Nigel Kennedy
Blue Note Sessions
Blue Note Records


Here’s a guy you’ve gotta love, and if they make a movie on him, it could be quite fascinating. Violinist Nigel Kennedy was classically trained and reared. His 1985 recording of Elgar’s Violin Concerto was the Gramophone record of the year. Slowly, but surely, his taste and sartorial style began to change, adding improvisations to his performances, until he has taken the complete plunge and recorded an entire disc of jazz. This is no ivory tower collection of polite uptown cabaret music, either. With a rhythm section consisting of Ron Carter, Lucky Peterson , Jack DeJohnette and Kenny Werner, and sax work shared with Joe Lovano and JD Allen, this disc has got some formidable muscle, and it is put to great use.

Kenny Burrell’s “Midnight Blue” has infectious groove with Peterson’s B3, and Kennedy swings over it with aplomb and abandon. Lovano and Kennedy make an impenetrable front line, both on Duke Pearson’s hard driving “Sudel” and on the sublime self-penned “Maybe in your Dreams”. The quartet interplay on Ron Carter’s “Nearly” is brilliantly autumnal, and the reverential treatment of “After The Rain”, once again featuring lovely harmonic work between Lovano and Kennedy. This guy has a great vision for provocative music with an infectious feel-an uncanny debut by a true iconoclast. Keep them coming!


-George W. Harris