SOME PEOPLE have a knack for weaving stories that captivate. For musician Kirk Layne every time he touches his bass guitar strings it is magical.
If you’ve ever seen or heard him play at Christmas Notes – The Jazz Edition, held for the last two years at the Sanctuary Empowerment Centre, then you know what exactly what this writer means.
No disrespect to those waiting to celebrate Barbados’ golden jubilee next month in a big way but shoot, it’s almost December and it is with nervous excitement that music lovers, especially Christmas music lovers, anticipate the shows and concerts that bring tidings of good cheer.
Kirk can be playful, serious, fun and his love for music is conveyed in every note played.
He used to play the keyboard regularly until he broke his finger and, he sticks now to the bass guitar, filling in at various gigs around the island. He has been playing with saxophonist Arturo Tappin from December 2008, and it’s not unusual for him to be flying off to play somewhere on weekends.
Kirk’s love for music is in his DNA and he has been involved all his life.
“I started playing the keyboard on the hotel circuit when I was about 15 years old. From young I was playing instruments. I’ve been playing for 21 years. When I was attending Coleridge & Parry School I got connected with a guy that had a band. So, on weekends I used to go and play with his band. My father Keith Layne, who passed away a couple of years ago, used to play the bass guitar on the gospel scene, with Sister Marshall and Joseph Niles, the Gospel Comforters,” he told EASY magazine.
Kirk is a teacher at his alma mater and at the Barbados Community College. He also has a music school (K1 Music School), is the band leader at Sanctuary Empowerment Centre and he is very involved in family life.
How does manage it all?
“It is a bit challenging. I am the band leader at church, in terms of the function and the band that’s my responsibility. The good thing about it is that we have musicians and I usually schedule with the other musicians so that we all take turns. If I’m supposed to play and I have to travel, I get the other guys to fill in I so that it is not as hard for me when it comes to church.
“Family wise, we try to make the best of any free time that we have. We try to make Friday night family night where every Friday night we try to go out that is obviously until I have to travel then we try to switch it to another night in the week.
“It poses some challenges but all in all in works out good. We’re a pretty good family,” he said of his wife Tweann, and children Kirtwuan, Twiara, and Twuanique.
He wants to share his love for the bass guitar with others and is working on an album.
“The main reason the album was on pause was obviously the other projects I was doing for other people, then the travelling. People think that producing music is something that is easy, but for me I take my time with it because when I put out anything I can’t take it back . . . . I also would get feedback from my musical mentors before I even decide to put it out.
“We have a lot of talent in Barbados. Most of the musicians I work with are Machel Montano’s musicians, then one of the engineers I work with is Ian Odle who is Beres Hammond’s engineer. You have a lot of talented people who can give you good, positive feedback before you actually put out the music and then obviously, when they put their touches in it in terms of the mastering and mixing, you usually get a good positive product going out.
“I really wanted to finish my album in 2015 but with the broken finger, the travelling and everything else going on it really wasn’t possible. The idea for the album is The Gospel According To Bass; it’s a gospel album but from a bass guitar perspective.
“Most people tend not to like to listen to gospel music unless it has words in it so it poses challenges to the instrumentalist. Maybe they would like to sit down and listen to a saxophone because they’re accustomed to hearing saxophone as a lead instrument, but when you think of the bass guitar as a lead instrument a lot of people don’t really focus on it or take it in. A lot of people don’t know the bass guitar is to be a lead instrument and my idea is to revolutionise a lot of that,” he explained.
So far he is on his way. The feedback is positive with listeners saying the music is speaking to them and delivering a message with each note he plays.
Drawing from his experiences to compose the music, he noted that it also comes from what he hears daily, “something catchy and that people can relate to”.
Kirk added: “To me that is very important. People have to be able to relate to the musical side, to actually want to listen to it. I usually depend on what is captivating and then say maybe I should use this line to get people captivated.
“A lot of people see music as just art, but being exposed to different cultures when I was in New York studying, I realised that music goes beyond art and science. It is more of a language than anything else. It attacks your subconscious. You would be surprise that you would be just walking or driving and then automatically you would start singing a song and wonder how that song got into your head.
“It’s because you passed somewhere and without even focusing on the song being played it was captured in your subconscious. To be able to produce music to captivate people to do positive things is what I’m focused on.
“In New York I was in the classroom with people from Japan, Ecuador, and Italy [so] when it came to a verbal conversation it was difficult for us to communicate but when we sat and played music together you would have thought that we lived together for years.
“Music is a language that goes beyond measure . . .”. (GBM)