Vocalist Maggie Nicols, long recognised as one of the defining voices in international free improvisation, returns to a repertoire that has quietly remained with her since the beginning of her musical life. This long-awaited standards album brings her together with pianist Geoff Eales, bassist Ashley John Long, and drummer Sophie Alloway, in a recording that treats familiar songs not as museum pieces, but as living material shaped by trust, memory, and openness.
In this conversation, Nicols reflects on her early experiences singing with bebop pianist Denis Rose, the chance meeting with Eales at Café OTO that helped bring the project into being, and the ways in which standards and free improvisation have never felt separate in her own musical world. She speaks about singing songs she has carried for decades, following the direction of the music rather than imposing decisions on it, and allowing risk, story, and love to remain at the centre of the performance.
This album has been part of your musical imagination for many years. Why did now feel like the right moment to finally record a standards album?
It all came together when I met Geoff at Cafe Oto at pianist Steve Beresford and multi instrumentalist Faradena Afifi’s alternative wedding celebrations. 33 Jazz label producer Paul Jolly was there too and he had already released CDs by Geoff. He suggested that he could be the ideal pianist for the project. Geoff wanted to do more free playing and I wanted to sing more standards. It was a lucky meeting. He is such a brilliant accompanist in the true sense of an inspiring equal playing alongside you
Your relationship with this repertoire goes back to the 1960s and your work with Denis Rose. What do those early experiences with bebop and song mean to you now?
I am aware of how those experiences let me ,as a passionate listener into a world of music as a participant. In an era when some male musicians wanted to take advantage of a very young naive woman, Denis asked nothing of me except that I sing. He taught me and other aspiring musicians so much, I gained the confidence and skills to sing with many great musicians . It was wonderful to get such a strong musical training. It is something I have taken with me for my whole life.
You’ve become so closely associated with free improvisation. Did returning to standards feel like a return to an earlier self, or simply another part of the same musical journey?
I never really left standards. For about a year when I was learning the new language of free improvisation , I focused exclusively on that so as to immerse myself thoroughly. I fell in love with free improvisation through my apprenticeship with drummer John Stevens and saxophonist Trevor Watts in Spontaneous Music Ensemble. However there were always musicians who still played songs , original material and standards as well as free improvisation and I started singing with them .For a while I was in a great band Very Varied with pianist Steve Lodder, percussionist Terri Quaye , bassist Ollie Blanchflower and trumpeter Jim Dvorak, We did all the music we loved, including free improvisation and standards, More recently I had a wonderful musical relationship with a wonderful pianist Sid Thomas who sadly died . We did standards, original songs and played free. I am due to record another songs album with sublime musicians, pianist Frances Knight, bassist Julia Doyle and drummer Steve Noble. It’s all music!! And yet recording this CD was also a return to my roots in a more visible way.
You first met Geoff Eales at Café OTO, a space more often associated with experimental and improvised music. What was it about that encounter that made you feel this collaboration could work?
We were involved in a free improvisation for Steve and Fara at Oto and then we got together later and played free ,played our own original songs and standards. He was very kind and agreed to prioritise standards for the CD in line with my decades long desire to record such an album.
The album brings together musicians with different backgrounds, yet the music feels very natural. How did the group find its shared language?
Our shared language is our love of and lived experience of jazz. All my favourite musicians , whatever the style of music, have a shared language of loving the music they engage with which always makes it sound fresh and authentic.
Standards such as My Funny Valentine, Come Rain or Come Shine, and All Blues carry so much history. How do you approach songs like these without feeling weighed down by previous versions?
I have sung those songs all of my musical life. I sing them with love and respect .I sing them without needing to prove anything . I tell the story of the words and relish the beautiful melodies My history as a free improviser enables me to be fully in the moment and intuit what the song needs whether that be the simplest, unadulterated of approaches such as in My One and Only Love, soloing over chord structures, such as in My Funny Valentine, and Yesterdays or spontaneous words and more unusual sounds such as in some of the codas . I’m not trying to be different. I’m staying open for whatever arises.
There seems to be a balance here between respecting the form of the songs and allowing space for freedom. How did you decide how far to stretch the material?
It is years of experience and trust in the music, in myself and the other musicians. For me, it’s not a conscious decision. The music decides what it wants and I follow its directions!
Your voice has always carried a strong sense of risk, character, and spontaneity. How does that spirit enter a lyric-led setting like this?
I need to believe the story in the lyrics and feel free to respond and add to it if it feels right. It can feel scary to add new words in the moment and it has taken years for me to trust that it’s ok to take risks and say what I want to. . It’s the same when I find myself speaking in free improvisation settings. Aaagh , did I really say that?!
After decades in free improvisation, did recording standards change the way you thought about structure, melody, or storytelling?
Singing standards songwriting and story telling are an intrinsic part of what I do, whatever the genre ( I sometimes find myself singing a standard during a free improvisation) I’m always learning something new. It’s such a blessing to participate in and be open to music of all kinds
After such a long journey towards making this recording, what do you hope listeners hear in it: a standards album, an improvised encounter, or something that sits naturally between the two?
I would hope something that sits naturally between the two and integrates different aspects of the world of sound . I think different listeners will hear it differently . It is a standards album and many will hear it as such., especially those who don’t know me as a free improviser. Some who do know me as such may hear only that aspect of it that even though I sing a lot of the songs virtually as written.(If you want to hear songs really stretched innovatively listen to somebody like Betty Carter! ) Like every musician, I bring myself to the material and am greatly influenced by the other musicians who in this CD all play beautifully Geoff in particular embraces the essence of jazz and his awakening to free improvisation. His arrangement of Yesterdays is wonderfully weird. With Denis I could always sing from the heart while learning so there is continuity there. I hope listeners will hear the love in this CD.
You can buy or stream the album at https://www.33jazz.com/.
