BMJ Collective with guest Nigel Price, Black Mountain Jazz, Melville, Centre, Abergavenny, 12/10/2025

Jack Mac (Jack McDougall) – tenor & soprano sax, Nick Kacal – double bass. Ryan Thrupp – drums
with Nigel Price - guitar

PROLOGUE

BMJ Collective is essentially the house band of Black Mountain Jazz.  Originally formed in 2021 for that year’s ‘hybrid’ Wall2Wall Jazz Festival the line-up has undergone a number of personnel changes and currently features founder member Jack Mac on reeds and occasional vocals, together with Nick Kacal on double bass and Ryan Thrupp at the drums.

Mac, Kacal and Thrupp also act as tutors at the BMJazzKatz sessions which bring young people  together for regular jazz sessions at the Melville Centre, with the intention of forming a youth big band. Mac is heading the programme and the Katz, together with their tutors, have already made three public performances, two of which have been covered elsewhere on this site.

The idea of the tutors then performing for the public in the evening following the Sunday afternoon sessions is not only for ticket sales to contribute towards the teaching costs, but also for the students to see their tutors performing at their best and embodying the JazzKatz motto of “work, play, inspire”.

As these BMJ Collective gigs have now become regular events it is intended that a different guest musician will be invited to perform with the group each time. To date the ‘BMJ Collective With’ series has featured vocalist Sarah Meek, pianists Alex Hutton, Ross Hicks Michael Blanchfield, Tom Berge. Dom Pipkin and Anders Olinder, trumpeter Gethin Liddington and guitarists Chris Cobbson, Denny Ilett and John Close  Founding member Alex Goodyear also returned for a guest appearance at the drum kit, temporarily replacing Ryan Thrupp. All of these performances have been hugely enjoyable events and each has been reviewed elsewhere on The Jazzmann.

Every performance in the series has included an interesting selection of material sourced from the jazz canon and beyond, the majority of it chosen, or written, by the guest performer. All of the gigs have exceeded my expectations, representing far more than the usual obligatory or perfunctory ‘house trio with guest soloist’ session.   As I have previously observed,  “this is a series of events that continues to punch well above its weight”.

BMJ COLLECTIVE with NIGEL PRICE

Tonight’s performance saw the welcome return of the ‘BMJ Collective With..’ series following an extended summer break occasioned by the school summer holidays and the recent Wall2Wall Jazz Festival, a hugely successful event that is reviewed elsewhere on these web pages.

For their first show of the new season the BMJ Collective’s invited guest was Nigel Price, guitarist, composer,  promoter, recording artist and all round force for good for British jazz.

Arguably the hardest working jazz musician in the country Price tours relentlessly as well as championing UK jazz as a whole, and particularly grass-roots venues. An outspoken campaigner on behalf of the music he’s lobbied politicians in support of the industry and as a promoter instigated the revival of Swanage Jazz Festival.

Price is currently touring the UK with his Organ Trio featuring Ross Stanley (Hammond) and Joel Barford (drums) in support of the Trio’s recently released album “It’s On”.

He’s released fourteen albums as a leader or co-leader and has appeared on more than fifty others in his role as a prolific sideman and session musician.

Given Price’s formidable work ethic it’s perhaps not surprising that I’ve seen him perform live on numerous previous occasions at club and festival dates in Brecon, Abergavenny, Lichfield and Shrewsbury. Guest contributor Trevor Bannister has also reviewed shows by Price in Reading and Guildford, the last named of these a livestream event in May 2021. 

Price just loves to play and tonight’s event saw him punctuating his Organ Trio tour, which extends into December 2025, to perform with the BMJ Collective. Price and Nick Kacal are old associates from Kacal’s London days and Mac had once played with Price at Swansea Jazz Club but tonight was the first time that Price had met Ryan Thrupp. Nevertheless the shared language of jazz saw tonight’s one off ensemble quickly gelling together to deliver an excellent performance that delighted the Abergavenny audience.

The programme featured a mix of jazz standards and Price originals and commenced with the Price composition “Sweet”, a contrafact based upon the chord sequence of the Stanley Turrentine tune “Sugar”. Ushered in by the composer’s guitar and featuring Mac’s theme statement on tenor sax this piece saw Price taking the first solo, featuring a clean, orthodox jazz guitar sound, rooted in bebop and totally eschewing the use of effects pedals. Mac followed with a slow burning tenor sax solo, gradually and skilfully ramping up the tension. The always excellent Kacal followed on double bass, prior to an engaging series of guitar and tenor sax exchanges on the outro.

Mac switched to soprano sax for the next item, an unusual all instrumental arrangement of the Blossom Dearie song “Sweet Georgie Fame”. Mac stated the tricky theme before Price again took the first solo, an excursion notable for its sophisticated chording and nimble single note runs. Mac followed on soprano, an extended, subtly probing solo that again increased the momentum of the music. Thrupp switched from sticks to brushes to accompany Kacal’s bass solo before Mac reprised the theme towards the close.

Mac continued on soprano for the Antonio Carlos Jobim song “Triste”, a bossa nova that featured solos from Mac and Price and which again saw Thrupp gravitating between brushes and sticks as the music required. He was rewarded towards the close with a drum feature that saw him circumnavigating his kit, supported by Price’s equally impressive guitar comping.

Price’s main influence on the guitar is the late, great Wes Montgomery (1923-68), although he has also cited Joe Pass, Jimmy Raney, Pat Martino and even John McLaughlin as other sources of inspiration. Price’s 2021 album “Wes Re-Imagined” saw him putting his own slant on some classic Montgomery material, including a re-imagining of “So Do It!”, a normally up-tempo swinging tune recast as a “down tempo bolero”. It was this beguiling version we heard tonight with Mac still on soprano sharing the solos with Price, elegant and unhurried on guitar, and Kacal, highly melodic on double bass. Thrupp deployed a variety of devices, including brushes, sticks, mallets, and even bare hands to underscore Kacal’s bass solo.

The quartet raised the energy levels once more as they concluded the first set with “Bitter Suite”, a blues written by the bassist Sam Jones (1924-81), perhaps best known for his two stints with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in the 1950s/60s. Guitar and tenor sax combined on a unison intro augmented by Thrupp’s deft cymbal work. Bebop inspired melodies combined with propulsive grooves to fuel solos from Mac, Price and Kacal, plus a series of sparky drum breaks from Thrupp as he ‘traded fours’ with Price and Mac. A lively end to the first half, which sent the audience into the break in a happy mood.

One got the impression that Price was still getting the measure of his new colleagues during the first half and the playing occasionally felt a little too ‘polite’  at times. The second set seemed to go up a gear, the playing more forceful and uninhibited. During their many performances together Mac, Kacal and Thrupp have gelled into a very cohesive unit and Price seemed to have sensed this and was more than happy to get on board.

The second set kicked off with “Invitation”, a tune by Bronislaw Kaper. Introduced by Price at the guitar this incorporated solos from Mac on soprano and Price on guitar, plus a drum feature from Thrupp.

The Price original “Hey, Shirley” appeared on the 2023 Organ Trio album “That’s It. Right There” and is a dedication to the US jazz organist and composer Shirley Scott (1934-2002), who was at one time married to saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, a neat link to the opening number of the first set. Rather unusually Kacal took the first solo here, an extended bass excursion underscored by Price’s comping. Further solos from Mac on tenor and Price on guitar followed,  both producing their most impassioned playing thus far. Thrupp’s dynamic drumming was an important factor here and he also enjoyed his own feature towards the close. A definite set highlight this performance certainly whetted my appetite for seeing the Organ Trio when the tour comes to Kidderminster Jazz Club on 7th November 2025.

After tearing it up on “Hey, Shirley” the quartet cooled things down again with an elegant reading of the ballad “My One And Only Love”. This commenced with an extended passage of unaccompanied guitar and included delightfully melodic solos from Price on guitar, Mac on tenor sax and Kacal on double bass, who also briefly flourished the bow at the close. Thrupp gave a commendably sensitive performance behind the kit, deploying brushes almost throughout.

A second Wes Montgomery followed, “Four on Six”,, based on the chords of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”, as Price informed us.  Introduced by the trio of guitar, bass and drums this included solos from Mac on tenor and Price on guitar,  this incorporating an unaccompanied passage that represented a perfect example of the guitarist’s undisputed virtuosity. A dialogue between Kacal’s bass and Thrupp’s drums then evolved into a full on drum feature for the latter.

Once again the set ended with a blues, in this instance “Sandu”, a composition by the late, great trumpeter Clifford Brown (1930-56). Mac set the scene with a raunchy, r & b influenced tenor sax solo, followed by cooler excursions from Price and double bass virtuoso Kacal. A rousing conclusion then saw Thrupp trading fours with Mac and Price.

The audience loved this and the inevitable encore was “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, a song that is also part of the repertoire of the Organ Trio. This was ushered in by the combination of guitar and soprano sax, with bass subsequently added, quickly followed by drums. Solos came from Mac on soprano, Price on guitar and Kacal on double bass, followed by a series of soprano sax and guitar exchanges on the outro.

This was a performance that maintained the unexpectedly high standards that have come to define the ‘BMJ Collective With’ series. Price, occasionally assisted by Mac, presented the show with his usual dry wit and was both humorous and informative. The playing was excellent throughout, a little tentative in the first half but much more fiery after the break. It was a performance that was greatly enjoyed by an appreciative Abergavenny audience and also by the musicians themselves. Price was particularly effusive in his praise for his new bandmates, both on the night and later online.

And not more than twelve hours later he was back on stage at a Monday lunchtime session at the Spice of Life in Soho, London, and in his own words “feeling as fresh as a daisy”. I don’t know how he does it – but I’m glad that he does.

 

 

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