Gary Potter Trio

The Hatch, Lindridge, Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire.

09/06/2011

Ben Salmon, proprietor of The Hatch recording studio deep in the heart of the Worcestershire countryside has been hosting live music events across a variety of genres for the past year or so. Reviews of the very different double bills featuring Deborah Hodgson/Kenny White and Ruth Angell/Louise Parker can be found elsewhere on this site. I also attended a hugely enjoyable event featuring the duo of guitarist/vocalist James Hickman and fiddler Dan Cassidy.

Until now events have been held in the house itself, essentially in the Salmon family’s front room. Tonight’s performance was the first to be held just across the yard in the studio’s “live room”. Ben had recruited a big name to launch the new performance space, the hugely talented and much respected guitarist Gary Potter, arguably Britain’s greatest gypsy jazz guitarist and also an acclaimed musician in the very different world of country music.

For this appearance Potter was teamed in a one off trio with a couple of local heroes, guitarist Remi Harris and double bassist Tom Moore. Harris was briefly one of Potter’s students but this was the first time that Potter and Moore had played together. Harris, from nearby Bromyard, is a highly talented guitarist who has already established a good reputation on the local live music circuit with his trio featuring Ben Salmon on rhythm guitar and either Moore or Del Strodder on bass. A national tour last year with Dan Cassidy’s Swing Quartet brought him to the attention of a wider audience and his trio’s appearance at the 2010 Brecon Jazz Festival Fringe earned him some favourable coverage in Jazzwise magazine. Moore is a student at Birmingham Conservatoire’s jazz course and is clearly a young musician with bags of potential.

Around sixty or so audience members squeezed into the live room for the trio’s performance. Every nook and cranny was utilised and it was standing room only at the back. It was as if The Vortex had been uprooted and plonked down in the middle of the Worcestershire countryside. Such was the enthusiasm of the audience that they even applauded the sound check, a stop start run through of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love”. Even when the concert started for real the newness of the trio led to a good natured, informal atmosphere with much discussion among the trio members between numbers and plenty of Potter’s peppery Scouse wit. It was like being invited to sit in on a particularly high class rehearsal cum jam session.

The bulk of the material was comprised of material directly associated with Django Reinhardt or jazz standards done in his style. There was no formal set list, this really was “make it up as you go along” territory but nobody seemed to mind and in the second half in particular Potter was more than happy to take requests.

Most of the tunes in the first half featured the same format with Potter leading the tune in and taking the first solo, Harris taking over for the second, with Potter resuming for the final solo and the outro. Moore largely kept a low profile and concentrated on his rhythmic duties, only taking a couple of solos during the course of the first set. Potter quickly revealed himself to be a brilliant soloist with an audacious technique combining dazzling single note runs, string bending vibrato and much more. He seemed to cover every inch of the guitar. Sometimes finger picking, at others playing with a plectrum his style was mesmerising and it was easy to see why he is so revered by other guitarists.  Humour is a big part of his playing too and he sprinkled his solos with quotes, among them the theme tunes to James Bond and Star Trek plus the Woody Woodpecker song. At times I even thought I heard a hint of country, but that may have been received knowledge affecting my thought processes.

Harris, Potter’s former protégé,  is also a supremely fluent soloist with chops to burn. A modest, unassuming sort of guy he frequently upstages other local performers almost by accident, there’s no intention there, just sheer natural talent. Performing with bigger names, like Cassidy and Potter, also brings out the best in him and as the evening wore on he just got better and better. Potter, obviously impressed, had clearly had a word with his colleagues during the break and the lengthy second half was even better with Potter giving his younger band mates much more of a free rein after the interval. Moore was given much more solo space, which he utilised to good effect, and Potter and Harris began to trade ideas, licks and phrases with Harris also leading off some of the numbers. If the first half had been about feeling each other out then the second was more about real dialogue and musical spontaneity. It was clearly a musical conversation that was deeply satisfying to all three musicians and the tunes just kept on coming, there must have been between fifteen and twenty in the second half alone and an enthusiastic audience still called them back for an encore. Like many of the previous performances at The Hatch there was a feeling that this had been a real “event” and eventually a well satisfied audience departed happy. Potter, Harris and Moore had given excellent value for money and even after allowing for the break must have put in a good two hours worth of playing. The music was being recorded by Ben but I doubt if there’s likely to be any official release (although that would be nice).

The trio played too many tunes to recall fully but for the record these are the ones I recognised and remembered;

SET ONE; “All Of Me”, “Nuages”, “Avalon”, “Minor Blues” “Dark Eyes” “Limehouse Blues” (request), a slow and languid “Django’s Castle”, “Sweet Sue” and numerous others.

SET TWO; “Deuces Ambiances”, “Tiger Rag” (request), St. Louis Blues” “Djangology” “Move” (based on the chords of “Lady Be Good”), “Minor Swing”, Melancholy Baby”, “Honeysuckle Rose” (request), “Misty”, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love”, “Django’s Tiger”, “Stardust”, “I’ve Found A New Baby”, Sweet Georgia Brown” and maybe one or two others.

ENCORE; “Putting On The Ritz”.

When I told my non jazz friends who I was going to see all I got was a load of lame Harry Potter jokes. But Gary Potter’s magic fingers make him an undisputed wizard of the fretboard. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.

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