Old Nick and The Magic Hatters

Day 3 of the Jazz Festival. Managed to take lunch early and catch 'The Magic Hat Ensemble' in St Ann's Square. So much magic was there that the rain even held off. On the whole it was fast bebopy stuff that's not so much to my taste but kinda fun live. Lots of complex fast riffs and dramatic tempo changes. Mostly standards I think but I missed the first 10 mins. The guitarist was using a big Gibson ES 175 style type thing. He picked every note though with the telegraph wire strings that some players use you can't do much else - can be a bit macho in a way. I prefer a bit more expression in the playing but he handled the fast runs incredibly well. Would leave me for dead I'm sure. Very sophisticated keys and all round impressive musicianship.


A nice surprise was to bump into Nick Mellor in pretty much the exact same spot as this time last year. Haven't seen him at all in the meantime but we vowed to meet up for a jam or something soon. Hope we do. I'm sure I could learn a lot from him ('Guitarist' magazine's Guitarist of The Year 2002)

Onwards to Arguelles this evening ...