Tim Whitehead jazz musician

TIM WHITEHEAD

Too Young To Go Steady

Tim's new release of a live performance of his quartet at Pizza Express Jazz Club on Friday 13th 07 "Too Young To Go Steady" received 29 out of a possible 30 from a review panel on "Jazz Jury" (the two musician judges each gave it 10/10 and the DJ 9/10), and a 4 star review from John Fordham in The Guardian (see reviews).

It has also been reviewed on the Vortex website and will be the subject of a feature ithe coming issue of Jazzwise Magazine which includes an interview with Tim and review by Duncan Heining.

Tim will be touring the new album in April, May and June 08 which will include a return visit to The Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho where the album captured the first set of a gig on Friday 13th July 07.

Tim is currently working on a new writing project with the Homemade Orchestra which features the Nonsense poetry of Children's Poet Laureate Michael Rosen, which is scheduled for touring ,with Michael reading, for late 08/ 09.

In Feb with the quartet at The River House Theatre in Walton On Thames (see gigs).

01/01/2008 Duncan Heining, Jazzwise
****

A marvellously warm, attractive album recorded at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London’s Dean Street. Perhaps, I’d expected something a little more “out” but this will do nicely. I like the way Whitehead’s slightly gruff tenor rides over a backing as light as air on the opening title track and then later on the lovely Jarrettian ‘Love Fool’. But then on the closing, driving ‘Race Against Time’, he leads from the front with a spiralling, spinning solo. No one gets to stay in their comfort zone and you’ll hear Liam Noble, one of our finest pianists, in a whole new, highly-charged guise. Every time he solos, something magical happens. Of course, it must help having a rhythm section as dynamic as Hayhurst and Fell – their work on the opening of Whitehead’s ‘Happy Birthday To Me’ is simply magnificent.

07/12/2007 John Fordham, The Guardian ****
British saxophonist Tim Whitehead not only suggests a little of Sonny Rollins' brusque lyricism at times (as well as plenty of John Coltrane's headlong energy) but also the living legend's inviting inclination to spin long improvisations off simple, even cheesy, song hooks. This live set (a single 47-minute episode caught at the Soho Pizza Express last July) features the 1950s hit of the title track, three originals that take in a soul-jazzy Happy Birthday to Me and some jittery, stop-start Coltranesque postbop, and an initially wistful and then increasingly funky account of the Cardigans' Love Fool. Whitehead's tough-talk sound, melodic spontaneity and the momentum of a brisk rhythm section (plus the audible enthusiasm of the audience) would make this a fine example of local contemporary jazz at full throttle. But the big bonus is an absolutely inspired performance from Liam Noble, whose piano links touch on Keith Jarrett's songlike phrasing and McCoy Tyner's thunder - except that his playing all over this set supplies a constantly changing stream of personal variations on those methods, and plenty more.

05/12/2007 Chris Parker, Vortex website
Recorded live (from one unedited set) at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho in July 2007, this quartet album (tenor player Tim Whitehead joined by pianist Liam Noble, bassist Oli Hayhurst, drummer Milo Fell) necessarily betrays all the judicious programming appropriate to the occasion, consisting of an accommodating standard (the title tune), three Whitehead originals and an 'escape' from popular music, the Cardigans' 'Love Fool'. Whitehead has been in the front rank of UK saxophonists since he first came to public attention with Loose Tubes in the 1980s, and this absorbing album, on which he himself notes that the band is captured 'telling our stories together and revealing something of the moment in which we are playing with a real passion, dialogue, development and humour', he thoroughly justifies this status: his is an attractively sinewy yet characterful, occasionally fruity tone, and the imaginative vigour with which he approaches his material is simply exemplary. In Noble, he has a fine foil, a pianist capable of producing economical, highly individual – even quirky – solos that contrast tellingly with the saxophonist's more straightforward blowing. Whitehead has always been a tasteful selector of bandmates – his albums with the late lamented Pete Jacobsen, Arnie Somogyi and Dave Barry are well worth seeking out – and this is a highly listenable sample of the work of another great working band in action. Recommended.

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