Nico Widdowson, Tim Garland, Gwilym Simcock: Live with Watford Jazz Junction

Wednesday night brought a breathtaking, extraordinary night of unbridled jazz of which Watford Jazz Junction Music Festival should be proud.

Nico Widdowson with his trio

Programming is notoriously difficult for jazz festivals and the work done by the team at Watford Jazz Junction has proved that finding solutions is not just possible, but is also incredibly satisfying. Audiences enjoying more than one night of this year's music festival have experienced jazz of extraordinary variety and at an internationally high quality.

Wednesday was the highlight so far for me and is up there on my list of best gigs. 

Opening the show was Nico Widdowson (piano) with Joe MacLaren (bass) and Jordan Hatfield (drums). From the opening musical onslaught, this was an exciting and invigorating set. Widdowson proved why he won the Musicians' Company Tina May award in 2024 as musician of the year. Interestingly, Tim Garland (of whom more later) won the award in 1997.

Avant garde jazz can be difficult but this was easy in the best possible way. The energy passed from piano to audience and back again and the unbelievable lyricism of tracks with hints of everything from New Orleans stride to Gershwin made this much more than a support act. 

The highlight for me was Widdowson's Duke's Blues, which played tribute to Duke Ellington - this was music I want on repeat as one of the most staggeringly beautiful and emotional compositions I've ever heard. The influence of Ellington, Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk was clear right through the trio's performance and especially in the final solo piano piece, And Also Her Mother. So much more than a support act and a great warm-up for the appreciative audience.

Following an interval, comfort break and opportunity to tune the piano, the audience reassembled to enjoy an exceptional set from Tim Garland's sax with piano from Gwilym Simcock. Starting and finishing the set on soprano sax, Garland performed some tracks on tenor (including one where the resonance of the horn was used to activate the strings of the piano) and his mezzo-soprano - one of only 19 in the world.

Tim Garland and Gwilym Simcock

I very much enjoyed Simcock’s recent album with up and coming saxist Emma Rawicz (read my review here) and it was fascinating to hear him alongside the musical genius Tim Garland.

Garland is one of those musicians I've always known about but I don't think I've ever heard him play live. His Grammy-winning work with Chick Corea (yes, THAT Chick Corea) shows a level of composition, arrangement and performance that is almost unmatched among sax players. He writes music that shows a profound understanding of classical and jazz idioms in equal measure.

The whole set was a gentle conversation between Simcock and Garland, with each improvising and providing compositions, discussing what to play next from each other's repertoire. A lot of the tunes were taken from Garland's Moment of Departure project with international fine artist Esra Kizir Gokcen, as the saxist swapped effortlessly between soprano, tenor and the exciting and rarely-heard mezzo-soprano.

Tim Garland with his mezzo-soprano sax

Sometimes, all you can really write about a gig is "You had to be there" and that holds for Wednesday night at the Watford Pump House Theatre. If you couldn't join us, I urge you to find an opportunity to see this duo on a stage somewhere soon. If you prefer classical music, you'll still find something to love, and if jazz is really your thing, it doesn't get much better than this.