Jazz Northampton - NCJazz - promoting contemporary jazz in Northampton and Northants
Consummate Skill from Accomplished Performers
Thursday 17th February 2011
Nick Weldon Trio with Emilia Martensson
By any standards of modern jazz this was a gig of exceptionally high quality.
Nick Weldon is a leading authority on jazz piano. He is currently professor of jazz piano at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and at Trinity College of Music - providing individual tuition, ensemble coaching and teacher training at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. He was also a director of Wavendon Summer School.
His playing pedigree is equally formidable - as sideman for the likes of Don Weller, Bobby Wellins and Martin Speake; as well as for visiting US artistes, such as Johnny Griffin, Sonny Stitt, Teddy Edwards and Mark Murphy, to name but a few, combined with the leadership of a highly talented trio. He is also a keen bass player.
For this gig, Tim Wells, with whom he has produced a recent album, Weaver of Dreams, played bass, and his son, Felix Weldon, was on drums.
Emilia Martensson is fast emerging as major player on the jazz vocalist scene and on this performance, surely, has a glittering future in the jazz world. Moving from her native Sweden in 2000, she graduated in jazz at Trinity College of Music, where she was tutored by Nick Weldon, among others. Her major musical influences include Swedish folk melodies and vocalists such as Anita O' Day and Ella Fitzgerald.
The natural empathy between Nick Weldon and Emilia Martensson was obvious from the start. Each has an intimate understanding of the other's style and expressive needs.
Nick Weldon plays with an air of total authority over his instrument. Playing jazz piano is an experience of great intensity for him - eyes closed, a concentrated frown, as if in a trance.
Above his creative, inventive and original observations, Emilia Martensson floats like a butterfly, with flawless, delicate and breathy phrasing that complement his musical observations. The gig opened with the well-known Dietz and Schwarz standard, Alone Together. After an almost classical opening from Nick Weldon, Tim Wells entered with a non-committal, almost walking, bass as a reply, before the number erupted into high octane delivery driven by an explosive offering from Felix Weldon.
The number was a microcosm of what was to follow - vivid contrasts, varied rhythms and improvisation of the most original kind. Emilia Martensson opened with a Bobby Timmons original, Dat Dere. Her voice is soft and mellow but with a fierce edge when she feels the need. Her singing is a natural complement to a trio setting.
Her rendition of the Esbjorn Svensson ballad, Waltz for the Lonely Ones was captivating and packed with emotion, moving from a slow and graceful start to a rapid delivery, ending with the drums at full throttle.
Undoubtedly, the highlights of her offerings were Crystals So Clear, a Swedish folk song of unknown origin, delivered with passion and highly-charged emotion; and a spell-binding lament - the French ballad Ne Me Quitte Pas (If you go away), for which her sole accompaniment was Nick Weldon's piano.
This rendition was a precedent for other striking performances accompanied solely either by bass or drums, particularly the closing Bye, Bye, Blackbird.
For the combo as a whole, other highlights abounded - the exquisite poetry and jazz interpretation of Norma Winstone's The Peacocks; Tim Wells' effervescent bass in Antonio Carlos Jobim's Dindi; Felix Weldon's sparkling drum solo on Straight No Chaser; and Nick Weldon's obvious delight during his rendition of I Thought About You.
This was a consummately skilled and accomplished performance from a group of musicians with an intimate understanding of each other's jazz needs and aspirations - a flawless exposition of modern jazz.
Talking to NC Jazz later, Nick Weldon revealed that his interest in music had been sparked by his stepfather teaching him tunes on the piano.
"He first taught me St James Infirmary," he says with a laugh. "I was about 8 or 9 when I began to learn how to improvise and then I had lessons in classical piano for three years, which was good for my technique, although I didn't enjoy it much.When I was 16, I enrolled on a jazz piano course at the City Literary Institute, taught by the legendary Eddie Harvey, and then I went to France for a spell where I played my first gigs. I also took a post teaching English at the University at Amiens".
From then on, his jazz career kicked off and on returning to England he decided not to pursue an academic career (he holds a first class degree in French and Philosophy), but to concentrate on jazz - although, as he explains,
"I've rather come full circle now as my jazz teaching at the Colleges has some academic elements, and I'm currently writing a book which examines the history of music, including jazz, from a philosophical perspective."
He's also a prolific composer.
"I'm not driven by commercial imperatives when I compose," he continues, "composing at the piano, evokes a type of feeling and emotion in me - a way of expressing myself. I've always liked the sound of jazz. There's an emotion in the music based on a profoundly African-American phenomenon and the blues element in the music is always present, both in early and contemporary jazz."
He finds some contemporary jazz "confused, partly through current jazz education. Although the craft skills of young jazz players are now very high, the essential emotion of jazz is often lost. The result is a weird hybrid, really a mediocre form of European classical music." He believes in core jazz values and it's these he espouses in the Jazz School that he runs in the Arts Space of the Shoefactory where he lives in Rushden, Northamptonshire.
As to the future, Nick anticipates that the Jazz School, his book project, and the possibility of a future recording featuring Emilia Martensson with his Trio will certainly keep him busy.
Emilia Martensson's interest in jazz began when she was about 15.
"Although I also played the piano, jazz singing was always my main interest. I listened to all the great singers, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Anita O'Day, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holliday. At school, I was always more interested in singing than in academic subjects."
Her parents were not musical, but were very supportive. Both Emilia and her sister were keen on music and at an early age formed and sung at their own jazz club.
Emilia moved to London from her native Sweden when she was 18. She befriended Trudy Kerr and was admitted to Trinity College of Music where she was tutored by Nick Weldon in piano and jazz singing lessons. "It's strange," she says, "but the gig at the Castle was the first time Nick and I have played together professionally!"
As well as singing, Emilia also turns her hand to lyric-writing.
"I'm just getting back into it," she explains, "at the moment, I'm just writing songs and I've recently written compositions for the Kairos 4tet. As I've moved on," she continues, "I've become less jazz-influenced. I listen to different types of music - at the moment, I'm into acoustic electronic music, and I've always liked folk music. I'm a real fan of Paul Simon."
Her new CD (due for launch in Autumn 2011 and to be named And So It Goes) contains none of her original material, but is a wide mix of different types of music. "I always knew I wanted to be a singer," she says. Many jazz fans will drink to that.
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