Roger Niven – Guitar and Vocals
Jon Hall – Piano and Vocals
Neil Sharkey – Double Bass
Mike Sharkey – Drums
Last night saw the return of guitarist/singer Roger Niven. A good audience turned out to see him and I can tell you he did not disappoint them! It was an absolute pleasure to play with him from start to finish. Roger led us through two excellent sets ranging from the jazz classics Beautiful Love and I’ll Remember April to Blue Bossa, samba style, and Sonny Rollins’ St. Thomas a la calypso. In between he included the TV theme I Wish I Knew How it Felt to be Free. He also sang two of his own stylish songs, Man Down and Time with your Dream, as well as a soulful rendition of Bill Withers’ Ain’t no Sunshine.
Throughout the evening he displayed an exciting mastery of electric guitar and the various different genres associated with it. We played Wes Montgomery’s Four on Six, Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue, Pat Metheny’s Song for Bilbao, and two John Scofield funky numbers Chariots and Green Tea. He also displayed great wah wah technique on the Crusaders’ Soul Shadows.
This was all made possible through the superb playing and accompanying of Neil Sharkey, on double bass this time, and Mike Sharkey on drums. Roger is very familiar with their playing so this only added to the tight ensemble and effortless all round empathy of the band.
The audience absolutely loved and and we’ll all be looking forward to Roger’s next appearance at the Club.
Jon Hall
Footnote: A large selection of jazz cds and vinyl records was donated to Moray Jazz Club by Lynn Vecqueray from a collection belonging to her late father. Some of these were made available for members of the audience to take away and enjoy and this provided lots of interest and conversation among the folk who were present.
Moray Jazz Club 