Jim Watson

“Calling You Home”

(Jim Watson Recordings – JWR01CD)

Jim Watson – piano

Keyboard player Jim Watson is one of the great unsung heroes of the UK music scene, equally in demand as a pianist and an organist he has played with many leading names across a wide of array of music. He is a musician with an international reputation who has worked with artists from all over the globe.

His jazz credentials include collaborations with drummer Manu Katche,  saxophonists Tommaso Starace and Chris Bowden, guitarists Jim Mullen, Nigel Price and Billy Jenkins, trumpeter and bandleader Guy Barker and the band Partisans.

A prolific session and touring musician he has also worked with Paloma Faith, Katie Melua, Kurt Elling, Van Morrison, Sting, Chrissie Hynde, Richard Bona, Meshell Ndegeocello, Seal, Lalo Schifrin, Cat Stevens and Jill Scott.

Watson is a graduate of Leeds College of Music and of London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama. His previous solo recordings include “The Loop”, a piano trio album from 2005 recorded with the assistance of bassist Orlando Le Fleming and drummer Tristan Maillot.

In 2008 he released “Rodeo Dancers”, an electronica album featuring Watson on various synths and other keyboards. This release is still available in a digital format on Bandcamp.
https://jimwatson.bandcamp.com/album/rodeo-dancers

For “Calling You Home” Watson has returned to his roots with a solo piano recording. “It’s how I began playing as a child – how we all start,” explains Watson. “I just wanted to go in and do something that felt easy and natural – a return to where it all started, the place I feel most happy.”

The programme features a mix of six Watson originals plus three interpretations of jazz standards and remarkable adaptations of Paul Simon’s “Old Friends” and The Band song “The Weight”.
“I locked myself in the studio and wrote six tunes in six days!” says Watson. He describes the other material as “some of my favourite pop tunes from across the ages”.

Album opener “Midge” is named for Watson’s pet dog and is an original composition that combines a rolling groove with a folkish melody.  It’s a piece that suggests ‘the great outdoors’ and one senses Watson’s affection for the family pet that gives the composition its title.

A second original, “Terzetto”, is a finely crafted jazz waltz and represents another excellent example of combining melody with rhythm. Whilst Watson acknowledges the influence of a broad range of fellow pianists including Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans,  Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Dr John, Wynton Kelly, Kenny Kirkland and John Taylor (he studied with the latter during his Guildhall days) he has also established his own style on the piano, fusing complex rhythmic patterns with accessible melodies.

The first standard to be addressed is “The Nearness of You”, a 1938 song by composer Hoagy Carmichael and lyricist Ned Washington. Watson treats the piece with due reverence during the course of a delightful ballad style arrangement. Less rhythmically complex than the opening two originals it’s a thoughtful and often beautiful interpretation of a much loved song.

The title track was named by Watson’s wife and is an original composition with a gospel style arrangement inspired by the great South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim, an artist that Watson names as a particularly significant influence. It’s a piece that Watson has described as “a musical homecoming” and the rolling rhythms and gospel style phrasing are both suggestive of Ibrahim’s influence. But there’s no denying that this is both a beautiful composition and a beautiful performance, something that Ibrahim himself would be proud of.

Another original, “Tetrad”, marks a return to the rhythmic inventiveness of the first two pieces, an intricate but accessible piece that presents another beguiling blend of rhythm and melody.

Two of Watson’s favourite ‘pop tunes’ follow, beginning with his arrangement of Paul Simon’s “Old Friends”. It’s a delightfully sympathetic and unhurried interpretation, with Watson’s thoughtful and lyrical playing capturing something of both the naivety and the melancholy of Simon’s lyrics.

Next up is “The Weight”, a song by The Band composed by that group’s guitarist Robbie Robertson. Watson was introduced to the music of The Band by his father via a VHS copy of “The Last Waltz”, Martin Scorcese’s celebrated documentary film about The Band’s last concert. Watson’s left hand bass line helps to give the music a gospel tinge that fits the song well, with the familiar melody emerging over the top and subsequently providing the springboard for further improvised invention. All the while Watson’s love for his source material is very much in evidence.

One of the most venerable jazz standards of all, “Body and Soul”, is treated with due deference and reverence with Watson playing the piece relatively straight-ahead and with considerable emotion. In an interview with John Fordham for the UK Jazz News website he explained;
 “I just tried to go in and play it as freshly as I could, and let that great melody sing through.  I also didn’t want to do big long versions full of improvising, I just wanted to put some improvisation around the melody a couple of times, and then finish.”

“It’s an approach that he also brings to another much loved jazz classic, Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight”, as he again told Fordham;
“I knew I didn’t want to do any kind of stylistic copy of what Monk might do, and I didn’t have any kind of preconceived idea”.
Like “Body and Soul” it’s beautiful performance that very much captures the essence of the piece, but without aping the original. 

“Body and Soul” and “Round Midnight” are punctuated by Watson’s own “The Vow”, a lyrical composition that celebrates his marriage. It’s played in much the same style to those two classics and with the way these three tracks are scheduled on the album it’s very tempting to think of them as some kind of trilogy.

There’s a change of mood and pace with the penultimate track, Watson’s own “Darkstar Sky”, a more angular and rhythmically complex composition that sees Watson delivering one of his most intense performances. There’s a welcome sense of urgency about a piece that follows those three admittedly beautiful ballad performances.

The album concludes with Watson’s arrangement of the much covered Rodgers and Hart song “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”. It’s another respectful interpretation, but one that throws in an unexpected nod to the stride piano style that was a significant influence on the young Watson.

The long overdue “Calling You Home” is an excellent portrait of Watson the pianist, a versatile musician capable of playing in a variety of jazz styles. His love for the jazz tradition is expressed via a series of admirably varied original compositions and a well chosen selection of outside material. In addition to playing a number of well loved jazz standards he also nods to his career as a session musician with his jazz interpretations of the Paul Simon and Robbie Robertson songs.

It all makes for entertaining and accessible listening, although some commentators have suggested that the album is too ‘safe’ and ‘middle of the road’. However this is probably a bit harsh, creating a cutting edge pianistic tour de force is not Watson’s business here. It’s an unpretentious album that mixes some of his favourite jazz and pop / rock tunes with an impressive set of original compositions. The performances are relaxed, intimate, respectful when required, and above all skilful. Taken for what it is, and what it aspires to be, it’s a successful and very enjoyable album.

 

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