The Frank Harrison Trio
8.00pm Monday 13 September - Everyman Theatre Studio
THE gulf between being a valued member of someone else’s band and becoming a recognized jazz star, can be as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Pianist Frank Harrison, who plays the Everyman Theatre Studio on Monday, has clearly leapt that divide, and the evidence is on his new CD, First Light.
It’s all lyrical and distinctive innovation matched with steely incisiveness, and reviewers have reached down for comparisons with players like Brad Mehldau and Bill Evans.
That Harrison, now 32, should have made it is no great surprise. In 1994 he won the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition, and later jazz giant Ronnie Scott named him, ‘One of the most talented young musicians I’ve heard".
He studied at the prestigious US Berklee School of Music, and has progressed via a long apprenticeship with Gilad Atzmon’s adventurous bands, and collaborations with Peter King, Julian Arguelles, Julian Siegel, Don Weller, Alan Barnes, John Etheridge, Louis Stewart and Iain Ballamy.
Piano trios of course depend upon three way virtuosity, and bassist Jeremy Brown ranks amongst London’s best. As does Steve Keogh, a drummer capable of Elvin
Jones-like pyrotechnics and equally outstanding, sensitive musicality.
In the perfect space of the Everyman Studio, this should be music to savior.
Yukata Shiina/Damon Brown Quartet @ D'Fly 8.00pm Weds 13 Oct
GREATNESS is a term usually proceeded by a publicity fanfare. So when three years ago ’unknown’ jazzman Yutaka Shinna, demonstrated it in spades, a small Cheltenham audience were perplexed and delirious.
In fact they haven’t shut about it since, and now the hottest tickets in town are for the Japanese pianist’s return visit – at D’Fly on Wednesday.
‘Unknown’ is a comparative word. Shiina has played at jazz’s top table along with Elvin Jones, Roy Hargrove, Antonio Hart and Nicholas Payton. But inexplicably, Internet references and CDs re few and far between.
Rather than ponder music industry ways, it’s better to give thanks to that emissary of superior jazz tours, self-effacing cornet player Damon Brown.
Last time Brown was merely brilliant in powerful and lyrical Bluer Note style. But one just wanted him to stop, so as to hear more from the pianist, who’s incredible articulation keyed to a massive musical intelligence, suggested the blues-iness of Wynton Kelly, laced with the palette of McCoy Tyner.
The rest of the band is yet to be announced, but Brown knows how to take care of rhythm business.
And this time they’ll be a whole lot of new Shiina fanatics spreading the word. Maybe we could get a sort of Mexican (or rather) Japanese Wave of appreciation going round the world
