Radio 3's Late Junction programme has rapidly propelled the British pianist David Rees-Williams to much the same spot on the map as Jacques Loussier occupied 40-odd years ago. Loussier put a jazz rhythm section under baroque music and sold a lot of records. Now Rees-Williams, a former classical organist, is on the same course with the works of Purcell, Ravel, Bach, Handel and Franc. He played two nights at the Soho Pizza Express this week with a trio rather unexpectedly featuring a bass guitarist, Neil Francis, and drummer Phil Laslett.
Since Rees-Williams is an accomplished pianist whose repertoire contains some of the most gracefully eloquent themes ever composed in Europe, you would have to be a pretty grumpy punter not to find much of the music engaging, and at times moving too. Unlike Loussier, whose sound he sometimes uncannily recalls, Rees-Williams is operating in an eclectic musical world in which such crossovers are familiar; there are echoes of classically trained Brad Mehldau in the adventurous manner in which he manipulates and redirects a recurring motif. Yet the drawbacks of the Loussier method from a jazz angle - the material's demands for over-arrangement, the cramping of the rhythm section's role, the greatest-hits cosiness of the repertoire - remain in Rees-Williams's work. It is actually smooth jazz with posh credentials, but he plays it with dignified enthusiasm. He is clearly an impassioned collector of great tunes, wherever they come from.
The pianist's circuitousness of line overcame the blandness of the soft-funk pulse on a gentle Ravel opener, and the group recalled the Modern Jazz Quartet's meticulous relaxation on a Purcell feature over a walking bassline. Rees-Williams developed a powerful improvisation of silvery runs and clamorous chords before easing the piece into an insouciant, mid-tempo swing. He spliced Latin-jazz chords into a French traditional carol, and slowly sketched a haunting Franc reverie over a descending bass figure.
Neither classical music nor jazz will change a jot because of any of this, but it whiles away an hour or two pretty agreeably.
