Press release: Gadd gets soulful with trio in Glasgow and Nottingham

(© Carsten Weide)

Blicher Hemmer Gadd, the trio that brings drumming legend Steve Gadd together with Danish saxophone and Hammond organ team, Michael Blicher and Dan Hemmer, return to the UK to play two dates in early September.

The gigs, at the Mackintosh Church in Glasgow on Friday, Sept.1 and Southbank Bar, Nottingham on Sunday, Sept. 3, coincide with the release of the trio’s fourth album, It Will Be Alright.

The trio joined forces in 2014 to celebrate their shared love of bluesy, Hammond-driven soul-jazz and have now played more than 50 concerts across the world, preferring to play intimate venues in contrast to Gadd’s normal itinerary of stadia and large concert halls with Eric Clapton, James Taylor and Paul Simon.

“It’s an opportunity to experience the world’s most innovative drummer demonstrating his incredible talent close up,” says Blicher, an inveterate musical adventurer who met Gadd through an event organised by Jazz Denmark. The two musicians bonded immediately through their love of soulful music – Blicher’s influences run from Bulgarian folk singing to the folkloric music of Mali, Mississippi, New Orleans and Cuba – and shortly afterwards Gadd agreed to go on tour with Blicher and Hemmer.

As well as featuring on tour with Clapton, Taylor and Simon, Gadd is revered especially for his masterly playing on pianist Chick Corea’s Four Quartets album, alongside saxophonist Michael Brecker and bassist Eddie Gomez, and on Steely Dan’s Aja as well as recordings with a who’s who of modern music, including Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Joni Mitchell.

“The music we play in Blicher Hemmer Gadd is a style of music that I’m passionate about,” says Gadd. “It’s honest music. No-one plays like this anymore.”