The Jazz scene, to an outsider can sometimes seem a little off-putting, sometimes the name alone can scare people off. This is something that was a forefront of the thought process when putting together a night of Jazz in collaboration with GuitarGuitar and of course, some of the top jazz musicians out there; Tom Quayle, Ant Law and Jake Willson.
Each have back stories with varying degrees of jazz, despite most knowing Tom Quayle as a fusion player, he has a lot of history within the jazz world. Jake is a session guy and guitarist playing at many of the biggest west end musicals in the UK, and Ant is the one with more of what you may consider to be a ‘traditional’ jazz background, having playing club shows and been in many different jazz ensembles.
The concept for the tour was to show people that jazz isn’t as closed off as it may initially seem, that in fact, it is accessible, more than it may seem from the outside.
Starting at GuitarGuitar Epsom, Tom, Ant and Jake had a great turnout, they also decided to not over-rehearse as this would show the true way that jazz should, could and can be performed.
Taking some jazz standards and working through them showed how each player approaches the guitar as not only an instrument but a tool to perform the required piece with, and with each player tuning differently to fit their style, you really saw how jazz can be used to create your own path when it comes to performing with other musicians, in particularly musicians you have never played with in person before like Tom, Ant and Jake.
All playing Ibanez, Tom Quayle played the AF200, Jake played the LGB30 and Ant played the AF95. Three guitars with varying pickups and styles, all guitars though that are semi-hollow if not full hollow bodies.
Ant Law used the hollow body of his Ibanez AF95 to great effect. At lower volumes he almost used the instrument as an acoustic device to accent and push certain elements and moments throughout each performance. Each player also swapped and changed throughout the set to take solos, be the bass lead and also be the rhythm lead player in each song.
All three players used the Laney Lionheart range of amplifiers with Tom Quayle on his trusty L20T-212 and Jake and Ant used the Lionheart L20T-112. No pedals were being used, just straight into the clean channel of the amp and a touch of reverb to smoothen the sound.
GuitarGuitar Newcastle and then GuitarGuitar Glasgow were next with packed crowds at both locations, the weather didn’t put anyone off either as the British summer turns into Autumn and so onsets the rain! Glasgow was so full there wasn’t enough space in the room with people spilling out into the GuitarGuitar store.
The whole tour was a great success and we would like to thank GuitarGuitar for all their amazing support and help across the month of clinics in Epsom, Newcastle and Glasgow.
We hope everyone who came out to the shows enjoyed them and went away having learnt a little more about the wonderful world of jazz guitar. We will do more in the future for sure!
