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.

Recent gigs: Tony Kofi, Tractor Factor, Julian Nicholas

It must be daunting playing with a pick-up rhythm section. Tony Kofi's band for Sunday night (13th Feb) at The Bruswick was Spike Wells  (drums), Nigel Thomas (Bass) and Mark Edwards (piano). With Tony exclusively on tenor everyone was playing on top form but it was several numbers in, when they launched into Miles' Milestones (the older tune of that name) that the band really gelled. It's an interesting, intricate set of changes that Tony weaved in and out of with energy and grace. This was followed by a very funky version of Freedom Jazz Dance with some fine playing from Mark Edwards. Spike Wells was enjoying himself, chuckling as he played and Nigel Thomas laid down a very strong groove throughout, interacting beautifully with Spike and Mark. The second set kept the standard high with tunes such as Sometime Ago and Relaxin at Camerillo. Tony peppers his playing with quotes - Can't Buy Me Love cropped up several times - and a highlight was a favourite tune of mine at the moment, Jimmy Rowles' The Peacocks. A great gig overall and a really good turnout for a Sunday night. Worth looking out for his gig at the Brighton Jazz Club later in the year when he will be performing the music of Eric Dolphy with his own band.

The previous Thursday (10th Feb) I saw Tractor Factor at the tiny Bees Mouth on Western Road. The band is Luke Rattenbury (guitar), Tristan Banks (drums) and Andre Fry (drums). This was the band that appeared at the kineojazz event last year with Liane Carroll. They locked together into a very tight groove. Tristan laying down the foundations, Andre glueing the changes together with a very tasteful choice of notes and Luke bubbling away on top, providing the heads, funky rhythm guitar and some very percussive soloing. The band focused on getting stuck right into the guts of the rhythm. Of the material I recognised, there was one (possibly two) Ernest Ranglin tune, a Charlie Hunter tune and their take on Nardis. The fact that there were so many musicians in the audience, shows that the band is already highly respected by their peers locally. They deserve to be playing a lot more gigs.

The week before that (3rd Feb) I was amongst the well-heeled residents of Rottingdean for a Rottingdean Jazz Club gig with guest Julian Nicholas. The monthly gig is run by singer Imogen Ryall and pianist Rod Hart in a room above The Plough Inn. It's a fairly polite affair but some great playing from the whole band. Dave Trigwell played beautifully - his approach is almost balletic as it's graceful and refined - and Nigel Thomas played some very melodic bass solos. It was the first time I had heard Rod Hart and I enjoyed his playing a lot  - reminding me at times of the West Coast bebop classicists like Hampton Hawes and the young Andre Previn. Imogen has the ability to make the words of a song matter, particularly on Kenny Wheeler's Everybody's Song But My Own. Julian Nicholas played tastefully throughout, although at times it felt as though he could have pushed it a bit further and broken through the atmosphere of polite dining. Imogen and Rod have done a great job of selling out the venue and it's worth checking out what else is coming up soon on their website: http://rottingdeanjazzclub.blogspot.com/

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.

Terry Seabrook Trio, St Peter's Church, Brighton

St Peter's is a 12th Century chapel near Preston Park. Now disused, it's kept open by The Churches Conservation Trust and, on Saturday. played host to the Terry Seabrook Trio. It was a treat to hear Terry, perhaps best know for his Cubana Bop band, play such intimate music in such a sympathetic setting.

The band was in the classic piano-trio style of pianists such as Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans and Chick Corea and the choice of repertoire was drawn straight from that tradition. Bill Evans' Waltz for Debbie, his version of I Should Care and tunes by Ray Bryant and Cedar Walton. The second set was particularly strong with notable highlights being Terry's unaccompanied version of Chick Corea's Armando's Rhumba and Nardis, which featured unaccompanied solo sections from each member of the band.

Terry got better as the evening progressed, the and warmed up (it was quite cold in the church) and the interplay increased. Spike Wells played beautifully throughout. It's difficult playing drums in a church - it can sound as though the kit is being thrown down the stairs. Spike had muted the kit and cymbals with tape, and they sounded great. He did an outstanding free form solo on Nardis which, to my ears, sounded straight from the brink of a revolutionary 1968. Paul Whitten's bass playing was understated and very tasteful, often starting his solos by playing the melody.

There are certainly pros and cons to playing in churches. I once saw Jim Hall playing in a church in Islington. He was supported by Martin Drew's hard bop band, which sounded dreadful - cymbals exploding, the snare drum ricocheting off the walls. Jim came on, the audience went silent and he just started playing with the guitar turned down. You could hear a pin drop. I sometimes feel that jazz audiences have become too reverential in clubs - so many great recordings of people like Bill Evans (at the Village Vanguard) and Duke Ellington (at the Blue Note, Chicago) have audience noise without spoiling the music. If you're going to have intimate, reflective music and a quiet, listening audience, a church is the obvious place for it.