FEATURE: Nigel Price

Jazz Journal’s Trevor Hodgett writes, “The university of life allied to massive inspiration and determination have turned Nigel Price into probably the UK's best-known self-made jazz guitarist.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, I was devastated”, admits guitarist Nigel Price of the impact on him of the Covid-19 lockdown. “Absolutely devastated. Music isn’t exactly the best paid thing but I’ve kept my head above water for 25 years. So when suddenly that’s taken away it’s really stressful. And I got terribly, terribly low. I found it really tough. 

“But I’m a survivor: I created my own online income by doing a series of video lessons which was hundreds if not thousands of hours’ work so I managed to make the best of a bad situation.”

During those long, bleak months Price also recorded a tribute album to Wes Montgomery, Wes Reimagined, with his organ trio, featuring Ross Stanley (B3 Hammond) and Joel Barford (drums), and other musicians. It was reviewed by Jazz Journal in June.

“Usually you just fly into the studio between gigs and fly out”, he says. “But this time I had time to think about every detail. So, I’m not saying the lockdown was a good thing but it certainly led to a more considered album.”

The album title is apposite. Monk’s Shop, for example, is reimagined as a samba, Far Wes as a waltz, So Do It! as a bolero and so on. “There’s no point just regurgitating what’s gone on in the past, so [the rearrangements are] a way of putting your own stamp on.”

Price prepared meticulously for the recording. “The whole point was taking feels from my favourite records and throwing them at the Wes compositions. You should see the email [sent to the musicians]: there’s the original Wes tracks and then links to the reference tracks. For instance, there’s the original Cariba! and then a link to the J.B.’s [James Brown-composed and sung] Doing It To Death. And then a description about the way I wanted each track and all the charts.

“But the recording was really quick. Each tune was a first or second take. That’s probably the thing I like most about the album, that it’s capturing that moment when the musicians were finding their way and there’s this kind of spark to it.”

Price’s organ trio is augmented on various tracks by Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor), Tony Kofi (alto) and Snowboy (percussion). “I love the trio format but if you’re going to deliver a melody then, if you’ve got more than one person playing that melody, it just feels stronger. And if you’re playing Latin feels, it makes sense to have percussion so I called Snowboy, the absolute authority on that stuff.”

Three tracks feature a string quartet playing arrangements by Callum Au. “He’s an incredible arranger and I couldn’t believe what he came up with. To be in the room when the strings were playing was amazing.”

Price acknowledges Montgomery as one of his key influences. “A lot of contemporary guitar players get swallowed up by learning the instrument for the sake of learning the instrument and lose the bigger picture [which is] delivering the music, delivering the message. But with Wes everything is for the music. He doesn’t play any surplus notes and his playing is really digestible.”

Price’s soloing on tracks such as Leila and I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face is sublime. He describes how he approaches a solo: “You’ve got to empty your head. All the work has been done already. I’ve been playing guitar for 40 years and I’ve spent virtually every day of my playing life gearing up for the moment that I play – whether it’s last night or last week or on this album. Everything is a product of everything that’s gone before so I’m not thinking about a specific melody or rhythm or anything. I’m just letting it come out. And crossing my fingers and hoping my musicality is going to take me through!”

So many new jazz players studied jazz at college. When Price left school, however, he instead joined the army. “Well, I’d got kicked out of school. My brother had joined the Royal Marines a year before. My life was going nowhere and he was coming back with all these tales and I thought: ‘What the hell, I’ll go for it!’ And I ended up in Northern Ireland ’87-’89: very strange times.”

When Price returned to civvy street he began to focus on music. “Because I didn’t go to college I always felt I had to play catch-up so I practised so much. And still do – I’m still convinced that I’m nowhere. So maybe not going to university has given me a good work ethic.”

In the early 90s Price played with reggae/ska band House Of Rhythm, who toured supporting seminal ska band The Skatalites. “I was only 22 and it was great sharing a tour bus round Europe with these legends. They were basically playing jazz to a ska rhythm and we’d be travelling in the van with Miles and Coltrane blasting out. I learnt a lot from those guys and loved every moment. Even the hangovers!”

Price later spent years playing with acid-jazz and jazz-funk bands like the James Taylor Quartet and the Filthy Six. “I heard people like Boogaloo Joe Jones playing on funk records and I spent a lot of time playing those kind of gigs. With the Filthy Six we all loved that Lou Donaldson, Lonnie Smith vibe.”

The gig with Taylor came by chance when the organist, visiting his local pub, chanced to hear Price. “Afterwards, he said: ‘Do you want to join my band?’ JTQ was this supercool, underground funk band so it was incredible to suddenly be in that inner circle.”

Unlike most musicians Price has business skills. He not only manages himself but in 2017 he took over the Swanage Jazz Festival which was facing closure. “Perhaps I was stupid. I didn’t realise how much work it would be. But I just thought: this festival’s been here for nearly 40 years and I can’t see why it’s closing other than maybe the committee have had enough. So I threw my hat in the ring and before I knew it I was in really deep.

“It was good to put a different hat on. Could I organise a huge event with 60 bands in 10 venues? And I bloody well did it. It was a triumph.”

Price has been nominated for and has won various awards. For example, in 2010 his organ trio won a Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Jazz Ensemble. “I turned up to the Houses of Parliament but to be honest I only went for the free sausage rolls. And before I knew it: ‘The winner is the Nigel Price Organ Trio.’ It was a real surprise and I was knocked out. I remember walking home with my award and I admit I did cry. I was so chuffed. Having left school and gone off the radar with academia, for somebody 20 years later to come out with ‘Your band is the best in the country’ is something to be really proud of.”

Among Price’s greatest influences has been Jim Mullen, whom he once asked for a lesson. “Jim’s always been a hero of mine. Same as Wes Montgomery, everything is for the music and played with a great feel. He’s absolutely brilliant. So of course I’m going to ask him for a lesson. And he probably gave me the best lesson anyone’s ever given me. He just said: ‘I think it’s far more interesting when someone’s worked it out for themselves.’ And he was bang on. Because I find that, since he told me that, I’ve been happier to embrace all the little idiosyncrasies and flaws in my playing and make them part of who I am. So Jim did me a massive favour in giving me my own identity. And also saved me a fortune on lessons!”

In 2007 Price played with another of his favourite guitarists, Jeff Beck, at a Ronnie Scott’s Awards night. “I was part of the house band and Jeff was up playing this blues shuffle. And as he finishes his solo I jump in and he looks across at me and before we know it we’re exchanging choruses and then fours and the place went wild. He’s a hero of mine, especially his album Wired. I’d taken it with me and he signed it ‘To Nigel – outrageous’. That was one of the key nights of my life. Unforgettable.”

Price’s expectations for his own current album are modest. “I took out a Bounce Back Loan, a ridiculous amount of money, to pay for it which I don’t think I’ll ever recoup but I just thought: ‘It’s all about your legacy.’ So, fingers crossed. The whole record industry is in trouble with streaming and people getting music free. But I’ve made my choices and I wouldn’t change anything. The stuff we do for music and jazz is worth more than money.”

REVIEW: Jay Phelps 'Live At The Cockpit’ / 4.5 Stars

Jazz Journal’s Dave Jones writes, “it’s a great set – very contemporary sounding in its variety of grooves, and besides the perhaps more obvious relatively recent influences to be heard in Phelps’s playing, I hear a bit of Chet Baker.”

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It’s refreshing to hear some live jazz at the moment, albeit in this case in recorded form, but this is a very real live recording for radio, taken from one set at The Cockpit Theatre in London, with Phelps and his quartet supported by a couple of other bands. Hence the length is a bit more like a studio recording rather than live.

It was recorded by Steve Lowe for BBC Radio 3’s J to Z programme, and we have Chris Phillips and Jez Nelson of Jazz FM to thank for the actual programme of gigs at The Cockpit – a nice concept presenting several high-quality jazz groups in one evening, enabling them to showcase themselves to a live audience in the round, and also to a national radio audience.

As it’s a live album, the sound isn’t quite what you might expect from a studio recording, but this doesn’t affect enjoyment of the music if you listen to it like a gig, which is the whole point here. Phelps’s trumpet sounds a bit distant at times, but I suspect that’s just inherent in the sound of the room.

Anyway, it’s a great set – very contemporary sounding in its variety of grooves, and besides the perhaps more obvious relatively recent influences to be heard in Phelps’s playing, I hear a bit of Chet Baker – not because Phelps sings as well as plays, but because of certain aspects of his sound at times (although he has a bigger sound than Chet), and his phrasing.

The rhythmically interesting Rick Simpson excels on piano, with a hint of Mehldau in his style, and a nod to Debussy’s Clair De Lune at the end of Angel, the penultimate track. Glaser and Ireland’s grooves help the set to really take off in the second half, and Simpson and Phelps fly with them. Buy this album, and once again enjoy the sound of four guys playing in the same room to a packed audience.

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REVIEW: QOW TRIO

Jazz Journal’s Simon Adams writes, “British tenor, bass and drums trio brings a strikingly fresh, modernist approach to standard material.”

According to drummer Spike Wells, the QOW Trio – named after a freeish Dewey Redman piece – started as a homage to the Sonny Rollins piano-less trio of the late 1950s, but soon broadened its scope to cover a much wider repertoire. So now the American Songbook gets a look in, so too a Charlie Parker classic, a Joe Henderson piece and, in Pound For Prez, a paraphrase of a Lester Young solo on Count Basie’s Pound Cake, plus a couple of originals.

Whatever the material, what is striking about this set is the freshness with which all three musicians approach their work. Ignoring the Rollins references, Riley Stone-Lonergan is very much his own man, his tenor ever questing in its explorations of melodic and harmonic possibilities, never afraid to push to the outer limits, as on the title track.

Eddie Myer consistently comes across as the most interesting player here, his bass quiet but insistent in its contributions, his solo on Serenity superb. Spike Wells is, of course, utterly himself throughout, his clattering drums adding a necessary vigour to proceedings. But this is to pick out individuals when it is the trio as a whole that matters. They play together like a team, aware what the others are doing and giving each other room to breathe. Given the age of some of their material, what stands out is their modernist approach, their instinctive ingenuity and daring.

Spike Wells remarked that this recording “was the most enjoyable time I’ve ever had in a recording studio” and he and his colleagues’ pleasure shows on every track. Were it not for lockdown, this trio would be packing out the clubs.

Discography
A Slow Boat To China; QOW; Serenity; Cheryl; Qowfirmation; God Bless The Child; It’s All Right By Me; Pound For Prez; You Do Something To Me (50.07)
Riley Stone-Lonergan (ts); Eddie Myer (b); Spike Wells (d). Harlesden, London, 2020?
Ubuntu Music UBU0078

REVIEW: Shez Raja 'Tales from the Punjab'

Jazz Journal’s Roger Farbey writes, “Whilst comparison with other West meets East jazz recordings is inevitable, Raja has carved out his own characteristic sound that might be described as Asiatic-Modal Jazz.”

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British born bass-guitar virtuoso Shez Raja journeyed to the Punjab early in 2020 to discover his roots. While in Lahore he had the opportunity to team up with some of the leading musicians of the subcontinent. This recording is the result of that meeting.

Raja has an impressive musical history. Educated at Leeds College of Music he rapidly became an in-demand session musician. He has released six albums including the critically acclaimed Journey To Shambhala (Raja Records, 2019) featuring guitarist Wayne Krantz and percussionist Trilok Gurtu.

The list of musicians he’s collaborated with on recordings and gigs reads like a who’s who of jazz: Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Soweto Kinch, Shabaka Hutchings, John Etheridge, Dennis Rollins, Denys Baptiste, Oren Marshall and Arun Ghosh, to name just a few. He’s also appeared at many of the UK’s major venues including the Glastonbury Festival, Ronnie Scott’s, the Southbank Centre and Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Raja and his trusty Fodera Emperor 5 Custom five-string electric bass shine throughout the album, but the Punjabi musicians enlisted here all provide stellar melodic and percussive accompaniment. Whilst there is no sitar involved here there is instead the sarangi, whose three strings evince the melody whilst the 35-odd resonance strings provide a drone of sorts. Here it’s played by one of its most well-known exponents, Zohaib Hassan. On Adventures In The City Of Wonders, Ahsan Papu’s bansuri (a bamboo flute) interplays with the sarangi whilst Raja’s inventive, meaty bass lines dominate the piece.

Whilst comparisons with other West meets East jazz recordings are inevitable – John Mayer and Joe Harriott’s Indo Jazz Fusions, John McLaughlin’s Shakti and 4th Dimension immediately spring to mind – Raja has carved out his own characteristic sound that might be described as Asiatic-Modal Jazz.

The hypnotic Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan is underpinned by an ostinato bass guitar line that invokes memories of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme overlaid by Fiza Haider’s keening vocals and a host of beguiling percussion. Haider’s soaring contribution to the opener Angel’s Tears is reminiscent of Flora Purim’s lissom singing on Chick Corea’s Light As A Feather (Polydor, 1973). Interestingly, the comparatively short running time (by today’s standards) automatically invites repeated and welcome plays.

Discography
Angel’s Tears; Adventures In The City Of Wonders; Mantra; Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan; Maharaja; Enlightenment (33.32)
Raja (elb); Fiza Haider (v); Ahsan Papu (bansuri); Zohaib Hassan (sarangi); Kashif Ali Dani (tab); Qamar Abbas (cajon). Lahore, 2020.
Ubuntu Music UBU0077