Jazz Journal’s Trevor Hodgett interviews the keys wiz.
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.”
Jazz: what a difference ney makes
Jazz Journal’s Trevor Hodgett writes, “The Wirral-born bassist Shez Raja found that re-recording some of his Brit-born tunes in the Punjab took them into another dimension.”
Shez Raja at the Jazz Café, London. Photo by Monika S Jakubowska
“I was able to dig deeper than before into my musical heritage” says bass guitarist Shez Raja of his current CD Tales From The Punjab, which was recorded in Lahore, Pakistan. “I’ve always blended east and west in my music but this time I’ve got a more authentic eastern sound and I was overjoyed to work with the musicians over there.”
Raja was born on the Wirral to a Punjabi father and an English mother. His music has generally been labelled “Indojazzfunk” and his previous albums have featured guests like Randy Brecker and Mike Stern. On Tales From The Punjab, however, he worked with North Indian classical musicians Ahsan Papu (bansuri flute), Zohaib Hassan (sarangi), Kashif Ali Dani (tabla), Qamar Abbas (cajón) and Fiza Haider (vocals).
“It’s always been a dream of mine to experiment and step outside my comfort zone with Indian classical musicians” he says. “I literally met them for the first time in the studio, pressed the record button and started playing. And from the first moments I knew something magical was happening.”
Raja found himself inspired. “I run creativity masterclasses and I’ve been on this quest for years to understand what drives creativity. I’m on this constant search for ways to become more creatively alive and I think the key is through collaborating with musicians who ideally are quite different to you.”
Three of the tracks on the album, Angel’s Tears, Mantra and Maharaja, have been recorded by Raja on previous albums. “I was really fascinated to see what would happen with these Hindustani classical musicians on those compositions – and it was a completely joyous experience. The emotion is quite different and the musicianship and approach are different and for me that was a great way to learn and grow as a musician.”
The other three tracks on the album are improvisations. “There are 10 parent Indian scales or thaats and within each of those you’ve got hundreds of ragas designed to generate certain emotions. So we’d agree a thaat or raga – and that was it!” says Raja, still sounding amazed at the communal creativity. “Someone would start off and we’d go on feeling and then someone would start soloing and we’d support the soloist. It was a spiritual journey: I can’t describe it in any better way.”
The rapport between the musicians is clearly audible on the album. “I related to them as jazz musicians. At the core of what these guys are doing is improvisation which is fundamental to Western jazz so the improvisational element of our musicality is how we connected. And it was a musical playground for all of us with new sounds and approaches. I’m used to playing with keyboardists and guitarists [but] because there were no harmonic instruments I played in a more harmonic way. There was a drone and then melodic instruments so I was playing all the chords and a lot of arpeggios and spelling out harmony more than normal. There’s no tradition of bass guitar or bass frequency instruments in Indian music so I was bringing this very earthy frequency which these guys aren’t accustomed to. I think that inspired them and gave them different avenues to explore so I think we came up with something different and quite special.”
Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan features a musical setting of a poem by Shah Hussain, a 16th century Sufi poet from Lahore, sung by 17-year-old Fiza Haider. “It’s a melody that this poem’s been sung to for hundreds of years. It’s an almost standard piece, about loneliness. Fiza’s extraordinary and when she sang that she just sent us all on this musical adventure.”
Another of the improvisations, Adventures In The City Of Wonders, was inspired by Lahore itself. “It’s like a different planet compared to the UK. The kindness and generosity of the people are so lovely and the sights, the sounds, the smells, the architecture, the food, the hustle and the bustle … It’s really vibrant, a real city of wonders and that’s what I had in my mind, playing that improvisation.”
Raja studied tabla and music theory rather than bass guitar at Leeds College of Music and believes that his tabla studies have influenced his bass playing. “Certain rhythms are straightforward on the tabla but incredibly difficult on the bass. But playing the tabla they embedded themselves in my improvisational vocabulary and I found ways to play them on the bass which brings a unique element to my playing. Equally, I started [as a child] on the violin. The tuning is very different so there are certain patterns on the violin which are difficult to play on the bass but I managed to pull it off and that gives a different sensibility to [my] melodic playing.
“I love all aspects of bass playing. I love groove playing and that hypnotic approach to repetitive bass lines and riffs and I also love improvised soloing and high register playing – I’ve got a five string bass with a high C instead of a low B. And one of the things I enjoy most is when somebody else is soloing and I’m playing a bridging role between the soloist and the drummer and listening really intently and tracing this dynamic conversation between the players. Playing that role is joyous and at times meditative.”
Raja clearly sees a spiritual element in music making. “For me spirituality is about an appreciation of a power bigger than one individual and a sense of oneness with other people. So, just naturally, whenever you play music with people there is a spiritual connection there because you are communicating on this intangible level. And very often, especially when I’m improvising, I get into this meditative state of being at peace. For me that’s a huge attraction of playing music.”
Tales From The Punjab seems sure to expand Raja’s audience. “I’m absolutely delighted with what we achieved and I’ve had loads of people telling me they’ve never heard anything like it. The Indian market have picked up on it and it’s opening up the world music audience as well, which is brilliant.”
FEATURE: Paul Booth
The sax man speaks to Jazz Journal. “Paul Booth: ‘What matters is whether it’s good or not.”
Pragmatic all-rounder Paul Booth has been moved by or moved among Stan Getz, Ben Webster, Riverdance and Steve Winwood. His latest record focuses on upbeat salsa - from a jazz point of view, naturally.
For the full feature, please click on the image, above.