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RATING **
Nigel Kennedy is so in thrall to the spirit of Jimi Hendrix that he remains a very odd sort of jazz player.
Published: 5:59PM GMT 17 Dec 2009
Unlike some classical musicians who dip a toe into jazz, discover how hard it is and take it out in a hurry,
Nigel Kennedy actually takes the music seriously. In recent years he's disappeared for months at a stretch, learning the ropes from his Polish jazz-playing colleagues
and New York-based musicians.
So one wishes him well. But as Wednesday night's event at the 606 Club showed, Nigel Kennedy is still a very
odd sort of jazz player. With him on stage were Cuban violinist Omar Puente, and British violinist Chris Garrick
– the "Chillest Violinists" as cheeky Nige kept dubbing them. Together with pianist Nikki Yeoh, bassist Alec Dankworth and drummer
Krzystof Dziedzic they played original numbers, ranging in mood from Garrick's cheekily "Celtic" 606 Violins
to Kennedy's pastoral-flavoured Hills of Saturn.
Lined up in front were The Three Violinists, with their gleaming metallic electric violins.
Puente played with Latin flamboyance, flying up and down the full range of the fingerpoint.
Garrick had the lightest touch of the three, and an elegantly ornamented way of spinning a line that provided
the gig's few high points.
As for Kennedy, he's still in thrall to the spirit of Jimi Hendrix. He hooks his violin up to effects units
which give the instrument a Hendrix-like wail, he saws furiously at little repeating phrases until they spin
like Catherine wheels, and when the tension has risen to breaking point he soars up to the stratosphere.
This is fine if you're into an ecstatic sort of improvisation that's really about pushing an instrument to its limits.
But the things that make jazz improvisation a totally distinctive art – pursuing a melodic riff through different
harmonic areas, or spinning a line that pushes against the underlying chord changes in an interesting way –
were barely in evidence.
This might not have mattered so much if the ensemble playing had been tight, but it was clear the players
were feeling their way. There were lots of bumpy and uncertain moments – like the one where Kennedy came
to the end of an especially ecstatic wailing-guitar-style solo and pianist Nikki Yeoh picked up in a very
straight-ahead jazz mode. It sounded bizarre, as if she'd wandered in from some other gig. A band can get
away with "jamming" when the players know each other really well, but here it felt as if we were eavesdropping
on the first rehearsal.
To read the original article please click on
www.telegraph.co.uk
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