REVIEW: 3 February 2005 | ||
Derek Nash | ||
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| A television programme recently suggested that listening to jazz was a good way of getting to sleep. Apart from the insult to jazz in all its guises, the pundit had obviously never heard multi-saxophonist Derek Nash playing live. In reality, listening to Derek Nash is not unlike being taken on an express train journey, but rather than the calm of the restaurant car we are in the teeth of a gale in the driver’s cab. Nash plays the whole family of saxophones, often on the same gig, and all with extraordinary energy, bordering on ferocity. From the first phrase of the first tune of the evening, Chick Corea’s intricate Spain, Nash displayed his ability to play not just fast but with such accurate intonation, even on tenor saxophone, that every note in the opening bars was clearly pronounced and the dynamics of the phrases stunningly clear. From that first moment he had the whole audience with him in the engine room of his own personal journey. In the first set Nash also sight-read guitarist Pete Oxley’s sinuous tune, Deeper in Debt as if he had known it for years and ended with a storming rendition on alto of Parker’s Anthropology, a piece that can so easily throw a lesser player off the tracks. In the second set he finally picked up the soprano and with Metheney’s beautiful ballad, Farmer’s Trust showed he can also do eloquence and soft running phrasing with as much assurance as he can bebop and driving funk. For a man who spends much of his time running his own recording company, 33 records, Derek Nash also finds time and energy to front his own band, the award-winning Sax Appeal, and maintain a formidable technique. This gig was also memorable for the reappearance of the original Spin bassist, Raf Mizraki, whose work on fretless bass in particular was a fine match for Nash’s exuberance. Even if by the end of the evening I was ready for a bit more of the eloquence and not quite so much brute force, the Spin once again put on an evening of jazz that sent us home fired up and hungry for more. © Paul Medley | |
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