Jazz breaking news exclusive: Neil Cowley Trio and Alexander Stewart filmed for TV pilot
Monday, April 23, 2012
At the pilot filming of a new TV programme Jazz@Metropolis, legendary photographer Terry O’Neill recalled his jazz heroes Zoot Sims, Ben Webster, the photography of Herman Leonard, whose pictures he puts on his walls at home, and getting to know the writer Whitney Balliett.
He was appearing as a guest at the filming held in famed London recording studio Metropolis in Chiswick at the weekend. Photography, O’Neill said simply is “about improvisation”, just like jazz.
Taking part in a question and answer session hosted by the programme’s presenter, rock writer Neil McCormick, O’Neill, whose iconic images of The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra and Michael Caine have left an indelible mark on popular culture, was joined on the sofa by pianist Neil Cowley, whose trio and the Mount Molehill Strings had played downstairs earlier in Studio A.
Later in a jazz club atmosphere in the bar area complete with a specially constructed stage surrounded by blown up pictures of Tutu-period Miles Davis, the sleeve of Trane’s Giant Steps and new icon Esperanza Spalding decorating the set – with Lee Morgan’s ‘Sidewinder’ playing on the hi-fi during the breaks – promising Mancunian jazz crooner Alexander Stewart performed three songs for the cameras.
The pilot, produced by Fraser Kennedy, well known for his work on acclaimed TV music show Live From Abbey Road, which has featured a few top jazz names including Wynton Marsalis and Herbie Hancock over the years, will with any luck lead to a new high profile slot for jazz on TV, a platform for new and upcoming artists and a tantalising glimpse of the red hot new Brit-jazz scene. After all no one wants to keep all this good music a secret from a big TV audience.
Cowley hit the ground running with ‘Rooster Was A Witness,’ album title track ‘Face of Mount Molehill’, and the ballad ‘Slims’ featuring the superb violin of Julian Ferraretto. Cowley, with his trio of double bassist Rex Horan drummer Evan Jenkins and the strings with Aussie Horan frequently whipping up the energy levels which Jenkins was able to bounce off, drove the band on with his interlocking hooky melodic patterns. McCormick in a chat with Cowley by the piano drew the audience’s attention to Cowley’s work with Adele, and the pianist explained to the cameras that he had first worked with the singer on ‘Hometown Glory’ when her pianist at the time had curiously absented himself deciding he “preferred to work in Sainsbury’s instead”. Adele stuck with Cowley picking him to play on what this year became song of the year at the Grammys, ‘Rolling in the Deep’. 
Cowley, cracking jokes, bantering with the audience, even handing out water in the hot house atmosphere, played like a demon with his familiar toy dinosaur on the piano, and in jovial form despite the intense studio session moved to the smaller jazz club-like studio in the bar area for the Q&A with O’Neill and Stewart. O’Neill, whose exhibition Infamous begins at the Alon Zakaim Fine Art Gallery on Dover Street next month, said he wasn’t interested in any of the jazz around today as his heroes like Sims and the great Ben Webster were from the past, although he clearly warmed to the idea of Stewart, as the 24-year-old northerner is steeped in the cool crooners of yesteryear. O’Neill’s photos of Sinatra including the classic Miami Beach boardwalk shot still have a resonance after all these years.
Stewart can live up to the challenge of a standard like ‘Angel Eyes’ and the marker laid down by Sinatra, while capable of intelligently interpreting the Smiths and original songs with equanimity. His set, with a simpático band of classy Kenny Burrell seven-string stylist Jo Caleb, double bassist Rob Anstey, and Rhythmica’s fine timekeeper Andy Chapman on drums, began with the unlikely Blondie song ‘Call Me’, a swinging take on ‘No Moon At All’, and a knowing version of Paul Simon’s ‘Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover’, which Stewart later told McCormick was hardly 50 ways to end a romance, just “three.” The production company responsible for the pilot, which is also to include an interview with record label boss Siggi Loch, rare clips of proto-jazz bandleader James Reese Europe, and Esperanza Spalding’s video for ‘Black Gold’, are approaching BBC4 and Channel 4 to screen the show.
– Stephen Graham
The Neil Cowley Trio (top) and Alexander Stewart