Reviewed: Gwilym Simcock trio, International Piano Trio Festival, Ronnie Scott’s, London

Returning next year to tour in quartet mode once again with Pat Metheny, according to pianist Gwilym Simcock’s manager Christine Allen, and with a landmark solo piano album already out this year, the pianist sold out Ronnie’s last night for this …

Published: 8 Nov 2019. Updated: 3 years.

Returning next year to tour in quartet mode once again with Pat Metheny, according to pianist Gwilym Simcock’s manager Christine Allen, and with a landmark solo piano album already out this year, the pianist sold out Ronnie’s last night for this first gig by his longstanding trio in several years.

Simcock marked the occasion by writing some material for the festival and opened with ‘All Along’ a scampering tour de force. Next number ‘Victorville’ he told us was dedicated to bassist Yuri Goloubev’s interest in old aeroplanes. Later drummer Asaf Sirkis contributed the ballad ‘Portrait of a Woman’ and the second set encore was ‘How Deep is the Ocean’ Simcock prefacing the set after the intermission by telling us he had somehow ‘scalded’ his hand during the break which was a bit worrying but did not alter the quality of his formidable playing one tad.

Looking tanned and speaking in a Steve Coogan-esque lightly traced Mancunian accent he bowed enthusiastically with the other two at the end having thanked the audience for listening. Overall this was a dazzling display of effortless mastery. The trio’s take on Buster Williams’ ‘Christina’ was the runaway highlight of an engrossing evening that was full of skill and conversational insight.

Earlier the thumping techno LBT trio that Ronnie’s booker Paul Pace had talent spotted at Jazzahead this year rocked the room as the support act, the drummer even wearing ear protectors and necessarily so. The bar tender danced along like a sentry marking time contentedly to the metronomic beat.

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Everyday BATLs: the only way is up

BATL quartet, Live, RT Jazz Records makes you feel you are there in the room – BATL in case you were wondering the initials of Brandon Allen on tenor saxophone and Tim Lapthorn on piano. The tunes are mainly Allen’s with Lapthorn contributing …

Published: 8 Nov 2019. Updated: 6 months.

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BATL quartet, Live, RT Jazz Records makes you feel you are there in the room – BATL in case you were wondering the initials of Brandon Allen on tenor saxophone and Tim Lapthorn on piano. The tunes are mainly Allen’s with Lapthorn contributing ‘Return to Life’ and ‘Cuckoo’ – the live sound at the Pizza Express Jazz Club below street level on Soho’s Dean Street recorded in March and excellently captured by Luc St Martin who also later did the mix and mastering. Brandon dedicates his tune ‘Theodore’ to his young son just five months old at the time: and the tunes as well as being personal to him are very communicative, natural, and tender. Arnie Somogyi is on bass and Lloyd Haines is on drums. Brandon says in the notes: “I feel very optimistic about the creative potential of this quartet,” and you can understand why after oh about a couple of notes and yet there is nothing cloying in the quartet’s approach because the band sound is grounded in tough hard bop. The tenor is big and bright, the piano support nurturing, bass springy and curious – and as for Haines on drums just as well he can do spang a lang so perfectly but who can also make the switch as on ‘Lazy Day’ to do that tricky falling that bit trampling behind the beat as Brandon goes scalar. The only way is up.