Eddie Gripper Trio, Cheltenham Jazz Club, Victory Club Ballroom, Cheltenham, Glos. 15/06/2026

Eddie Gripper – piano, Clem Saynor – double bass, Patrick Barrett-Donlon – drums

Cotswold born, Cardiff based pianist and composer Eddie Gripper is currently undertaking an extensive tour of the UK in support of his second album “Americana”, which was first released in April 2026.

Gripper has been a regular presence on The Jazzmann web pages in recent years. A graduate of Cardiff University, where he studied with the great Huw Warren, he has appeared regularly at Brecon Jazz Club and also at Black Mountain Jazz, Abergavenny, where he was once a member of the house trio, The BMJ Collective.

He established himself on the wider UK jazz scene in 2023 with the release  of his album “Home”, a stunningly mature debut recorded in a trio format with bassist Ursula Harrison, a future BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year, and American born drummer  Isaac Zuckerman. It was a recording that attracted national attention and served notice that in addition to being a hugely talented pianist Gripper was also a highly accomplished composer. The album received universally favourable reviews and Gripper subsequently toured the music widely, accompanied by Harrison and drummer Patrick Barrett-Donlon, who stepped into the drum chair when Zuckerman returned to the States. My review of the album can be found below and I have also covered several of the trio’s live shows at a variety of different locations.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/eddie-gripper-home

Gripper has also established a successful songwriting partnership with vocalist Elijah Jeffery and the duo’s eponymous debut album, which placed the emphasis firmly on their own songwriting,  was released in 2025.

Here’s how I summarised that album at the time;
“In its own, very different way this album represents as impressive a debut as “Home”. Both Gripper and Jeffery shine in the exposed setting of the  piano / vocal duo. There is no additional instrumentation and no studio trickery, the songs and the performers are left to stand for themselves. It says much for the maturity of Jeffery and Gripper as both musicians and lyric writers that both do so very successfully. These are songs that convince both musically and lyrically, there is real  musical and emotional intelligence at work here”.

The full review can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/elijah-jeffery-eddie-gripper

As a member of the BMJ Collective Gripper  performed with visiting musicians such as vocalist Marvin Muoneke and saxophonists Alex Clarke and Dan Newberry. He has also worked extensively with vocalist Debs Hancock. He has has also collaborated with violinist / vocalist Angharad Rees.

Gripper has also performed with trumpeter Laura Jurd, saxophonists Simon Spillett, Pete Long and Iain Ballamy, guitarist Nigel Price and bassist Yuri Goloubev.

More recently Gripper has co-led a quartet with Alex Clarke, a follow on from the BMJ collaboration with Clarke and Newberry. The Gripper / Clarke quartet also features Barrett-Donlon on drums and Nick Kacal on bass.

The enterprising Gripper has also run regular sessions at various locations in Cheltenham with the house trio regularly joined by leading guest soloists, some of them coming up from London to play. In May 2025 I enjoyed a performance at the Suffolk Arms when Gripper was joined by saxophonist Dom Franks, a Cheltenham based musician with a national reputation. This was at the time of Cheltenham Jazz Festival but did not form part of the official programme. More recently Gripper has been hosting events at the Merryfellow in the Cheltenham district of Charlton Kings. His full gig diary can be found here;
https://edgripper.wordpress.com/live-and-touring/

The “Americana” album features a different trio to Gripper’s debut with Barrett-Donlon continuing in the drum chair after taking over from Zuckerman. Clem Saynor takes over on bass from the increasingly busy Ursula Harrison.

The music on the album was inspired by an epic six week hiking adventure that Gripper undertook in the summer of 2022 in the company of Henry (aka H), one of his closest childhood friends. The intrepid duo hitched 8000 km down the west coast of North America from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the most northerly town in the US, to Los Angeles. In the album notes Gripper describes himself as being “armed with a tent and a pad of manuscript paper”.

He continues;
“This album is a personal account of that six-week journey: living in motels, camping on roadsides, and catching lifts with people of every background imaginable. It’s a reflection on the American spirit – the warmth, optimism, and generosity of its people - but also a glimpse into a more fractured reality. Drugs, homelessness, and poverty are ever-present, and a kind of collective naivety seems to soften the awareness of these deeper issues. Over the course of the trip, I sketched more than thirty fragments of music - some full compositions, others just fleeting ideas. The pieces on this album capture snapshots of that experience: a broad yet honest reflection of my time in America.”

This evening’s show, performed over the course of two lengthy, value for money sets, saw the trio perform all seven pieces from the album in sequence, punctuated by a well chosen selection of standards, plus one original from the pen of Barrett-Donlon. Nothing was played from the “Home” album, perhaps in acknowledgement of the fact that the “Americana” line-up is a totally different band.

Things got under way with a standard, “On A Misty Night”, composed by Tadd Dameron. This featured fluent solos from both Gripper and Saynor as Barrett-Donlon gravitated between brushes and sticks as the dynamics of the music required. A sensitive, listening drummer he was rewarded for his patience in a series of exchanges with the other instrumentalists towards the close.

Barrett-Donlon leads his own quartet “Leading From The Back”, which focusses on material written by jazz drummers and bassists. He’s also a composer himself and his fast moving bebop flavoured original “The Hammer” was very well received by the Cheltenham Jazz Club audience. Introduced by the composer’s briskly brushed drums the opening sequence featured a lively series of piano and drum exchanges before Saynor’s rapid bass walk helped to fuel an exuberant piano solo from Gripper as Barrett-Donlon switched to sticks. Saynor was also featured as a soloist as Barrett-Donlon reverted to brushes, with the drummer then engaging in a further series of exchanges with Gripper.

The first tune from the “Americana” album was “Third Beach”, written in Vancouver.  According to Gripper’s album notes “this composition recalls a rare moment of calm after 4000 km of Alaskan and Canadian wilderness, marking our long awaited return to civilisation”. During the course of the evening Gripper talked in interesting and informative fashion about his adventures.
Given Gripper’s remarks about the piece the music was suitably pastoral and evocative and also highly melodic, incorporating fluent and unhurried solos from Gripper on the venue’s upright acoustic piano and Saynor on double bass. Barrett-Donlon’s delicate, sympathetic brush work was also a feature of the performance.

Staying with the album repertoire “So Long, Oregon” was dedicated to Isaac Zuckerman, the drummer on “Home”, who had returned to his native US after studying in Cardiff. Gripper had hoped that they would be able to meet up in Zuckerman’s home state of Oregon during the trip, but they missed our by “just twenty four hours, I’ve yet to say a proper goodbye”

Introduced by a passage of unaccompanied piano the music was suitably wistful, with Saynor’s bowed bass and Barrett-Donlon’s nuanced brushwork adding to the air of melancholy and regret. A plucked bass solo from Saynor led to a more forceful passage with Gripper soloing on piano and Barrett-Donlon switching to sticks. The conclusion of the piece saw the circle completed with Saynor again picking up the bow as Barrett-Donlon’s cymbals shimmered evocatively.

The pace picked up again with the standard “Up There”, written by bassist Ray Brown. This proved to be a lively piece, similar in feel to Barrett-Donlon’s “The Hammer”.. It incorporated a series of piano and drum exchanges in addition to a piano solo fuelled by Saynor’s rapid bass walk and Barrett-Donlon’s swinging drum rhythms, his ride cymbal positively sizzling. This rollicking rendition was climaxed by a series of sparky drum breaks and was vigorously applauded by an appreciative audience.

The trio returned to the album repertoire for “Dana”, named for the second highest mountain in Yosemite National Park, nearly 4000 m high. Gripper described the climb as “beautiful and terrifying in equal measure”. With its simple, folk like melody the emphasis seemed to be on the “beauty” rather than the fear, although the recurring piano motif did perhaps hint at the perseverance required to slog up such a formidable peak. A more impressionistic episode featuring the sounds of dampened piano strings was perhaps suggestive of the darker side of “one of those experiences that leaves you feeling impossibly small”.

The first set concluded with Saynor and Barrett-Donlon vacating the stage as Gripper played the beautiful and elegiac solo piano piece “One For The Road”, which also forms part of the “Americana” album repertoire. It’s a piece dedicated to the memory of Eddie’s grandfather, John Gripper, who died in 2022, and Henry’s father Bob, who passed away in 2019. Gripper spoke eloquently about all the pieces, both originals and standards, that the trio played this evening, but particularly so about this very personal composition. “We carried them with us for the duration of our journey”.

Set two also commenced with a standard, “I’ll Be Seeing You”, the imaginative arrangement incorporating solos from both Gripper and Saynor and with Barrett-Donlon enjoying a series of drum breaks towards the close.

From the album “Ocean’s Avenue” was named for a beachfront road in Santa Monica and was an upbeat offering celebrating “the freedom of that coastline”. It was a jaunty, upbeat piece with something of the feel of a jazz standard about it, perhaps not so surprising with Gripper citing the influence of Oscar Peterson on this particular tune. In addition to the soloing of the composer the performance was also notable for an extended solo drum feature from Barrett-Donlon.

Gripper sees his trio as being very much in the jazz and swing tradition and in addition to Peterson names Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett among his pianistic heroes. Less familiar to others, but equally influential for Gripper, is the late,  great Michel Petrucciani (1962-99), whose composition “It’s A Dance” was played next. Introduced by a passage of unaccompanied piano this was a beautiful ballad performance that incorporated lyrical solos from Saynor and Gripper and which saw Barrett-Donlon deploying brushes throughout.

In addition to honouring his piano heroes Gripper also paid tribute to the composers who gave us the ‘Great American Songbook’. From the musical “Oklahoma!” came Rogers & Hammerstein’s “Surrey With The Fringe on Top”, performed by the trio with great elan.  Gripper’s vivacious piano soloing was propelled by the fiercely swinging rhythms of his colleagues as these young lions put their own stamp on the piece, with Barrett-Donlon again featuring strongly.

Described by its composer as “a two part tune” “Terminus” was written at Los Angeles airport, where Eddie and Henry were stranded for twenty four hours at the end of their trip due to flight cancellations. Gripper expanded the analogy by stating that the tune was about “looking forward and looking back”. The lyrical introduction reflected on “the quiet melancholy of returning home” and featured Saynor’s melodic bass soloing, which involved occasional use of the bow. Gripper then took over at the piano, soloing quietly and thoughtfully at first but then more rhapsodic ally as Barrett-Donlon again moved from brushes to sticks.

The trio presented another side of Michel Petrucciani’s writing with a version of his composition “Hub Art”, which was recorded on a duo album with the late French organist and vocalist Eddy Louiss. This was a more swinging affair that featured fluent and expansive soloing from Gripper at the piano and the dexterous Saynor at the bass, with Barrett-Donlon featuring at the close.

The performance concluded in the same way as the album with the trio’s delightful interpretation of Paul Simon’s “American Tune”. Gripper has a great admiration for the work of singer songwriters such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Rufus Wainwright and his personal favourite Paul Simon. Simon’s song is based on the melody of the hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” and the trio’s sensitive interpretation, introduced solo by Gripper at the piano, felt suitably reverential, with Barrett-Donlon’s delicate brush work again a distinctive feature. The wistful quality that the trio brought to the tune seemed to reflect the tensions expressed in Simon’s lyrics, written in the early 1970s but still sounding scarily relevant to today’s America. “I saw incredible things and met extraordinary people”, Gripper has said, “but couldn’t shake the sense that, beneath its generous optimism, America remains deeply flawed”.

This was an excellent, value for money gig that featured an intriguing mix of originals and standards. Gripper’s own compositions exhibit a strong sense of melody and the mood of the “Americana” material was primarily lyrical and laid back with a pronounced narrative feel. Gripper’s articulate between tunes announcements also helped to put the work into context and conveyed a sense of place.

The trio’s obvious love of the jazz tradition and of the ‘Great American Songbook’ was expressed in their choice of standards, with these pieces containing some of their most vigorous, swinging playing. Barrett-Donlon’s effervescent original “The Hammer” also fed into this tradition.

This was practically a ‘home town gig’ for Gripper and several of his friends and family were in the audience, including his hitch hiking companion Henry, who I was able to talk to briefly, in addition to Eddie himself.

Numbers were slightly down on previous CJC events that I have attended but I suspect that this may have been a case of ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ with Eddie having performed in the town so often. Not that this in any way detracted from the quality of the music or the writing, both of which were excellent.

A worthy follow up to “Home” the “Americana” album is highly recommended.

My thanks to Spencer Evans and the Cheltenham Jazz Club for allowing me to cover this event.

The majority of the quotes are taken from the “Americana” album notes

 

 

blog comments powered by Disqus