One of the country’s leading young guitarists and his trio played a set of music that took elements of jazz, blues and rock when Remi Harris performed at The Cathedral Hotel.
With long term bassist Tom Moore and drummer Matt Brown, the trio performed numbers that ranged from classic swing jazz, through to The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Green and Beethoven.
Playing a range of instruments, including acoustic jazz guitars, a twelve-string and electric guitars, the gig started with Arthur Johnson’s Pennies from Heaven, before the well-known swing piece Honeysuckle Rose – a hit for Fats Domino – added drums and raised the tempo.
Another jazz standard, Polka Dots and Moonbeams, was a featured piece for bass.
Peter Green’s melancholic Man of the World blended a yearning melody with jazz and folk chords, before the first half was finished by an incendiary reading of Freddie King’s San HoZay.
The second half started more sedately, with a virtuoso duo performance for bass and guitar of the 2nd Movement of Beethoven’s Eighth Piano Sonata, but we were soon back in jazz territory for a swing reading of The Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love.
Django Reinhardt’s Minor Swing showed why Harris is so widely regarded as a jazz musician of the highest order, while he put his twelve-string guitar through its paces during a fine rendition of Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy.
The set was finished with the Fender Stratocaster put through the emotional ringer of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing and a fast-paced Rolling Man, another piece by Peter Green served as the encore.
Remi Harris is one of the busiest live musicians with many gigs lined up in the local area. If you like good quality music, played by talented and passionate players, it is well worth making the effort to see them.
