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"A formidable UK jazz presence rising to her full height" John Fordham, The Guardian 4 stars Feb 2004.
The new album “Everything I Love” (Basho Records 5-2) pays homage to some of the composers that have influenced Nikki’s playing and created her own unique style. They include guitarist John Abercrombie, songwriters George and Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter. But it is her renditions of the work of the great Bill Evans, and the hugely admired John Taylor that demonstrate she is capable of handling the material of her mentors with as much confidence and sensitivity as they themselves, that make this album stand out.
The album also demonstrates her own talents as a composer with two compositions which were originally recorded on the album “Secret” (Basho Records SRCD 3-2).
That quartet featured the same line-up augmented with the masterful British altoist Martin Speake. They played two British tours to great acclaim in 2000 and 2002, and more recently the Nikki Iles trio have played in both Canada and the UK to very enthusiastic audiences. The empathy between Nikki and her collaborators is evident in both albums and despite their geographical separation they very much inhabit the same musical space.
NIKKI ILES (piano) DUNCAN HOPKINS (double bass) ANTHONY MICHELLI (drums)
Track Listing:
01 Everything I Love (Cole Porter) 7:09
02 Ambleside Days (John Taylor) 5:23
03 Orbit (Bill Evans) 6:45
04 I Loves you Porgy (George and Ira Gershwin) 9:22
05 So to Speake (Nikki Iles) 2:16 (sample)
06 Fly’s Dilemma (Nikki Iles) 4:21 (sample)
07 Your Story (Bill Evans) 6:21
08 Evansong (John Taylor) 6:19
09 Don’t Forget the Poet (Enrico Pieranunzi 6:03
10 Remember Hymn (John Abercrombie) 3:41Total Time 58:03
DUNCAN HOPKINS (double bass)
Duncan Hopkins has been busy establishing himself as a bassist and composer around the world. While primarily self taught, Duncan has studied with the best, including Michel Donato in Montreal, Rufus Reid at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen in Denmark and Dave Holland in New York City. Aside from his own projects, he has become a popular sideman for a wide variety of artists such as: Mark Murphy, Lester Bowie, Kenny Wheeler, Peter Appleyard, and arrangers Robert Farnon and Ralph Carmichael. He is also the current bassist in the famed Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass. www.duncanhopkins.comANTHONY MICHELLI (drums)
Anthony is a graduate of Mohawk College, has studied at the Banff Centre and the Lake Placid Centre for the Arts and has a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto specialising in Jazz Performance. He is also the recipient of the 1995 Jazz Report Award for National Post-Secondary School Musician of the Year. He has performed at various club and concert venues both nationally and internationally in large and small ensembles with various artists, some of which include: Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Maria Schneider Jim McNeely, Harry Connick Jr., Dick Oates, Ingrid Jensen, Pat Labarbera, Ed Bickert and Don Thompson. www.anthonymichelli.com
"You'll struggle to find Nikki Iles in the jazz reference books, but the Bedfordshire-born pianist has been a discreetly eloquent presence on the UK scene since the 1990s - often as an accompanist, whose understated, Bill Evans-inflected phrasing would generally be devoted to coaxing expressiveness out of others, but at the same time leave you wanting to hear more of her. Iles recorded a number of albums after 1996 with saxophonists Stan Sulzmann and Martin Speake and singer Tina May, but this trio disc, under her leadership, represents the clearest opportunity yet to hear her musicality in full flow.
It's a largely conventional acoustic jazz piano set, recorded with Canadians Duncan Hopkins (bass) and Anthony Michelli (drums). The repertoire includes Cole Porter and the Gershwins, two Bill Evans and two John Taylor pieces. The relationships within the trio are fluid and alert - at times the band suggests a more swinging version of Brad Mehldau approach, if without Mehldau's contrapuntal genius.The context may be familiar, but the sharpness of the execution and the sense of purpose certainly aren't. Hear Iles's ringing, Paul Bley-like chords on her thundering original Fly's Dilemma, the rhythm section's urgent insistence under the title track, the pianist's mesmerising riff-dance on John Taylor's Ambleside Days, or the tender overlaying of harmonies and chord voicings on Bill Evans's Your Story. A formidable UK jazz presence rising to her full height" John Fordham, The Guardian 4 stars Feb 2004.
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