Nick Granville Quartet
Hanover Hall,
Saturday, July 18
Hanover Hall on Saturday evening was filled with smiles for the Dunedin Jazz Club’s presentation of the Nick Granville Quartet.
Nick Granville (lead guitar), Nick Tipping (double bass and bass guitar), Bill Martin (piano and tenor saxophone) and Carl Woodward (drums) created a lively and well-honed professional performance.
Each performer has a long list of achievements and accolades.
Woodward has a stellar international career with world-famous musicians. The Nick Granville Quartet performed arrangements of works by such greats as Thelonious Monk (Bolivar Blues), Pat Metheney (Songs for Bilbao), Herbie Hancock (Watermelon Man) and Bobby Timmons (Moanin’) along with Granville’s own take on Paquito’s Chickens, Caravan and of New Zealander Emma Paki’s composition Everything Works out in Time. It is a soulful and delicate work and we all empathise with its instinct.
The duo G&T (Granville and Tipping) performed two works.
Granville’s immaculate guitar work is clearly voiced, highly melodic and with fine fingering and timing.
Tipping is also deft at catchy rhythms and melody on the double bass, though at times he may have benefited from more finely balanced amplification.
Woodward’s drumming plays upon the offbeat and with the tuning of his kit. Martin is an inspiring pianist with excellent touch and phrasing. His performance on his second instrument, the tenor sax, reveals another side to his musicianship, his composing abilities and his directorship of the Dunedin Youth Jazz Orchestra.
The Dunedin Jazz Club is a convivial scene with a steady patronage which regularly fills Hanover Hall.
It also regularly presents an astonishing array of consummate musicians, many of whom have studied at Te Kōkī Whanganui a Tara and at Te Whare Wānaka o Ōtakou.
It deserves a higher profile in our music society. — Marian Poole
