the saxophone player, had had a rather serious car accident.

John Surman17:18

And uh Mike Osborne was recovering from an illness. So the three of us more or less got together in a way to sort of get ourselves in shape as it were, going to training.

Presenter17:28

Yeah.

John Surman17:28

And uh we found out that we could make an interesting music together.

Presenter17:32

And Mike Osborne was a saxophone as well.

John Surman17:35

That's right. I mean that was the point of the thing three saxophone players, basically an alto, a tenor and a baritone saxophone and the other things thrown in. It was rather unusual. I think it was somewhat ahead of its time because subsequent to that and when we sort of moved on to other things there were a rash of saxophone quartets around. But uh I think we broke some new ground there and we also used some uh electronics synthesizer which I was beginning to use at that time.

Presenter18:01

You were composing a lot, John, and in fact you've always composed, but jazz is is a free form, mainly improvisation on popular tunes or riffs.

Presenter18:11

Arranging, yes, but.

John Surman18:13

Composing? Yes, that's an interesting thing, you see. I mean, Duke Ellington, of course, one can always hold up as the prime example of someone who was able to compose and yet it was still jazz. I think the point is that there are some things that need strong form, and there are other things that can be very loose. But I think the combination of strong forms and then loose, improvised, even open, totally free sections is something that really intrigues me. And I think the one sets the other into relief. So that for me, the composition side of my work has really been finding areas or atmospheres or kind of moods that are inspiring to work with. Sort of either.

John Surman18:58

springboards from which to launch an improvisation or landing pads upon which to arrive after an improvisation. And I think that's the key thing for me. I'm looking for something like that or in fact sometimes perhaps a a general atmosphere upon which to create something different.

Presenter19:15

Yes, you did a lot of composition in Paris for a ballet company.

John Surman19:18

That's right. I was there from seventy three to seventy eight, on and off.

John Surman19:22

And that was a marvellous experience. I worked with one or two other specific musicians from time to time, and we wrote for the orchestra and for solo singers and voices. Was it a full orchestra? Yes, we wrote for the opera orchestra, much to my surprise, but we did it, and it was tremendous fun to do. I must say.

Presenter19:34

Was it a full orchestra?

Presenter19:37

What

John Surman19:43

That as I paced around those hallowed halls, Seeing the names Rivelle and Debussy on the wall,

Speaker 419:49

Yeah.

John Surman19:49

The horror of the situation struck me, but somehow or other one struggled through and we produced something, and I think it worked moderately well.

Presenter19:50

Uh

Presenter19:56

Moderately well. By now you were getting a reputation as as the common market musician you you were i in all the countries.

John Surman20:03

That's right, yes. Well, I think partly

John Surman20:06

On a for me, a fairly serious note, you see, I think jazz is rather a hobby music in this country, and that doesn't serve too well for those of us who really are devoted to it and really see our way as being jazz musicians.

Speaker 120:12

And

John Surman20:20

And that makes it rather hard. It's always something that's been carried on upstairs in the pub with a few pints of beer or the general thinking is that the musicians do their work in the studios by day and pop out and have a blow by night, but uh it's rather more of a serious business for me and for a few others and

Presenter20:35

Yeah, for

Presenter20:36

It's a small public, so you're playing to the same people over and over and over again.

John Surman20:40

Yes, that's right. It's limited and I think partly because, as I'd said before, that without exposure for the music, it's hard for people really to get a grasp of it. The jazz is a very diverse music. It doesn't fit into any one particular box. You can fit them into sort of stylistic boxes like trad and mainstream and bebop and so on and so forth and avant-garde if you like. But quite frankly, the really genius players transcend all of those boxes. They cross over. And it's the music of the individual, I think. And that's a very hard thing to inverted commas promote, if you like. I mean, you can't cover it with one half an hour blanket programme.

John Surman21:22

Record number five. Well, ideally exemplified here for me, because I've chosen perhaps something rather unusual for someone who likes jazz. I've chosen unaccompanied voice. I think the voice is the most flexible and most beautiful of instruments. Perhaps.

John Surman21:42

The most difficult of all, and I've chosen Kathleen Ferrier singing uh a folk song.

John Surman21:49

called Blow the Wind Southerly.

Speaker 421:52

Oh, the wind southerly, southerly, southerly, Lovely breeze my love to me.

Speaker 422:08

They told me last night there were sheeps in the offing, And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea.

Speaker 422:23

But my eye could not sift Wherever might be the bark that is bare.

Speaker 422:37

Yeah.

Presenter22:42

KATHLEN FERIA, BLOW THE WIND SOUTHERLY. John, you are rather restlessly forming and dissolving groups. What about mumps? What was that?

John Surman22:51

Problem.

John Surman22:52

A short lived but extremely exciting group, which was a I think perhaps after I'd come back from working with SOS, I worked again with the same chaps in the trio with me before, but with the addition of the German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf, whose work I'd admired for many years.

John Surman23:10

It was short lived and very fiery and very exciting to work with.

Presenter23:14

and this international outlook.

Presenter23:16

You're touring most of the time in Europe, aren't you? When you when you've got a group going, off you go.

John Surman23:21

Yes, that's right. I mean, most of the work involves moving around from

John Surman23:27

one city to another and playing a good amount of one-nighters.

John Surman23:31

It's fun to to be in a studio and make records as well, but I think

John Surman23:36

The vitality of the music depends a good deal on

John Surman23:39

keeping it going and finding new ways and and new pastures.

John Surman23:43

But uh sometimes the travelling can be a bit tiring, I must admit.

John Surman23:47

Have you played in in America? Yes, I've been to America on two or three occasions and worked.

John Surman23:53

But uh it's not a great working place for jazz music. I mean, it's almost like taking coals to Newcastle, let's be honest about that. Uh they've got more jazz musicians in America than they know what to do with. In fact, they're sending most of them over here to work.

John Surman24:08

Ah

John Surman24:09

But uh nevertheless it's one of the perks I suppose of of what I do is to be able to see the world. I mean it's been marvelous to to be able to go to so many places.

Presenter24:19

Record number six.

John Surman24:20

Uh well record number six is uh

John Surman24:24

Miles Davis, whose singular work must stand out, I think, in anybody who's listened to Jazz the The Ideas and here

John Surman24:34

I've chosen his work with Gil Evans, whose music I'm also very fond of, and in particular I've chosen a selection from the Sketches of Spain, because I feel for me here we have this broadening of the jazz canvas away from the simple basic ideas of the blues which we have in the earlier selection with Charlie Parker and so on, into something where the magic and the then the different sort of atmospheres which has attracted me very much. So this is Miles and Sketches of Spain.

Presenter26:06

Miles Davis, one of the Sketches of Spain, Will o' the Wisp, inspired by the music of Defire.

Presenter26:13

Your most recent group is the biggest, John.

John Surman26:16

Yes, i it was the Braz project which we did a contemporary music network tour for earlier this year.

Presenter26:19

Try

Presenter26:23

Tell me about the composition.

John Surman26:25

It was an idea to have for me one of the most flexible combinations, the old trio again with the bass and the drums, and myself able to converse freely and a brass section.

John Surman26:38

comprised in this particular case of three trumpet players, uh two trombones and two bass trombones, with their own musical director or conductor, whatever, coordinator, I think perhaps is a better word, and to use the brass section as a sort of harmonic punctuation in some cases, and in other cases in a purely orchestral way, i it linked with the saxophone and the rhythm section.

Presenter27:01

This all had to be scored, at any rate the brass section.

John Surman27:03

Yes, a good deal of the brass writing was was scored, although we're were able to find ways to allow them certain freedoms. Some of the music was composed by uh a colleague of mine from Canada called John Warren, whose writing uh I've enjoyed for some time, and between us we've put together some combinations of different sorts of things.

Presenter27:24

And in contrast to your largest group, you're also doing some engagements with um just saxophone and voice.

John Surman27:32

Yes, it sounds a rather peculiar combination, I'm sure. I'm working with uh the Norwegian singer who incidentally was one of the Down Beat Pole winners that I I first met in Japan in nineteen seventy. Her name's Karen Krog.

Speaker 127:44

Name's Cap.

John Surman27:46

And she works both with um sort of normal jazz repertoire and she's also been interested in the use of electronics with the voice and Norwegian and Scandinavian folk music. So that's a combination which particularly appeals to me since I'm interested in the synthesizer and in the folk music aspect. So between us

John Surman28:07

And I play a little bit of piano and uh various keyboards and whatnot.

John Surman28:12

So we have something together that we can use on occasions when an intimate, more sort of chamber music atmosphere is needed. And I find it tremendously exciting because, as I said previously, I think the voice itself is the most

John Surman28:27

fantastic of instruments and uh so expressive, and you have the lyrics and and the poetry and everything which are possible. So it's uh very interesting and I I still enjoy that work very much.

Presenter28:40

The speaker's an X singer.

John Surman28:42

Very much X. Well, I sh I shouldn't say that actually. I have started to sing it, and Karen's been on and on at me over the years. And now I do do a little bit of singing, but we'll keep that quiet for the moment, I think. Right. Your seventh record. Of course, choosing these records, one has to go through so many things, but this record will cover for me an enormous area of all the folk music in the world that I like.

John Surman29:08

And also the music of Bartok, which of course is very much inspired by Bulgarian folk music. So what I've chosen here is a chorus of

John Surman29:19

Bulgarian singers singing a piece called Mother Has Decided to Marry Me Off.

Speaker 429:27

Ugere cato petel que yi morinane o gretana creda.

Speaker 129:28

Okay, they'll say good morning.

Speaker 129:32

Okay, okay.

Speaker 429:35

Pa meda pa na baka se morina

Speaker 129:36

Here number

Speaker 429:41

You got anything

Speaker 129:41

I got a cutting.

Speaker 429:43

The world is not the same.

Speaker 129:45

Che bakale katomiska he morina.

Speaker 429:54

Se di mama ba se tudi ge korinane.

Speaker 129:54

Se di mama base chudi ka.

Speaker 129:58

Good morning, I'm a

Speaker 430:00

Kamoda me nameuri na ni.

Speaker 130:00

Oh damn it.

Speaker 130:04

Bameda banana che he morina

Speaker 130:09

Yangai Dache Saku

Speaker 430:13

On TV at Telegram Care.

Presenter30:26

Mother has decided to marry Miov, the ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic.

Presenter30:32

Could you manage on this desert island? Could you look after yourself? Could you put up a shelter?

John Surman30:36

I think so, yes. It would be most important for me to keep pretty busy, especially in the early stages. I think in in a way that the thought of that is quite exciting really. Um I think I should be able to manage. I can cook a little bit.

Presenter30:50

Brought up near the coast. Can you please?

John Surman30:51

Yes, fishing I could ma it's been a few years since I've fished, but uh I can swim okay and I can sail a boat, so I think I should definitely set about the raft building.

Presenter30:58

You got your hand down.

John Surman31:02

And at least to have a look at my island from the outside, at any rate.

Presenter31:02

And

Presenter31:07

We shan't worry about you too much.

John Surman31:10

Well, I hope not, anyway.

Presenter31:11

Your last record.

John Surman31:11

Your last record. The last record is something which I would really need to keep my spirits up, I think. It's the intense driving rhythms of Elvin Jones and the equally intense and creative saxophone of John Coltrane, playing obviously an excerpt from Chasing the Train.

Presenter32:31

John Coltrane and a few friends chasing the train. If you could take only one disc of the H of Plague, which would it be?

John Surman32:39

The Saint Matthew Passion.

Presenter32:40

And one luxury to take to the island with you, one thing of no practical use that it would give you pleasure to have about the place.

John Surman32:47

Yes, I'm afraid it has to be a vat of Bordeaux wine.

John Surman32:51

In the interim, before I managed to work out how to make the coconuts work, do something with them, yeah.

Presenter32:55

All right.

Presenter32:56

In that case we'd better give you two vets.

Presenter32:59

And one book you already have the Bible and the complete works of Shakspere.

John Surman33:02

A real struggle there to find something. I had thought very much about poetry because I I realized it'd be useless to take some fiction because I could only read it two or three times and I'm avid reader. So because I'm very keen on cricket I've decided that I'll take a set of wisdom with me and uh in the meantime I'll set Shakespeare and the Bible to music.

Presenter33:24

I see. Yes, you're going to be there quite a time.

Presenter33:28

And thank you, John Sermon, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much.

John Surman33:33

Yeah.

Presenter33:33

Goodbye, everyone.