Live: Bill Frisell and Louis Stewart

Two very contrasting gigs this week. Last Sunday Bill Frisell mixed Americana with Philip Glass style minimalism with his 858 Quartet. I saw this line-up at the Village Vanguard where we were in the thick of the music in the small wedge-shaped venue. At the Queen Elizabeth Hall we sat high up with a very objective perspective on the music. Bill created blues, folk, bluegrass-style themes on his Fender Stratocaster accompanied by the minimalists interventions form Jenny Scheinmann (violin), Eyvind Kang (viola) and the very dynamic cello of Hank Roberts. The music moved quite slowly. It was like being mesmerised by a gradually changing kaleidoscope of sound. Pieces built up, grew in intensity and then died down again. No fast tempos, nothing really slow. There was compositional depth and it was musically very satisfying.

Support was from Scottish-based NeWt with its unusual line-up of drums, guitar and trombone. The trombone used effects to create some very deep bass frequencies and there was some rock-inspired guitar riffing. The unique combination of sounds made me sit up and listen. Like other contemporary British bands (Phronesis, Kit Downes, Portico) you couldn't easily hear the joins between the composed and improvised sections. Is this something that distinguishes modern European jazz? EST used this type of approach but Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Jonathan Kreisberg seem to stick to the more traditional theme, improv, theme. The standard of musicianship and inventiveness was high and I'd like to hear them again.

On Wednesday night I heard Irish jazz guitar legend Louis Stewart at The Jazz Store. It's almost 20 years since I last saw him - Brighton Jazz Club at The Concorde. He kicked off with Alone Together and then went into Speak Low. He spun lovely, long flowing lines from his 1950s Gibson ES 175 (with a single P90 PUP). His pitch range seems very similar to the male voice and his lines seemed very in singable. They also had a spontaneous quality to them, nothing too arched or contrived. Spike Wells and Dan Shepherd played very tastefully on drums and bass. Roy Hilton's sold were very inventive and showed is mastery of bebop. The tunes were all standards (I didn't see any music all evening). In the second half they were joined by trumpeter Gary Kavanagh and singer Sarah Oschlag and Louis was able to show off some very tasteful comping.

I was really inspired by Louis' relaxed approach. Nothing seems forced or showy. Certainly something to aspire to. I'm looking forward to his gig at Wickwoods Country Club on Sunday.

Video of Bobby Wellins: It Never Entered My Mind

Niall Burke filmed It Never Entered My Mind at the recent Brunswick gig reviewed below. Sublime.

Bobby Wellins with the Terry Seabrook Trio featuring Spike Wells & Dan Sheppard, The Brunswick, 18 April

Introducing the first set tenor player Bobby Wellins explained that he hadn't played in a while before delivering a blistering set of Thelonius Monk classics, segueing from Straight No Chaser to In Walked Bud to Monk's Mood and on though tunes such as Little Rootie Tootie and Blue Monk. In all, almost an hour of non-stop jazz.

There's something about Monk's tunes that encourages improvisers to take on Monkish qualities - thoughtful, surprising phrases, large intervals, dissonance. They all steered away from the obvious notes - Bobby Wellins never loses his fantastic sense of swing, pianist Terry Seabrook releasing a tumult of ideas, bassist Dan Sheppard developing interesting melodic ideas and drummer Spike Wells throwing in rich, complex rhythmic patterns. Collectively Bobby rightly referred to the band as "great improvisers".

The second set kicked off with My Funny Valentine as a waltz, moving to Green Dolphin Street and Mad About the Boy (according to Bobby, written for Douglas Fairbanks Junior by Noel Coward). One of my favourite tunes of the evening was the ballad It Never Entered My Mind, a song of solitude and regret played from the back of the stage, sans mic, by Bobby, with the acoustic sound of the sax reflecting the fragility of the lyric ("And once you told me I was mistaken/That I'd awaken with the sun/And order orange juice for one/It never entered my mind"). He also did a great, upbeat version of Neil Hefti's theme from Neil Simon's The Odd Couple with Walter Matthau as Oscar & Jack Lemon as Felix (Oscar: I know him. He'll kill himself just to spite me. Then his ghost will come back, following me around the apartment, haunting and cleaning, haunting and cleaning, haunting and cleaning...).

From the photo you'll see that I had no view of the drums. I did however have the delightful sight of Bobby and Terry looking on at Spike as he delivered another knock-out solo, a look that I can only describe as pleasure mixed with pride mixed with the anticipation of more pleasant surprises to come.

It was a great gig ending with Bobby graciously thanking the audience for turning up to watch the boys "fight the good fight". What's more, it was free!

Just one negative - the use of the PA. Why would you want to chuck the bass, piano and sax through PA  speakers in such as small venue? My experience of The Brunswick and similar venues is to get the sound guy to make minimal us if the PA for essentials such as voice, horns and piano if required. Musicians of this calibre can find their own balance and no one turns up to a gig like this expecting to be shouted at.