Jools Holland’s epic piano solo on Uncertain Smile came together in editing

Jools Holland is probably best known as the host of the long-running BBC music series Later …, which has been showcasing live performances since 1991. He’s also a bandleader and pianist, and was a founding member of Squeeze in the late 1970s.

One of his most celebrated performances is a piano solo on Uncertain Smile on The The’s debut album, Soul Mining. The solo is exuberant, almost breathless, and lasts for more than three minutes. It bursts with energy, has Holland at some points banging away on the keys, and ends with softer, almost tentative playing.

And it was never meant to be that kind of solo at all. How it came together is quite a story.

Holland was brought in to play a shorter solo that would be dropped into the album version of Uncertain Smile. Matt Johnson, who basically is The The, had already released a single version, but wanted piano (as opposed to flute and saxophone, heard on the single) for the album.

Holland is an improviser, and in the studio gave Johnson and producer Paul Hardiman one option after another. Then he went home.

Later on, when the album came out, Holland was surprised (probably disappointed) when listening to Uncertain Smile to hear his small solo not where it should have been. He figured The The dropped the idea.

And then, in the final half of the song, the solo is heard … and it’s incredible. Rather than picking one take, Johnson used all of them, stitching them together and reworking them to make an operatic solo.

Holland, to say the least, was astonished, and delighted.

If you need a refresher, here’s the song. I’ve cued it up a few bars before Holland lets it rip.

You can see interviews with Holland and Johnson, years after the fact, in this segment done for Dutch public television, explaining how this unusual collaboration came to be.

With Uncertain Smile, I have updated a Spotify playlist of songs mentioned here on the blog. It’s pretty eclectic now; feel free to check it out.