Album review: Nigel Price Organ Trio - Wes Reimagined

Hearing Nigel Price live is a thrilling experience, listening to a recording of the award-winning guitarist is the next best thing. If you're familiar with Price's work, the title of his latest album, Wes Reimagined, will be self-explanatory. Wes Montgomery is something of a hero to our man and this new release on Ubuntu Music will find favour with fans of jazz guitar, particularly in the classic organ trio format.

Price is noted for his dogged determination to tour come what may - pandemic, what pandemic? - and with an album's worth of material ready and waiting to be laid down, two days in early September last year were booked at London's Fish Factory recording studio. Percussion overdubs followed at the end of the month and three weeks into October Callum Au's string arrangements were dubbed by the Phonograph Effect Strings*. 

Ten tracks, all written by Montgomery except Monk's Shop (composed by bassist brother Monk Montgomery) and Lerner and Lowe's I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face will demand fifty nine minutes and fifty eight seconds of your time and every second is worthy of your attention. Price is in the 'A-list' category and when it comes to his band, all are in the same bracket. Ross Stanley is a 'first call' exponent of the B3, and drummer Joel Barford may be a new name to some, but once heard, he too, is to be considered a premier league operator. The horns on Wes Reimagined are regular collaborators - straight ahead tenor star Vasilis Xenopoulos and alto maestro Tony Kofi. When these guys solo, it's the business and, what's more, they make it look and sound so easy! Checkout any of Xenopoulos' solo contributions, not least on Road Song, a track which showcases Barford's technical prowess. On other tracks Barford handles shuffles (be they of the Texas or New Orleans school!), locked-in funk patterns, delicate brushwork, the lot. 

Tony Kofi is equally adept on any horn he chooses to pick up. On this new Ubuntu album, it's alto sax, and whatever he plays it always sounds just right. Alto and tenor don't enter into a slug-fest, it isn't that kind of session. Rather, they play exactly what is required, making the mainly quintet recording (Snowboy and Au augment on occasion) a masterclass in small group, grooving, hard-driving, swinging jazz. 

If there is an oddity on Wes Reimagined it's the Lerner-Lowe closing number, I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face. The odd-one-out, perhaps, but only in that Price and Stanley's reflective treatment (underpinned by the Phonograph Effect Strings) offers a welcome contrast to the rest of the album's high-octane material.           

Cariba!; Leila; Jingles; Far Wes; So Do It!; Movin' Along; Monk's Shop; Road Song; Twisted Blues; I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face. 

Wes Reimagined by the Nigel Price Organ Trio is available in CD, vinyl and digital formats on Ubutu Music (cat no. UBU0080).

  

* Kay Stephen and Chris Terepin founded Phonograph Effect in April 2020 supplying string section parts on demand to a wide range of artists (www.phonographeffect.com).         

Nigel Price (guitar); Ross Stanley (Hammond B3); Joel Barford (drums); Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor sax); Tony Kofi (alto sax); Snowboy (congas, bongos, surdo, shekere, whistle); Callum Au (string arrangements, trombone) + Phonograph Effect Strings: Kay Stephen (violin 1); Anna Brigham (violin 2); Elitsa Bogdanova (viola); Chris Terepin (cello)