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Nigel Price: Heads & Tales Volume 2

By Roger Farbey
October 28, 2016
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Nigel Price's second volume of Heads & Tales is, quite literally, a game of two halves. As with the first volume, released in 2011, it incorporates two CDs each containing different versions of standards. The first disc, where Price is accompanied by Matt Home on drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond organ, plus guest saxophonists Alex Garnett and Vasilis Xenopoulos, utilises the same device as on the first volume. The standards are given new heads and titles but follow the same or similar underlying structures as the originals. The second disc comprises more faithful interpretations of the standards but here Price plays solo guitar, mostly accompanied by double tracked guitar ("Come Rain Or Come Shine" is a single guitar solo exception).

This straight ahead, hard bop influenced set belies Price's history as a member of both the acid jazz James Taylor Quartet and the funky jazz band known collectively as The Filthy Six. But Price, influenced by the likes of

Wes Montgomery

guitar
1923 - 1968

" data-original-title="" title="">Wes Montgomery and

George Benson

guitar
b.1943

" data-original-title="" title="">George Benson is unquestionably a terrific jazz guitarist as this album attests.

The main point of the album and its predecessor is the way in which a standard can be played with a different melody and then separately given a more conventional treatment too, so it really does become a two-for-one album. Price also rechristens titles with typical dry humour so

Gigi Gryce

saxophone
1927 - 1983

" data-original-title="" title="">Gigi Gryce's "Minority" becomes "Majority,"

Harold Arlen

composer / conductor
1905 - 1986

" data-original-title="" title="">Harold Arlen's "Come Rain Or Come Shine" becomes "Wet & Dry" and Frank Loesser's "Slow Boat to China" is transmuted into "Junk" (a Chinese boat!)

On the first disc (Heads) the unrestrained ebullience of the opener "Blue Genes" (a version of

Duke Pearson

piano
1932 - 1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Duke Pearson's "Jeannine") is immediately apparent and fixes in the memory like glue. But Price's talent also extends to consummate blues playing too as evidenced on the sultry "Smokescape" (a version of

Kenny Burrell

guitar, electric
b.1931

" data-original-title="" title="">Kenny Burrell's "Midnight Blue") and the breezier "Fragment Of Blues." The only anomaly on the album is

Jimmy Raney

guitar, electric
1927 - 1995

" data-original-title="" title="">Jimmy Raney's "Parker 51" which remains in its original arrangement.

On the solo disc (Tales), the numbers are performed with crystalline precision and sensitivity. Take for example,

Horace Silver

piano
1928 - 2014

" data-original-title="" title="">Horace Silver's "Peace," where Price comes close to emulating such great jazz guitarists as

Joe Pass

guitar
1929 - 1994

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Pass and

Tal Farlow

guitar
1921 - 1998

" data-original-title="" title="">Tal Farlow, or

Ray Noble

composer / conductor
1903 - 1978

" data-original-title="" title="">Ray Noble's "Cherokee," on which Raney's "Parker 51" was based.

One interesting aspect of Price's playing is his unadulterated guitar tone (for guitarists, he's playing a D'Angelico NYL-5) which utilises no effects pedals, (in an excellent 2012 interview for the Huffington Post, Price referred to these as "talent boosters"). Indeed the tone and to some extent the style Price obtains on "Up And Out" is not unlike that found on

John McLaughlin

guitar
b.1942

" data-original-title="" title="">John McLaughlin's 1969 debut album Extrapolation, but Price still retains his own characteristically pure and punchy style. In truth it's fair to say that Nigel Price is probably the most dynamic and gifted guitarist on the British jazz scene today and this is the proof.

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Track Listing

CD 1: Blue Genes; Wet & Dry; Up And Out; Parker 51; War; R&R; Majority; Junk; Smokescape.

CD 2: Cherokee; Have You Met Miss Jones; Jeannine; Peace; Come Rain Or Come Shine; Minority; Fragment Of Blues; Slow Boat To China; Midnight Blue.

Personnel

Nigel Price

guitar, acoustic

Nigel Price: guitar; Matt Home: drums; Ross Stanley: Hammond organ; Plus: Alex Garnett: alto & tenor saxophone; Vasilis Xenopoulos: tenor saxophone.

Album information

Title: Heads & Tales Volume 2 | Year Released: 2016 | Record Label: Whirlwind Recordings Ltd

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