PHOTOS: Joe Locke/Gwilym Simcock Duo with Guest Tim Garland at the 606 Club

By ljazzn on 8 March 2018 • ( 1 Comment )

Soundchecking: Joe Locke and Gwilym Simcock
Photo credit and © All Rights Reserved
Monika S. Jakubowska

Sebastian writes:

This very well-attended gig at the 606 on 7 March 2018 was just the second outing on successive nights for a new duo of Gwilym Simcock and Joe Locke.

They had both been at the Ambleside Days festival last summer, and the two also have common threads through having played in bands with Tim Garland – Acoustic Triangle for Gwilym Simcock, Storms/Nocturnes for Joe Locke. So it was fitting that the saxophonist should appear with them for the second set as guest on tenor and (non-sax nerds look away) a new Semicurvo saxello made by Rampone & Cazzani.

Monika Jakubowska attended both the soundcheck and the gig and has captured the joy that both Simcock and Locke bring to their virtuoso music-making. It sets out to be a different kind of musical landscape to that of Chick Corea and Gary Burton, and what was interesting to me is how the two already play with such a strong affinity, wanting to go to many similar places. There is a common urge to produce singable melody and to leave space. They both have the imperative to play with unbelievable rapid-fire percussiveness, to go for the adrenalin thrill, (another thing these pictures capture so well!) where the listener can no longer hear which bit of the texture is coming from which player.

I loved the way that both musicians communicated the logic of a melodies in identical fashion, there never being a hair of difference in how they perceive every contour of a tune, even something inherently complex like Simcock’s Barber Blues. There is also the shared sense of unfolding a story as in a Locke tune dedicated to Bobby Hutcherson called Make Me Feel Like It’s Raining. And a modern standard, Mingus’ Nostalgia in Times Square – also with beautifully eloquent arabesques from Garland – had sass and urgency.

Another London date is planned for September. More details to follow.