There’s something of a resurgence in jazz harp at the moment.. On 7 May, Ben Creighton Griffiths brings his Cardiff-based ‘harp-led, electro-acoustic jazz fusion band’ Chube for its London debut at Pizza Express in Dean Street. Feature by Bruce Lindsay.

On a Zoom call from Cardiff, harpist Ben Creighton Griffiths spoke enthusiastically about Chube, his well-established group with bassist Ashley John Long and drummer Jon Bradford-Jones, which makes its London debut at the Pizza Express in May. It is, he says, “a hard-to-define outfit,” with an eclectic set list that offers audiences the chance to hear music from a range of genres reinterpreted for jazz harp, bass and drums.

Creighton Griffiths started playing harp when he was four: “From an early age I was influenced by more alternative styles of music for the harp, the jazzier pieces on the syllabus. However, I pursued a classical approach to playing so as a child I studied the classical repertoire extensively and entered lots of competitions. I won the junior division of the Lily Laskine competition in Paris, which is a big international harp competition. The prize was a harp. That’s what I was doing through my youth. From the age of six I took jazz piano lessons with an excellent tutor, Julian Martin, learning improvisation. Occasionally I’d take my harp along to a jazz lesson and try to improvise on it.”

Growing up in Wales, he played Welsh traditional tunes, but he doesn’t spend too much time in that musical world: “When I started playing I used a small lever harp before moving on to the pedal harp but I’ve never done too much on the triple harp, the official harp of Wales. It’s another skill entirely.” The pedal harp is his main instrument: “When I was seventeen or eighteen I decided to go straight into the professional musical world rather than study at college, so I started performing, focussing on jazz and other styles. I’ve been doing that for around ten years now.”

Creighton Griffiths maintains a busy classical schedule, playing with orchestras, but he’s focussed on three main projects: Chube; the Gypsy jazz and French swing Transatlantic Hot Club; and planning performances of his jazz harp and symphony orchestra concerto, written in 2022. He runs the Transatlantic Hot Club with his friend, Adrien Chevalier, a violinist from Avignon now living in New York. They perform as a duo but are often joined on stage by a variety of singers and instrumentalists. “We met at a Caribbean harp festival in 2013,” he explains, “We do three or four tours a year. This year we have a two-week tour of the UK, including a gig at Crazy Coqs with Irene Serra on vocals on 17 April. We’re in Corsica for ten days before that, then I go to the States for a tour in June.”

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Creighton Griffiths’ main jazz instrument is a custom Camac Harps Jubilé model, built to celebrate their 50^th anniversary: “They kindly made a special version for me and I’ve been using it for about a year. It’s an electro-acoustic, extremely easy to amplify. I can add effects pedals, you can do anything with it that you can do with a keyboard or an electric guitar.” In the Transatlantic Hot Club, he usually plays acoustically, but in Chube he uses effects, aiming to have the harp not sounding like a harp: “That’s my goal with it, I want that different soundscape.” However, his classical playing technique remains crucial: “I always use my classical technique. How I sit at the harp, how I play, my hand position, I’m strict about never losing that technique because it allows you to play in the best way.”

Creighton Griffiths often describes Chube as ‘unmarketable’. “Not in a bad way! Chube explores different musical styles. You’ll hear everything from a Led Zeppelin cover to acoustic versions of pop songs, to our own originals.” The trio plays rock, heavy metal, Herbie Hancock-style funk, and hip-hop (a melodic take on Outkast’s “Hey Ya). “It really varies, partly because I want to show off the instrument across all these different genres. This makes it hard to describe Chube but audiences have been very receptive, because there’s something there for everyone. Of all my work, it’s the band that most reflects my wide taste in music. As a result, Chube has played a variety of different venues and festivals, rock bars, a prog rock series, more poppy venues, jazz clubs. Maybe ‘jazz-world-fusion’ is the most accurate description for the band, but I try not to label it too often.”

Unlike the Transatlantic Hot Club, Chube has not yet performed with a vocalist, but Creighton Griffiths is keen on collaboration: “One of my favourite albums is Snarky Puppy’s Family Dinner Volume One, with a different vocalist on each track. I’ve always wanted to do something like that and of all my projects Chube would be the best to do that with. We collaborated with Dennis Rollins a few years ago, playing our music and some Velocity Trio pieces. That was a lot of fun. I’m a big believer in combining musical forces.”

There’s something of a resurgence in jazz harp at the moment, which Creighton Griffiths attributes to two factors: “Firstly, in my lifetime there’s been a massive explosion in access to music because of streaming, which allows people with diverse musical tastes to become more open to different styles. Also, I think younger audiences are developing broader tastes. When it comes to the harp’s increased popularity, maybe it’s because harpists are becoming more adventurous, maybe venues and promoters are looking for something different, too. More harpists are pursuing new musical genres, showing off the harp’s adaptability — it’s not just the Alice Coltrane approach, it can fit so many styles. So maybe other musicians are thinking about bringing the harp into their own music, which is great.”

As for the future of Chube, Creighton Griffiths says his goal “is to take it wherever I can. So I’m thrilled to have our London debut at the Pizza Express.” He ends our chat with an invitation: “If anyone reading this has a venue or festival and they’d like to book an unmarketable, harp-led, electro-acoustic jazz fusion band, then I’m very easy to contact.”

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Chube play the Pizza Express, Soho, on 7 May 2024.

LINKS : Ben Creighton Griffiths’s website
Bookings for 7 May