A big week for pianist Paul Edis with the release of his new Lateralize album with the fabulous Jo Harrop When Winter Turns to Spring from which the sumptuous 'Winter Love Affair' ('One Day Soon') is already picking up airplay on BBC Radio 2.
Here, with a well attended rescheduled Soho date postponed from the summer, with his sextet - the first set of last night's show featured a generous selection of Edis tunes from his 2014 album Mr Hipster. Painting a picture of sprawling family of in-laws 'The Timothys' with its hymn like beginning, the Don Quixote inspired 'Don Errant' featuring the flute playing of tenorist Vasilis Xenopoulos (familiar from Nigel Price's roogalating Live at the Crypt), 'Eastern' and Edis' melancholy laden ballad 'Missing You' written for his wife all found a place.
Hailing from Chester-Le-Street in County Durham - sharing the same home town as Harrop - Edis relocated to London around Lockdown time and after the enforced hiatus in performing has flourished since both on record and live becoming a staple part of the burgeoning Hampstead Jazz Club scene championed at the Duke of Hamilton by Mayank Patel and Jonathan Wingate.
With Paul, who has a prodigious modern-mainstream technique grounded in the terrain that lands between Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal and who has a natural and friendly demeanour when speaking to the audience and an easy warmth in his presentation, was very fine hard bop trumpeter and flugel player Freddie Gavita, tenorist/flautist, the aforementioned Xenopoulos, excellent trombonist Rory Ingham, double bassist Adam King who is also on When Winter Turns to Spring and drummer Joel Barford reading from sheet music on a stand by the kit stylistically a little like James Maddren. The very strong horn section allied with Edis' spirited runs and accented flourishes set the evening up in a suitable feelgood manner fitting for this season of goodwill.
FURTHER READING
Paul Edis at Cadogan Hall - 2021
Mr Hipster reviewed - 2014
Paul Edis, photo: Twitter. Dean Street Pizza Express Jazz Club exterior club illuminated sign and the Soho street scene just before showtime - photos: marlbank
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