Nigel Price Organ Trio, The Brunswick, Brighton

Nigel Price

Surrey-based guitarist Nigel Price was on fine form on Sunday night on this last date of his national tour. The guitarist was in classic organ trio format, ably supported by Matt Home on drums and Pete Whittaker on Hammond C3 organ (+ rotating Leslie).  With a set largely inspired by the classic bop guitar of Wes Montgomery, Nigel demonstrated fiery virtuosity, sensitivity and and strong musical intelligence.

The tone of his archtop guitar (made by Lewes luthier Charlie Crabtree) is very like Wes, though he picks rather than playing with his thumb. With thick strings and a very low action, be plays with real grace and dexterity, caressing the strings and strumming harp-like harmonics. He can also get from A to B with a speed and energy that makes you listen with wonder.

The tunes he chose included Wes' funky bossa Road Song and Four On Six, Freddie Hubbard's Up Jumped Spring, Blossom Dearie's Sweet Georgie Fame (also covered by the late Emily Remler), Ellington's Prelude to a Kiss, Stanley Turrentine's arrangement of Love for Sale and an original funky tune in the style of Dr Lonnie Smith called Wavy Gravy.

Pete Whittaker on Hammond C3

Matt Home is a no frills drummer but with a really solid sense of time and great swing. I particularly enjoyed Pete Whittaker's hammond playing - really cool, nicely place phrasing and nothing too fussy. A contrast to Nigel in the right way.

One person described it as being like Ronnie's forty years ago. Close your eyes, listen hard and you would find it difficult to spot many traces of any jazz that had emerged in the last forty years. How is it different? Like Jim Mullen, Nigel peppers his playing with the blues-rockisms of Sixties guitarists like Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. This may be a British thing a as guitarists like Peter Bernstein, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Jesse van Ruller seem to have purged their playing of these sort of clichés. That said, that blues feel is something that hooks in the ears of the non-jazz audience and, as such, I think it serves its purpose well. The other minor niggle I had was the frequent use of diminished chords as passing chords - "cheap glue" as Geoff Simkins is always reminding his students, quoting Peter Ind.

Nigel has a nice line in patter, paying tribute to the guitarists of past and present (Wes, Kenny Burrell and the Irish guitarist Louis Stewart), explaining the derivation of tunes and how he had changed them (e.g. moving from a 4 feel to a 6 feel) and generally drawing the audience into the music. I was really to discover where the name of Wes' arrange of the chords of Summertime came from -  Four on Six is not some reference to the time of the tune but simply a reference to four finger on six strings. Of course!

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 Quartet, The Brunswick, Brighton

Terry is a Brighton based pianist, teacher, composer and tireless campaigner for live jazz. This was a rare opportunity to capture Terry's band playing original compositions as they only play together about once a year. The band is Andy Williams (guitar), Dave Trigwell (drums) and Paul Whitten (double bass). The kicked off with Oleo as a lively warm up and then followed up with some original compositions.

Andy Williams' playing was excellent. He has a warm, dark tone, similar to Pat Metheny and his playing is thoughtful, exciting and free from obvious cliches. Although his playing does not have the excesses of some fusion players, you can detect a fusion influence. He has a technique that covers all the bases - in more intense moments there was some wonderful sweep picking, he played some nice chordal variations on the standard What's New and the band closed the first set with a spiky, bebop-inspired blues that showed he can combine his contemporary approach with some hard swinging.

Terry's compositions can best be described as "evocative". Stylistically, they remind me of the Pat Metheny Group in the 80s (e.g. Letter From Home) and there is clearly a strong influence from PMG keyboard player Lyle Mays. One of the pieces evoked starlings over the West Pier. They all had an element of non-functional harmony as a base for some fine modal blowing.

Dave Trigwell has a very relaxed swing and sounds constantly inventive, never content to just repeat a pattern. He worked well with Paul who is a subtle bass player - never loud but always present.

Let's hope this band gets to play together more often.