Bryan Corbett’s Instrumental Groove Unit, Kidderminster Jazz Club, St. Ambroses’s Parish Centre, Kidderminster, Worcs., 04/09/2026.

Bryan Corbett –  trumpet, flugelhorn, Paul Deats – Fender Rhodes,  Wayne Matthews – fretted and fretless six string electric basses, Luke Harris – drums

Kidderminster Jazz Club’s 2026/27 season got off to a highly successful start with this visit from the Birmingham based trumpeter and composer Bryan Corbett and his latest project, the Instrumental Groove Unit, or IGU.

This is primarily an electric band with a stable line up featuring Paul Deats specialising on Fender Rhodes and associated effects and with Wayne Matthews on six string electric basses. The line up is completed by drummer Luke Harris, Corbett’s band mate in the Brand New Heavies touring ensemble.

Tonight was the third time that I’ve seen the IGU following previous performances at a Music Spoken Here event at the Marr’s Bar in Worcester in December 2024 and at the Corn Exchange in Ross on Wye in September 2025. Both of these events are reviewed elsewhere on this site.

I have been following Corbett’s career for a long time. He was born in Bromyard in my native county of Herefordshire and in his early days as a musician in the late 1990s and early 2000s he used to play regularly at the tiny Blue Note Café Bar in my home town of Leominster, often in a duo with pianist Levi French.

After moving to Birmingham Corbett quickly established himself on the wider Midlands jazz scene and has released several albums under his own name. In addition he has also found work as a respected session and touring musician. He has  performed as part of the touring bands of numerous rock and pop acts, among them Brand New Heavies,  Us3, McFly, Ben E King, Ella Eyre, Alisha Dixon and Tony Christie.  He also runs The Remote Horns, a kind of ‘virtual horn section for hire’.

Although never a particularly prolific composer Corbett has recorded fairly frequently, beginning in 1999 with “Funk in the Deep Freeze”. In 2000 “Simply Blue”, the title track a Corbett original honouring the Leominster Blue Note, was the first of a number of live albums recorded.in either a quartet or quintet format,  Others in the series include the double sets “Message of Iridescence” (2015) and the 1959 themed “The Hi-Fly Quintet” (2019).

The Hi-Fly Quintet recording honoured some of the great albums released in 1959, a real landmark year for jazz that gave us Miles Davis’ “Kind Of Blue”, Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out”, Charles Mingus’ “Ah Um” Ornette Coleman’s “The Shape of Jazz to Come”  and Horace Silver’s “Blowin’ The Blues Away” among others. The success of this project has led to Corbett presenting other similar themed ‘tributes’ such as Ready For Freddie, his homage to his all time trumpet hero Freddie Hubbard (1938-2008). This also yielded an album, subtitled “The Hub”.

Corbett has also toured with The Blue Note Session Band, which offers an evening of music associated with the label written by composers such as Hubbard, Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Grant Green, Wayne Shorter and others. Typically the group goes out as a quintet or sextet but promoters also have the option to add a vocal, electronic or even rap / hip hop option. 

The IGU is also different to Corbett’s ‘acoustic’ quartet in that the focus is almost exclusively on his own writing, but with a strong emphasis placed both on groove and improvisation. In a sense it represents a return to his experiments with electronics on his series of ‘nu jazz’ albums released in the early 2000s, namely “Corbenova” (2003), “Off The Cuff” (2005) and “Pressure Valve” (2006).

Still a relatively new project IGU has been running contemporaneously with Corbett’s collaboration with the producer Morgan Howell aka Soulpersona. The Corbett / Soulpersona duo draws on jazz, funk and soul and takes inspiration from Donald Byrd,  CTI era Freddie Hubbard, and the British musician and composer Alan Hawkshaw, the latter best known as a composer of TV, film and library music. To date the duo have released the full length albums “Magnetica” (2025) and “Aurora” (2026), plus the single “The Getaway”, also 2026.

The IGU has recently recorded its debut album, a “live in the studio” session intended to capture something of the spirit and energy of the group’s live performances. Bryan had hoped to have some physical copies of the album on sale at Kidderminster but the album is still in the course of being pressed. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too much longer until we’re able to enjoy IGU’s music on disc.

The quality of tonight’s show at a pleasingly well attended St. Ambrose’s more than made up for that disappointment. The fact that the IGU felt ready to make a record is evidence enough that the group considers its material to be fully ‘played in’, and again this was also amply demonstrated by the quality of tonight’s performance.

After having seen the quartet a couple of times before it was perhaps inevitable that the structure of tonight’s show should feel familiar to me. As usual the group opened with its ‘signature tune’ “IGU”, the “Intro” section featuring the sounds of the leader’s echoed trumpet, Deats’ spacey, ambient keys and Hill’s cymbal shimmers.
The second half of the tune saw Matthews and Harris combine to create a subtly propulsive funk groove as the pace of the music began to increase. Corbett’s statement of the main theme was followed by an extended Rhodes solo from Deats, who combines his role as a performing musician with that of being the co-proprietor of the celebrated Peggy’s Skylight jazz venue in Nottingham. Corbett followed on his unusual square belled trumpet, custom made for him by Taylor Trumpets, a Norwich based company with whom he has been associated throughout his career. Finally we heard from Matthews on one of his two six string electric basses, the sound of his instrument heavily treated via a range of effects pedals. Matthews also works as a jazz promoter, presenting the regular Bedford Street Jazz Jam Sessions in Leamington Spa.

Corbett moved to flugel, again a square bell model manufactured by Taylor, for “Expanse”, another Corbett original. The leader was keen to emphasise that 95% of the group’s material was original and that the emphasis was on deep grooves rather than conventional jazz swing. Harris proved himself to be a master of these rhythms, combining with Matthews to hold down the beat while giving the principal soloists, Corbett and Deats, plenty of room to stretch out. Deats responded with an increasingly feverish and inventive Rhodes solo as Harris nailed down the groove. Corbett’s flugel provided a neat link into Matthews’ electric bass solo, his sound almost guitar like at times and reminiscent of the great Steve Swallow.

Ushered in by the trio of keys, bass and drums “Rubicon” saw Corbett continuing on flugel, soloing fluently above a subtle funk groove. He was followed by the chiming sound of Deats at the Rhodes.

The final item of the first set was unannounced, and when I spoke to Bryan at half time even he couldn’t remember what he and the band has played! No matter, it certainly sounded good with Harris introducing the tune from the drums, joined first by trumpet and then by bass and Rhodes. Once a commendably funky groove had been established Corbett delivered the theme on trumpet and took the first solo, again making good use of echo effects – his judicious use of FX pedals is an integral component of the IGU sound. Deats followed at the keyboards as an excellent first set drew to a close.

The second half commenced with “Different Species”, a tune that has been in the group’s repertoire for some time. Ushered in by a lengthy passage featuring just bass and drums the piece saw Corbett stating the theme on trumpet before taking the first solo, stretching out fluently above the gathering groove. Deats then took over at the Rhodes, his soloing complemented by Matthews’ electric bass counter melodies, played out above Harris’ bustling drum groove.

Both “Different Species” and the following “Pushing Ya Buttons” have been played by Corbett’s acoustic jazz quartet, but both tunes were written for IGU and sound even better in this context. Corbett moved to flugel for “Pushing Ya Buttons”, which was again introduced by the combination of bass and drums, with Matthews deploying a slap bass technique that made use of his thumb. Corbett stated the theme and took the first solo, before eventually handing back to the bassist.

The only cover of the evening was a lengthy investigation of the Freddie Hubbard composition “Skagly”, the title track of a 1980 Hubbard album released by Columbia. Initially this featured more of an orthodox jazz / bebop feel but the rhythms eventually gravitated to a more overt funk groove with Corbett on trumpet deploying echo and other effects. The trumpeter shared the solos with Deats, with both musicians stretching out at considerable length. The performance was crowned by a neatly constructed drum feature from the excellent Harris that saw him deploying a wide variety of drum sounds.

The deserved encore was “Acolina”, a tune named after the Aloe Vera plant. A languid, lightly simmering bass and drum groove provided the platform for solos from Corbett on flugel and Deats on ‘Riders on the Storm’ style electric piano.

Of the three IGU performances that I’ve seen over the past couple of years this was probably the pick of the bunch. The Worcester show took place just before Christmas and was rather sparsely attended. The Ross event drew a bigger crowd but the lighting left something to be desired. The playing at both these shows was excellent but tonight’s was arguably even better, and this evening’s event also ticked the right boxes regarding sound (thanks John) and light, and also attracted a pleasingly large and supportive audience. As I said, a great start to Kidderminster Jazz Club’s new season.

I’m now looking forward to the release of IGU’s debut album, which should be well worth hearing when it makes its very imminent appearance.

blog comments powered by Disqus