Deirdre Cartwright on ORGANIK

British guitarist, composer, and bandleader Deirdre Cartwright has spent decades carving out a distinctive voice across jazz music. A celebrated performer, educator, and long-time collaborator, she has led numerous acclaimed projects while also becoming a familiar presence through ensembles, including Alison Rayner's ARQ. Now, fifteen years after her last release as a bandleader, Cartwright returns with ORGANIK – a warm, richly textured album that celebrates the timeless chemistry of guitar and Hammond organ, and simultaneously signals a renewed chapter in her creative journey.

It was a pleasure to speak with Deirdre about the inspiration behind ORGANIK, rediscovering her voice as a bandleader, the enduring influence of the guitarists who shaped her playing, and why, after a lifetime in music, she still believes there's always something new to learn…

ORGANIK is your first album in fifteen years. Why did now feel like the right time to make a new record under your own name?

Well, I've done quite a few albums myself. I led my own group right through the 90s and into the 2000s, and we probably reached around six albums in that time. Most of them were made up of my original material. Although, one of the things about leading a band is that it can be exhausting. That's the honest answer. When you're leading a band, you're sorting all the arrangements, doing the admin, organising the gigs, etc. and at about the same time I realised I’d been at it for quite a long time, Alison Rayner was starting her group, ARQ. 

I loved her writing and the material, so when she asked me to play guitar in the group I agreed straight away. We began to record, and for a long time I felt very happy just being the guitarist. It wasn't that I was avoiding writing original material again – I’ve written for ARQ and I've always been someone who's written music. But particularly in the last two or three years, I began to play a lot more what you'd call ‘classic jazz’ guitar. I had an archtop, which I acquired many, many years ago. A beautiful guitar. I started to use it more, and just really enjoyed playing it. For those who aren’t guitarists, an archtop is the really big jazz guitar that you see people like Wes Montgomery and Pat Metheny using. They're quite large and they produce more of a kind of electric-acoustic sound. 

When I was playing I was really developing; not just my soloing, but also my ability to play tunes. As a guitarist, you've got a fantastic instrument for playing lines, accompaniments, and chords. I've been in bands for many years, but even when I was in my own group, I would often write tunes for other instruments. This time though, I really wanted to take the lead, and that's where ORGANIK came about. 

I was playing with Pete Whitaker, who plays the Hammond organ, and we got on well. Gary Hammond, the third member of ORGANIK, had been in my group in the 90s and we met again. We all enjoyed playing together, and I just said ‘what about having an organ trio with percussion and congas?’. I've always loved working with percussionists, and it just clicked. 

I'm very much centre stage here, and I feel like this album highlights this specific side of my playing. I’ve been playing guitar for a long time, but for me, my journey with the instrument just keeps on growing. I love it.

The tonal colour of this album is really warm - perhaps down to the lack of technological input. What inspired that decision, and why go in for this type of sound?

Well, the organ trio is a very central part of the classic jazz guitar legacy. You've got great combinations like Wes Montgomery playing with Jimmy Smith, or Pat Martino playing with Trudy Pitts, a very glamorous organ player who looked like she should have been in the Supremes. I've always listened to the guitar and organ; they just work really well together. With the piano you’ve got all ten fingers, but with organ you tend to play bass lines with the feet or your left hand, so most of the chordal playing is done with one hand, like the guitar. You can choose similar voicings, so the sound palette works really well together. 

I think that the organ is very warm. On the album we used an old Hammond organ, which is a valve organ, and before the recording Pete had to take the back off and put oil into it - it's not like using anything digital. I was using mostly my guitar called a Gibson 175 through an old valve amp as well, so it has that old sound to it. It's going back to a pre-digital age and leaning into an older sound. The digital age is fantastic in many ways, but there are things that older technology gives you and one of the main things is that it's warmer, I think. Adding in Gary who plays the congas and all these lovely little bits of percussion, we’re almost like a chamber organ trio. So that warmth is probably from being totally manual and old-style. There's no digital involved, apart from the recording desk.

Is that why the name ORGANIK works so well - because you've got that very organic sound?

In part – Organik was a play on the word ‘organ’. But also, when I've led groups in the past, I've often thought ‘who would be good for this album?’ and with this one it just came together. We just played a gig without rehearsal – I've only played 5 gigs with this group, so it's very new – and it just clicked. It was very organic, in the literal sense. The way I'd met Pete, the way I'd met Gary, there was no deliberation, it just happened. And that's unusual for that to take place.

Why did you choose to open the album with 'Eleanor Rigby'?

I grew up with the Beatles; that was my first pop group that I really liked. I was a child when they started, but I remember each album coming out. And then a few years ago, I think I was playing at a wedding, and I remember looking at all these people in this great big hall and noticing people who were lonely within that space. It reminded me of ‘Eleanor Rigby’, and it was just all in the words. The lyrics were really evocative, so even though I play it instrumentally I always think of the words when I do. Even when I'm soloing, I can hear the tune going on in my head, so I just loved doing that one.

Did you find experimentation was key for some of the other covers on the album? 

It's funny, because I've often done albums with all original material and sometimes they've pushed the boundaries. But this album is not like that. This was an album where I committed to playing tunes that I like, for example, ‘Sultans of Swing’. I remember when it came out, and I was intrigued by the fact that the words are about a jazz group playing to only a few people in a pub in South London. I used to play in pubs in South London, but I used to play to packed-out pubs because I was playing with a very young all-girl, heavy rock band! 

While I was playing around with it though, I found it amusing that it’s called ‘The Sultans of Swing’ as there’s no swing at all – it's more of a country-rock feel. I tried it first as a swing track, and I quickly realised that you definitely shouldn't swing the ‘Sultans of Swing’! So I started playing around with a Latin-inspired version of it, and it brings a slightly different flavour to the track. All the tracks are, in a way, a little homage to different guitarists that I love.

Yes, there definitely seems to be influences of different guitarists across the tracks. Was that intentional?

I realised after I'd chosen the track selection that I associated every track with a different guitarist. Wes Montgomery did do a version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’, and mine isn't at all similar, though I did play a bit of the tune in octaves, which was a little nod to the tune that he did. ‘One for Polly’ was a bit like Pat Metheny. When I was playing it, it evoked for me his blend of jazz and folk in his writing.

Even when I did the standards, like ‘On Green Dolphin Street’ there’s a guitarist called Doug Raney, not very well known. He was the son of Jimmy Raney, who's also a guitarist and he did a lovely version. I used to play that song quite high, but then I heard his version, and he played it quite low instead. So I started to try it out for myself, playing it lower, and felt it worked really well. I could give you a guitar story for every track, but that’s an example of some of them!

What are the inspirations behind the original tunes?

With ‘Mango Bango’, I was on a lovely tropical island just south of St Vincent. I'd gone there on holiday the year before and met all these local musicians, so I'd gone back again this year and played at the blues festival there. I did six gigs over two weeks in January, and all the mango trees were ripe. It was wonderful, because I've never been in a place where the mangoes were just dropping – we'd be simply walking along and a mango would just drop on the ground beside us.

There was a corrugated roof where we were staying, and the mango trees which were 20-40 feet tall would drop the fruit on the roof – the resulting bang was like a bomb exploding. A group of us were just standing on the steps chatting, and this mango came down and brushed down my shoulder, landing right onto the ground beside us. I made a comment along the lines of ‘oh god, it's like mango bango around here’, which made everyone laugh, so I decided I was going to write a song called ‘Mango Bango’ – and that’s the story!

And what about 'Espresso Martino'?

I played with an American guitarist called Steven Kirby last year. He's a professor at Berklee, and I was asked if I'd like to come and play with him. He was lovely, and introduced me to a tune by Pat Martino called ‘Cisco’. It’s with Trudy Pitts on the organ, and I was enjoying listening to it, but in my head I began to sing an alternative melody.

So, I just rewrote the tune. I started playing with Pete and he immediately recognised the track, so I explained I’d written a different melody and it ended up working really well. 

Do you think that this could be the making of a new chapter for you creatively? 

Yeah, I think so. I actually went through a few years of ill health when I was about sixty. Nothing serious, but I put it all down to getting older. After working through it though, suddenly everything became clear and I was totally back in sync with my playing. I love practising, and am constantly learning things. I went back to playing pretty hard tunes, and I was so excited about it. I think for me, in the last three or four years or so, I've actually improved. It’s like a new lease of life.

I also tune in fourths – I don't tune in standard tuning. I change it because I feel like there's so much potential there. It changes the concept you have of how you play, and stems from playing the piano, actually. An octave is always an octave, a third's always a third, and the guitar is all different so I changed it back in the 1980s. But I feel there’s so much more I could do with it, and I really want to explore it further. There are a few guitarists now playing in fourths that I've heard about, so who knows? It might be the start of a new wave of alternatives.

Q: That’s certainly a testament to the idea that music is a lifelong pursuit…

Absolutely. You never reach the end, and that's something very nice about that. There's also this satisfying sense of arriving at these milestones as well – you reach goals as you go. I always think back to when I started playing as a teenager, seeing as I'm basically self-taught. When I started, my idea was to be able to play the solo on ‘Ride a White Swan.’ That was it; that was my goal. I always think that my younger self would be so amazed at what I can do now. I'm very grateful to have music, and to be able to play.

Q: Any live gigs coming up that we should know about?

Yes, I've got the launch gig for the album at Pizza Express on July the 15th, and I'm going to be playing again at Brecon Jazz in October. There will be more gigs in the pipeline, and also hopefully more for ARQ as well.

I lead a band with Annie Whitehead called Picnic which has some gigs at the end of the year, and I also play with a band called Sea Change and with vocalist Carol Grimes, so I'm really happy with the range of music that I'm playing.