Soul Food
Andrew Myers checks out music for dining in the Hastings environs.
The Jazz Organization @ NUR – MillerHutch @Lewes Depot
In this era of stadium gigs, multi-millionaire stars and global streaming, it’s easy to forget that for many working musicians, life revolves around smaller gigs where the music is very often relegated to a background status.
Yet somehow musicians rise above their surroundings, enter their own world and produce music of the highest quality – for themselves if not always for the audience.
Drummer Tony MacDonnell has been running the Jazz Organization at Nur Restaurant and Lounge in Robertson Street every Thursday for a number of years now. His trio, with Andrew Winterborn on piano and Alistair Franklin on bass, features a different guest soloist every week, very much in the time-honoured tradition of the standard blowing session.
Last Thursday, it was the turn of tenor saxist Greg Heath. Readers will be familiar with Greg’s work with Hexagonal – high energy music that’s very much the centre of attention whenever they play. It was a joy to hear him in this smaller, more intimate context, a beautiful rendition of the ballad You Don’t Know what Love Is being a particular highlight. Marvellous, spontaneous music-making, fantastic food and no entry charge – this is a great evening that deserves our support.
On Sunday morning, it was over to the Depot in Lewes for a delightful brunch gig from St Leonards-based duo, Vladimir Miller on piano and Hutch Demouilpied on trumpet, flute and a remarkable instrument called the baritone horn. Soulful treatments of standards such as: Just Friends, Jordu and Lonnie’s Lament rubbed shoulders with inventive original compositions from both musicians, which to my ear sounded less like jazz and more like film music – entirely appropriate in a cinema, of course. I was bowled over by Vlad’s arrangement of The Castle from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Some of the more conservative listeners present were briefly startled when the duo cheekily snuck in a couple of pieces of avant-garde free improvisation. But normality was soon restored – this was
a perfectly-judged balance of challenge and familiarity.
Two very different gigs that admirably performed the function of providing ear-tickling sonic ambience for those whose priorities were of a culinary nature, but also provided rich musical nutrition for more attentive listeners. So next time you’re in a venue with musicians playing what seems to be background music, take a moment to tune in to what they’re doing. You never know what you might hear.
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