This month’s concert at Milestones Jazz Club on Sunday 7 August features a band playing an exotic mix of exciting and accessible contemporary jazz led by one of the UK’s finest jazz guitarists – The Nicolas Meier Trio.
The Swiss born guitarist Nicolas Meier takes the varied influences of John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Flamenco and Middle Eastern music to create a deeply beautiful and personal take on contemporary jazz.
His trio is a dynamic unit, playing original compositions and jazz standards with a sustained technical virtuosity that also packs a heavy emotional punch.
His personal sound is rooted in a love of playing jazz on acoustic guitar, allowing him to fuse his many diverse influences into an exciting and coherent whole.
As well as the conventional guitar, Nicolas also plays a glissentar, a cross between an acoustic guitar and the oud, an Arabic stringed instrument.
Nicolas first picked up the guitar when he was 12, listening to jazz, classical, Latin, flamenco, rock and pop musics.
At an early age Nicolas earned a scholarship to Berklee Music College in Boston, USA where he immersed himself in the classic American jazz of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis before eventually settling permanently in London.
Since then he has established himself as a rising star of the vibrant UK jazz scene, touring extensively in Europe, sharing the bill with the likes of Elvin Jones, Brad Meldau and Trilok Gurtu and working with Harry Beckett, Dave O'Higgins, John Etheridge, Gilad Aztmon, Renato D'Aielo and Asaf Sirkis.
In 2006 he also won the prestigious Grand Prize Of The Jury and 1st Prize Jazz Guitar at the legendary Jazz A Juan Festival Jazz.
The band’s full line-up features Nicolas Meier (acoustic guitar / glissentar), Paolo Minervini (bass) and Laurence Lowe (drums).
This is a concert not to be missed.
All Milestones gigs are held on the first Sunday of every month and take place at Hotel Hatfield, Esplanade, Lowestoft with the doors opening at 8pm.
Admission - £7 / £6 (concession).
"Meier is elegant in tone and bubbling with ideas... his originality as a writer, a player and a team leader dispatches any doubts", The Guardian
"Since John McLaughlin we have become used to frenetic guitar-led groups. None, however, quite mixes styles and sounds like that of Meier", The Times
"Intense ensemble work over which Meier unleashes fiery but meticulous rapid passages", Downbeat magazine
"...Last night brilliant Swiss Guitarist Nick Meier charged through Turkish influenced originals as if the house was burning down, to a warm reception from an uninitiated and unprepared crowd. The music communicated at such a level, everyone forgot they were uninitiated and unprepared, and just got into it. Excellent...", Bill Bruford, jazz musician
