REVIEW: 5 May 2005

Dave Gordon

It is not unusual in the arts for practioners to have more than one skill but even so Dave Gordon is something of a polymath. Having trained as a mathematician and logician he then followed the Guildhall’s classical course while somewhere along the line he also becomimg a highly accomplished jazz musician. These days he pursues two parallel careers as jazz keyboard player and classical harpsichordist, running his own groups and composing in both worlds. The day after this gig he was playing Handel in the Sheldonian with the English Consort.

It is unlikely that when he is working with such classical luminaries as violinist Nigel Kennedy Gordon is allowed to slip in a twist of bebop, but jazz is a more accommodating music and thus constantly enriched by the influences and language of other musical forms. This is not to say that Gordon plays ‘classical’ jazz. Nothing could be further from the truth. He can play blues or swing with an absolute sense of the groove. But he brings to his music the discipline and harmonic breadth of his classical training and a mental intricacy that must come from his mathematical background. The result is a music full of harmonic surprises and rhythmic changes of direction backed up by a powerful technique. He is a player who watches and listens with unwavering concentration and as accompanist interposes runs and chords that always enrich a solo, while as soloist he maintains the same level of awareness encouraging others to give him harmonic and rhythmic support.

At the Spin Dave Gordon was in the company of old friends, particularly Pete Oxley, with whom he has recorded, so he was relaxed and obviously enjoying the music. For the second number they played the title track from Gordon’s latest CD, Angel Feet, a delightful slow swing in which he showed how easily he can control the most intricate passages and build a solo from a series of superficially contrasting approaches, building a musical response to the tune’s harmonies of remarkable depth and excitement. Later they played another Gordon original, The Alchemist and the Catflap, a musical portrait of Sir Isaac Newton which was predictably fast and complex and again gave Gordon the opportunity to pull out another chimerical solo.

This was a highly enjoyable evening of great jazz but I did leave with the feeling that I would have liked the guest soloist to have taken centre stage more of the time, but perhaps that was just Dave Gordon’s natural modesty.

© Paul Medley