Nigel Price Organ Trio, Kidderminster Jazz Club, St. Ambrose Parish Centre, Kidderminster, Worcs. 07/11/2025

Nigel Price – guitar, Dave Ferris – organ, Joel Barford – drums

As Nigel Price took to the stage in front of a pleasingly large audience at St. Ambrose he informed us that this was his first ever visit to Kidderminster. I was more than a little surprised to hear that, I was convinced that the musician they call ‘the hardest working man in jazz’ must have played at every single jazz club in the country!

Price and an excellent trio featuring organist Dave Ferris and drummer Joel Barford certainly made up for lost time with a storming couple of sets playing music from Price’s recently released Organ Trio album “It’s On!”, plus a selection of other tunes from his extensive back catalogue, which now numbers fourteen albums as a leader or co-leader, several of them in the organ trio format.

The Kidderminster gig was just one of a mammoth forty six date tour that will cover just about every corner of the UK. Price’s work ethic is phenomenal, and not just in respect of his own music.  He’s a tireless champion of 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.

I recently reviewed a performance by Price with the BMJ Collective, the house trio of the Black Mountain Jazz Club in Abergavenny. This was in the middle of the Organ Trio tour and Price relished the opportunity of doing something different with a group of musicians who were largely unknown to him. He was already familiar with bassist Nick Kacal but it was the first time that he had worked with saxophonist Jack McDougall (aka Jack Mac) and drummer Ryan Thrupp. My account of that very successful and enjoyable performance can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/bmj-collective-with-guest-nigel-price-black-mountain-jazz-melville-centre-abergavenny-12-10-2025

The “It’s On!” album features Price’s regular Organ Trio featuring Barford at the drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond organ. Also a highly accomplished pianist Stanley is one of the most in demand musicians in the country and was unavailable for tonight’s show. Stepping in expertly was Dave Ferris, a graduate of the Jazz Course at Birmingham Conservatoire who has been based in London for the last five years. Also an accomplished pianist Ferris is a bandleader in his own right with two album releases under his own name.

Described by Price as “the most exciting young drummer in Britain” Barford is something of a rising star who has played with a wide variety of artists across a broad range of musical genres. The Price trio is one of his primary jazz engagements and he’s also a member of the current edition of saxophonist Trish Clowes’ My Iris group.

Price is also a composer and six of the nine pieces on “It’s On!” are the guitarist’s originals. Many of his pieces are contrafacts, with a new melody written over the chord sequence of a previous composition from the jazz repertoire. A case in point was the opening number, “Sweet”, a Price composition based on the Stanley Turrentine tune “Sugar”. This piece was also performed in a different instrumental format at Abergavenny. Tonight Price stated the theme and took the first solo, followed by Ferris at his Crumar organ with Nord pedal-board and Leslie speaker.  Ferris also played the bass lines on the bass pedals, combining with Barford to give the music a profound sense of swing. After being lauded so effusively by Price it came as no surprise that Barford was also afforded his own dynamic drum feature.

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. Price informed us that Scott had learned her skills in church and cited the gospel influence in her playing and the fact that her sound was more “nice and chilled” than that of her male Hammond playing counterparts. Ferris took the first solo here, followed by Price and with Barford enjoying another drum feature towards the close.

Price favours a clean, classic jazz guitar sound played on an arch-top and eschewing the use of foot pedals and other effects. An extended unaccompanied guitar intro ushered in a blues infused instrumental arrangement of “God Bless The Child”, a song made famous by Billie Holiday. Organ and brushed drums were subsequently added with Price delivering a more orthodox jazz solo, followed by Ferris at the keys. Following a second passage of unaccompanied the music began to gather momentum with Barford moving from brushes to sticks.

The first set concluded with two Price originals from the “It’s On!” album. First we heard “Chonky”, a tune title derived from a word used by Price’s young daughter to describe the family’s overweight Siamese cat, Nora, whose photo appears on the album cover. But “Chonky” also proved to be descriptive of the music as a choppy funk groove helped to fuel the soloing of Price on guitar and Ferris on wailing organ. Barford began and ended the piece, ushering it in at the drums and crowning it with a typically dynamic feature at the close. Not surprisingly this item proved to be a real audience favourite.

This was followed by “Backatcha”, a tune inspired by George Benson’s “Mynah Bird Blues” from Benson’s 1966 album “It’s Uptown”. Price was looking for a similar feel and structured his own tune in a similar way. Again the performance was ushered in by Barford at the drums and developed into a fast moving piece that retained something of the funk element that “Chonky” had introduced. Solos here came from Price and Ferris, both propelled by Barford’s crisp drumming. Barford was then featured in a series of exchanges with Price and Ferris as the first half finished on a lively and enjoyable note.

At the start of the second set Price expressed his admiration for the playing of the great Kenny Burrell, who is still with us at the age of ninety four, although not now musically active. The Jule Styne /  Adolph Green /  Betty Comden song “Make Someone Happy” appeared on Burrell’s 1972 album “’Round Midnight” and has been revived by the Price trio on “It’s On!”. Price also recalled the American comedian Jimmy Durante singing the song, a recollection wasted on his younger bandmates but all too familiar to most of the audience! An unaccompanied guitar intro led to further solos from Price and Ferris plus a series of exchanges between these two and Barford.  The piece was topped and tailed by a solo guitar coda.

Next came the Price composition “Stealing Time”, a contrafact based on the Kurt Weill tune “Speak Low”, Price taking his title from the “time is a thief” line in the lyrics. This was a faster moving piece played in a broadly bebop style with dazzling solos from both Price and Ferris, arguably the organist’s best of the night thus far. A word too for Price’s expert comping during Ferris’ keyboard excursions. Once again “the most exciting young drummer in Britain” was featured towards the close, serving further notice of his undoubted talents.

This set’s ballad feature was the rarely heard Henry Mancini composition “Dreamsville”, which saw Barford deploying brushes throughout and demonstrating that he can be sensitive as well as dynamic. Price and Ferris also demonstrated a more lyrical side to their playing on this unexpected highlight.

Although he’s rooted in bebop the blues is never far away in Price’s playing. This was evidenced by the Price original “Booze Blooze”, written the on day after a beer festival. This was a proper blues with barnstorming solos from Ferris and Price, the leader’s feature including a stunningly virtuosic unaccompanied guitar section. The final trio section was positively scorching, culminating in a series of effervescent exchanges between Barford and the other two instrumentalists.

The trio had really stretched things out in this second set and their superb playing elicited an enthusiastic reaction from the Kidderminster crowd. The deserved encore was a version of “It Ain’t Necessarily So”, a tune that had also featured as an encore at Abergavenny. Played as a kind of shuffle this was a very different interpretation and featured solos from Price and Ferris plus the almost inevitable Barford drum feature. The performance ended with a reprise of the main theme followed by a series of variations.

Overall this was an excellent performance from the Nigel Price Organ Trio, maybe a little tentative on the first two numbers as Ferris settled in, although it’s not the first time he’s ‘depped’ with the group. It was the funky “Chonky” that really ignited the blue touch paper and from that moment on the trio never looked back as they delivered some scintillating playing, both individually and collectively.

My thanks to Nigel, Dave and Joel for speaking with me after the show. It was good to catch up with Dave Ferris again, a musician who I saw perform on several occasions during his days in Birmingham.

Next up for Nigel Price is a series of dates in Scotland with the trio augmented by the Canadian guitarist Lorne Lofsky.

For details of future live dates and to purchase Nigel Price’s recordings please visit his website at;
http://www.nigethejazzer.com

 

 

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