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/

Tony Kofi at Brighton Jazz Club

Brighton Jazz Club has a long tradition of supporting UK jazz musicians, through good times and bad. When I first came to Brighton over 16 years ago, visiting American musicians like Art Farmer played alongside local musicians to packed houses at The Concorde. The Club is now based at the Sussex Arts Club, where audiences are often slim and at the silver-haired end of the age spectrum (I'm in my forties and was one of the youngest there). The venue is cold (the band had hats on for much of the gig) and lacking atmosphere and you dare not talk for fear of being told to be quiet. And whatever happened to the younger crowd, the people getting into jazz at the same time as saxophonist Tony Kofi and trumpeter Byron Wallen?

Supported by Anders Olinder on Hammond organ and the Winston Clifford on drums, soprano, alto & baritone saxophonist Tony treated us to tunes form his latest album, Future Passed. The first number was a groove number - the dominate vibe being a sound palette from the golden age of the Blue Note Hammond organ groove (think Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith) mixed with some more modern melodic, harmonic and rhythmic influences. For the second number, trumpeter Byron Wallen jumped onto the stage, took his coat off and joined the band for an uptempo tune called The Journey. The unison head reminded me immediately of organists's Larry Young's band with Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson that recorded the modern jazz classic, Unity. Byron and Tony certainly know their jazz history - I picked up Miles, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and Lee Morgan in Byron's playing, and Lou Donaldson, Jackie McClean and Coltrane in Tony's.

The tunes were memorable and accessible (confirmed when I downloaded the album from iTunes). One highlight was an Ellington/Strayhorn type ballad dedicated to Tony's father (A Song for Papa Jack), with Byron taking the lead. There was a clear empathy between between Byron and Tony, who have been playing together since Tony arrived in London 15 years ago. At times ther reminded my of early Ornette Coleman with Don Cherry (trumpet), when the two played Ornette's complex heads as though they were joined at the hip.

Winston Clifford is certainly one of the best jazz drummers in the UK, and he has a more modern sound than most other I've heard. His playing is both subtle and powerful. It sounds as though he has been absorbing digitally-generated hip hop beats and making them all his own.

In Anders Olinder's organ playing you can certainly here the modern, progressive influence of Larry Young (once nicknamed The Coltrane of the Organ for his approach to harmony and improvisational drive). Talking to Anders after the gig he, like me, is a big fan of Larry Goldings, the New York organist who play with Metheny and Scofield, as well as his own trio with Peter Bernstein (guitar) and Bill Stewart (drums). These players are probably closer in approach to pianist Bill Evans than, say, Jimmy Smith. Andreas avoided the blues cliches and focused on exploring and picking out interesting intervals during his soloing.

These are musicians I'll certainly look out for in the future. I'm just staggered that they are not playing to larger audiences of people their own age.