Cold Night, Warm Sax
VICTORIA KINGHAM at Barnaby’s on a new jazz night
Storm-tossed nights in Hastings aren’t the best portent for an evening out. After a flood, on the cusp of the winter, there’s a definite hibernatory air about the sea front, the town centre, the shopping precinct. How pleasant then to spend an evening at Barnaby’s Lounge, friendly and warm with a splendidly eclectic atmosphere, an upstairs gallery for activities and art sales, a slightly-out-of-tune upright piano on which stand two lamps made out of old trumpets, carefully removed just before the performance.
If all this sounds slightly kitsch, well maybe it is. Ironic and self-aware, obviously. But there was nothing kitsch about the two excellent musicians, Liam Noble and Geoff Simkins, who took us through a fascinating range of numbers via their own unique musical relationship and technical prowess. As in many jazz performances, that musical closeness became more evident as the evening progressed, and the last three or four numbers showed massive technical ease, joy in collaboration, and a rare ability to state melodies almost incidentally.
What melodies though! The first set was bounded by two classic jazz standards – Stella By Starlight and How Deep Is the Ocean. In between were Ellington and Burrell numbers, and Grace Under Pressure, one of guitarist John Scofield’s more complex tunes (fiendishly difficult to play), but this duo bounced through it with aplomb and a great deal of imaginative invention. Hemingway would have been delighted at the musical homage his words had inspired.
After the interval came a version of Chopin’s stately prelude no. 20, given a particularly un-stately but original treatment. The tune that came next – Scott Colley’s Is What Is, is based loosely on What is This Thing Called Love. Somewhere in the cascading torrents of notes I think I heard four bars stating the first phrase of the original melody. The composer of this variation is currently gigging round New York City with the great drummer Brian Blade, and is up there with Joshua Redman, Mike Brecker, Chris Potter and Blade himself, as one of the great American improvisers. Simkins and Noble performed it with consummate ease, following it up with a frenetic version of Duran Duran’s Save a Prayer, and a Stan Getz tune that segued elegantly into the haunting folk tune Blackwaterside, for me one of the highlights of the evening.
A jazz duo performance, without drums, is necessarily going to put pressure on both artists. Noble’s piano style, despite its harmonic adventure, is percussive, and Simkins played an elegant vintage Selmer alto sax with a lovely fruity, furry tone. His father, he told me, gave it to him on his eighteenth birthday and he has brought it quite recently out of retirement. The pair are skilled in the art of listening to one another, the rhythm never let up, and neither did the originality.
This was a first venture into the Barnaby’s venue for Hastings’ local jazz impresario Reggie Hendrickse, and it was a great success. The eponymous Barnaby is the brother of the well-known saxophonist Josephine Davies, who also lives locally. Like Davies, both Simkins and Noble teach at Trinity Laban music college. Simkins is quoted as saying “jazz, and music, is trial and error and we have to experience it for ourselves. So I think that I can act, hopefully, as a guide, as an advisor, somebody who can point the way for people.” After a lifetime on the British jazz scene he is still inventing, still progressing, searching. Noble is younger but is equally as dedicated a teacher. A remarkable evening, British jazz at its best.
sussexjazzmag.com/geoff-simkins-interview
trinitylaban.ac.uk/study/teaching-staff/liam-noble
facebook.com/BarnabysLounge
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