Most years, the British half of the Impossible Gentlemen quartet rewrite the repertoire from scratch; the 2015 edition is no exception. But since the agenda stays faithful to this popular five-year-old band’s original chemistry (postbop twisters, raunchy blues, rip-roaring drumming, a little classical elegance and plenty of Pat Metheny-like guitar themes) pianist Gwilym Simcock, guitarist Mike Walker, and the US pairing of bassist Steve Rodby and drummer Adam Nussbaum continue to entertain the regulars, while keeping the mix on the boil.
Sunday’s lunchtime session soon displayed the Metheny influence in Simcock’s summery, coolly modulating Hold Out for the Sun and Speak to Me of Home – which began as a soft strum and wound up with a fearsome drum break from the tigerish Nussbaum, spurred by Walker’s elegantly fierce guitar solo. Walker’s Dog Time slouched from uncannily accurate dog-barking sounds elicited by sliding chords and percussive slaps on the strings, to a stamping blues hook powered by Simcock’s organ, and Miniature was a contrastingly classical meditation for guitar and piano.
For all the complexity of the pieces, Simcock’s polished ingenuity was in full flow, and Walker sounded, as ever, like a man almost involuntarily translating a headful of melodies on to the guitar. He uncorked an astonishing solo of sliding figures and whooping emphases on the second set’s Terrace Legend, and was voice-like and delicate on Simcock’s pensive It Could Have Been a Simple Goodbye, one of the best of the new pieces. The pianist’s fast Earworm brought jarring, audaciously offbeat commentary from Nussbaum in the finale, the drummer’s own In Sight in Light was a seductively impressionistic piece given a harmonica-like tone by Simcock on melodica and a rich bass undertow from Rodby, and Propane Jane was a rocking stomper in which Walker soared into Eric Claptonesque rock-blues mode. This music is about to be recorded, which makes The Impossible Gentlemen’s third album a hot 2015 prospect.
• Also 28 January. Box office: 0116-255 7066. Venue: Y Theatre, Leicester. Then touring until 12 February.
