The one band George Martin and Brian May fell in love with: “Keen on this group”
There are hardly any other musicians in the industry who were more gentlemanly than Brian May and George Martin.
While each of them had clever visions for what they wanted their productions to be, they were more than capable of collaborating with anyone and still looked like one of the nicest people that you’ve ever come across in your life. But while both Queen and The Beatles had their own ideas for their masterpieces, both Martin and May had a great foundation to stand on when they first began.
Because, really, The Beatles wouldn’t have got nearly as far as they did without someone like Martin helping them through everything. The Fab Four didn’t know the first thing about music theory, so having someone among their ranks who could actually have the know-how to conduct an orchestra or translate what they were trying to say in all of their songs was the perfect combination that they needed.
Then again, Martin’s first instinct was never rock and roll. He had grown up as a producer making comedy recordings, and while his work could be used for Peter Sellers back in the day, a lot of that knowledge came in handy when working on Beatles records. It wasn’t all that uncommon for him to put his theory to use on a song like ‘Yellow Submarine’, but Martin’s first love was hearing genres like jazz when he was a kid.
But not like the kind that Miles Davis was pioneering around the same time. Martin was in love with the kind of jazz revival that had been picked up a few years before cool jazz started, and the Temperance Seven were the epitome of what the genre was all about. They were never afraid to make something new whenever they made a new record, and their intense knowledge of harmony really struck a nerve with what Martin was doing.
So while The Beatles had their own ideas, Martin did have bands like Temperance Seven in his mind before the Fab Four came around, saying, “We made three albums, the last one was with Sophia Loren, ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ was a big hit. And Temperance Seven had a big hit, I got my first Number 1 with them, with ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’.”
And since Queen wanted to continue on what bands like The Beatles had done, May felt that he could draw upon what Martin was doing with his pre-Fab band when making a song like ‘Good Company’, saying, “I was mad, mad keen on this group called The Temperance Seven. They were part of the traditional jazz revival that happened in England in the ’60s. Actually, George Martin produced their 1961 album. The arrangements were deceptively loose-sounding, and yet meticulously crafted so the right harmonic changes were always there. I just fell in love with this style.”
Not all Queen and Beatles songs needed to sound like that by any stretch, but sometimes bands like Temperance Seven could help point them in a different direction. A lot of the strange chords that turned up in both bands’ songs came from them experimenting in the same way that those jazz bands did, and it wasn’t all that unusual for them to try something weird in that vein and see where they went with it.
It wasn’t always the coolest thing in the world to admit to being a jazz geek by any stretch, but Martin and May knew the importance of going back to the roots of the music. There are millions of people who look up to their favourite bands, but sometimes to truly understand what made your heroes so special is to go back and find the bands that they loved and see where to go from there.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.