NIGEL PRICE - Around The UK In 56 Dates
Guitarist Nigel Price, has undertaken and brought to fruition two remarkable achievements this year. Firstly, he has organised a mammoth fifty-six date tour of the UK for his organ trio, and secondly has recorded his latest album, Heads & Tales Volume 2, that follows up the highly acclaimed Volume 1 recorded in 2011.
The organ trio featuring Ross Stanley on Hammond Organ and drummer, Matt Home are now firmly bedded down and their empathy and enthusiasm for the music is immediately evident. The new album is brimful of new compositions based on familiar standards that positively sizzle, and swing hard along the way. This is simply great jazz played from within the tradition with a contemporary feel that is deeply infectious.
At just over the half way point of the tour, Jazz Views catches up with Nigel to find out how the tour is going, and to talk about his new album.
How’s the tour going?
The tour has been great so far, thanks. Most of the attendances have been very good and the reception has been really overwhelming at times!
We've been covering a lot of ground and have already managed to drive as far north as Aberdeen and as far south as St Ives, playing I think thirty three gigs between those two locations at this point in time.
We're more than halfway through now and the remaining dates will cover the East and West Midlands, East Anglia, Yorkshire, Lancashire and with a healthy smattering across London too. I'm still feeling upbeat and optimistic which is a relief!
The organ trio featuring Ross Stanley on Hammond Organ and drummer, Matt Home are now firmly bedded down and their empathy and enthusiasm for the music is immediately evident. The new album is brimful of new compositions based on familiar standards that positively sizzle, and swing hard along the way. This is simply great jazz played from within the tradition with a contemporary feel that is deeply infectious.
At just over the half way point of the tour, Jazz Views catches up with Nigel to find out how the tour is going, and to talk about his new album.
How’s the tour going?
The tour has been great so far, thanks. Most of the attendances have been very good and the reception has been really overwhelming at times!
We've been covering a lot of ground and have already managed to drive as far north as Aberdeen and as far south as St Ives, playing I think thirty three gigs between those two locations at this point in time.
We're more than halfway through now and the remaining dates will cover the East and West Midlands, East Anglia, Yorkshire, Lancashire and with a healthy smattering across London too. I'm still feeling upbeat and optimistic which is a relief!
What possessed you to undertake such a huge tour?
It's near impossible to tour without funding so it's wholly worth getting as many dates together as possible and then making an arts council application. I never imagined that I would end up with so many dates on tour although I knew it would be pretty big as the last tour, in 2014 was forty dates long.
Filling in the Arts Council forms is a real ordeal, not just because of the paperwork but also because because if you don't make sure that your tour fits all the criteria then all of your work has been for nothing. It seems crazy but you really do have to organise the whole tour before you apply for funding. One of the requirements of a successful application is that the music has to be presented to new audiences and especially young people so I have organised around fifteen young support bands and fifteen workshops all around the UK. I asked the Arts Council to fund these two things and they agreed that it was a good idea.
It's not just to tick the boxes though:- I really enjoy seeing the passion that these young musicians have (as well as the stage fright!) and it's been a real privilege for me to be, in some cases, the first person to actually pay them for a performance. The workshops have been a success too and, whilst I don't have a regular teaching job, I do like to help aspiring musicians (especially guitarists) out.
What problems have you encountered along the way?
I wouldn't say there have been any problems as such. The whole process has been utterly exhausting though and it's definitely not for the faint hearted.
What advice would you give anyone else thinking of doing the same?
You can't expect to be able to book a tour of this magnitude the first time around. You need to be patient. Many venues are struggling and as a result they're less likely to take a punt on somebody they don't know. The process, and indeed the route to success, is in part based on your own capacity for coping with rejection. This rejection can be upsetting and can also lead to some pretty low morale but at no point should you ever be rude to a promoter. They are going through the mill themselves and are often inundated with requests from people just like you so there's no point in venting your frustrations on them. Argue with your spouse instead...
It can take literally years to get a 'yes' from some promoters so patience really is a virtue but the moment you snap at them, put the phone down on them or sent a sarcastic email you know that you will never play for them! I admit to losing my patience a couple of times but I had been trying one of those promoters for nineteen years... but it's not all a struggle. I would advise anybody who is thinking about it just to jump in and go for it.
Approach it with optimism and a cheery demeanour and you will get the best out of people.
It's near impossible to tour without funding so it's wholly worth getting as many dates together as possible and then making an arts council application. I never imagined that I would end up with so many dates on tour although I knew it would be pretty big as the last tour, in 2014 was forty dates long.
Filling in the Arts Council forms is a real ordeal, not just because of the paperwork but also because because if you don't make sure that your tour fits all the criteria then all of your work has been for nothing. It seems crazy but you really do have to organise the whole tour before you apply for funding. One of the requirements of a successful application is that the music has to be presented to new audiences and especially young people so I have organised around fifteen young support bands and fifteen workshops all around the UK. I asked the Arts Council to fund these two things and they agreed that it was a good idea.
It's not just to tick the boxes though:- I really enjoy seeing the passion that these young musicians have (as well as the stage fright!) and it's been a real privilege for me to be, in some cases, the first person to actually pay them for a performance. The workshops have been a success too and, whilst I don't have a regular teaching job, I do like to help aspiring musicians (especially guitarists) out.
What problems have you encountered along the way?
I wouldn't say there have been any problems as such. The whole process has been utterly exhausting though and it's definitely not for the faint hearted.
What advice would you give anyone else thinking of doing the same?
You can't expect to be able to book a tour of this magnitude the first time around. You need to be patient. Many venues are struggling and as a result they're less likely to take a punt on somebody they don't know. The process, and indeed the route to success, is in part based on your own capacity for coping with rejection. This rejection can be upsetting and can also lead to some pretty low morale but at no point should you ever be rude to a promoter. They are going through the mill themselves and are often inundated with requests from people just like you so there's no point in venting your frustrations on them. Argue with your spouse instead...
It can take literally years to get a 'yes' from some promoters so patience really is a virtue but the moment you snap at them, put the phone down on them or sent a sarcastic email you know that you will never play for them! I admit to losing my patience a couple of times but I had been trying one of those promoters for nineteen years... but it's not all a struggle. I would advise anybody who is thinking about it just to jump in and go for it.
Approach it with optimism and a cheery demeanour and you will get the best out of people.
Can you tell us a little bit about the album. Was it always going to be a double and which one did you record first?
This latest release is called Heads & Tales volume 2. A 'head' is a new tune of a standard form and, well, you can see why I called it Heads & Tales.
I think with the word 'tales' looking like a misspelling it's slightly eye catching too!
The first disc is a collection of nine tunes, all constructed around old standards but with new melodies and syncopated arrangements that involve the whole band. The second disc presents the same standards but played with the original melodies and performed as guitar overdub duets. I made sure that I changed the feels and the keys to differ from disc one.
The reaction to Heads & Tales volume 1 (2012) was very good so it made a lot of sense to make another. It's recipe that I find I can really get my teeth into, like the goal posts are already in place so it's clearer when a tune is finished. I wrote the music for the band CD first and once I was absolutely sure which tunes I was going to use (there were many that didn't make the cut) I then recorded disc two, at home using my own recording set up. By doing it this way around I got to practice playing over the tunes, albeit in different keys, before we went in to record the band stuff.
I'm really pleased with the whole thing, especially the way Matt Home, Ross Stanley, Alex Garnett and Vasilis Xenopoulos played.
I know it's not very British to be immodest but I'm pretty pleased with the way I played on the second disc too!
After years of experimentation I think I got the recorded sound of an acoustic jazz guitar as good as I've ever had it.
There's no attempted reinvention of the wheel going on but I'd like to think that just playing good music is enough for everybody who hears it.
I hope so.
This latest release is called Heads & Tales volume 2. A 'head' is a new tune of a standard form and, well, you can see why I called it Heads & Tales.
I think with the word 'tales' looking like a misspelling it's slightly eye catching too!
The first disc is a collection of nine tunes, all constructed around old standards but with new melodies and syncopated arrangements that involve the whole band. The second disc presents the same standards but played with the original melodies and performed as guitar overdub duets. I made sure that I changed the feels and the keys to differ from disc one.
The reaction to Heads & Tales volume 1 (2012) was very good so it made a lot of sense to make another. It's recipe that I find I can really get my teeth into, like the goal posts are already in place so it's clearer when a tune is finished. I wrote the music for the band CD first and once I was absolutely sure which tunes I was going to use (there were many that didn't make the cut) I then recorded disc two, at home using my own recording set up. By doing it this way around I got to practice playing over the tunes, albeit in different keys, before we went in to record the band stuff.
I'm really pleased with the whole thing, especially the way Matt Home, Ross Stanley, Alex Garnett and Vasilis Xenopoulos played.
I know it's not very British to be immodest but I'm pretty pleased with the way I played on the second disc too!
After years of experimentation I think I got the recorded sound of an acoustic jazz guitar as good as I've ever had it.
There's no attempted reinvention of the wheel going on but I'd like to think that just playing good music is enough for everybody who hears it.
I hope so.
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For more information visit Nigel's website.
Click on the album cover to read our review of Head & Tales Volume 2. 
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Click on the image for full tour details.
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