Nigel Price Organ Trio - Wes Reimagined (2021) [Hi-Res]

I couldn’t wish to have a better or more exciting team than Ross Stanley and Joel Barford to help me convey this material. We have some fantastic guests too: longtime collaborator Vasilis Xenopoulos on tenor saxophone, the wonderful Tony Kofi on alto and the legend that is Snowboy on percussion on five of the tracks.
This album is a collection of the great man’s tunes, played in the same spirit but with a little look at what might have been.

Some decisions as to what ‘feel’ a piece will be in are made very quickly, sometimes on the day of a recording session. I got to thinking there was every chance that many of these tunes could have easily come out sounding very different if Wes had just been in an alternative frame of mind on the day. Hey, I haven't tried to reinvent the wheel in any way - it’s just a kind of ‘what if?’

So, ‘Leila’ moves from a cool ‘west coast’ vibe to an out and out burner, ‘Far Wes’ to a waltz and ‘’Road Song’ from a groovy bossa to a raucous shuffle. That’s the concept here – the same but different!
I also think that Wes’s honest, direct and melodic style directly influenced a lot of the funk, soul, boogaloo and earthy groove music that was to come shortly after his passing. I have no doubt that he would have been at the forefront of that movement. I’ve therefore intertwined some of these later styles with Wes’s music. ‘Cariba!’, originally a groovy bossa becomes a kind of JB’s ‘Doin’ it to death’ feel with perhaps a bit of the Hendrix track ‘Rainy day, dream away’ in there too. ‘Twisted Blues’ becomes a no nonsense boogaloo with a nod to George Benson’s grooving track ‘Benson’s Rider’ and ‘Movin’ Along’ a straight funk.

Wes was clearly a fan of the bossa nova movement in the early sixties and the marriage of his bluesy and simplistic writing with the fresh ‘straight eighths’ feels made for some really memorable records. I know there was much more mileage in this style and I’m sure there would have been a samba or two in the repertoire before long had he not left us at so prematurely. One of Wes’s most well known themes ‘Jingles’ gets the proper treatment, featuring the talents of Snowboy on congas and surdo. ‘Monk’s Shop’ (written by Wes’s brother Monk) translates well into this style too.

I wanted too, to acknowledge the later period of Wes’s recordings so I commissioned the utterly incredible trombonist/arranger Callum Au to write three string quartet arrangements and transform some pieces into larger productions. ‘So Do It!’, originally the swinging theme to Ed Beach’s 60s radio show, now takes the form of a down tempo bolero with some achingly beautiful string passages. Wes recorded the ballad ‘I’ve grown accustomed to her face’ on the live album ‘Full House’ and I wondered what this would sound like with a more epic treatment. I wasn’t quite prepared for the depth and beauty of Callum’s incredible writing, not to mention the wonderful playing from the Phonograph Effect strings. ‘Cariba’ is subtly transformed to a higher plane with the quirky pads and jabs from the strings. This is really great and tasteful writing.
We were incredibly lucky to have been able to tour this material at the end of last year (a real achievement in 2020!) and it’s proved to be very popular with audiences all across the UK.

What started out as a little daydream has become an exciting body of work of which I am very proud. I must say it turned out even better than I imagined...

Massive thanks to Ross, Joel, Vasilis, Tony, Snowboy, Callum and The Phonograph Effect strings for their incredible musicianship as well as their great vibe in the studio. A big hand too for the professionalism of Ben Lamdin at the Fish Factory, Stingray Davies at Big Noise, Chris Barker and Darren Rumney for their great work on the cover, Peter Beckmann at TechnologyWorks, Graham Esson at Fibonacci and Stewart Ward at Award/Session. A special thanks to Martin Hummel at Ubuntu for his patience, understanding and belief in the music.

Thanks most of all must go to Wes Montgomery, without whom this record would never have existed.