Neil Cowley Trio - Touch & Flee live at Sage Gateshead

The first time Neil Cowley performed on Tyneside, he was part of a tribute band called Utter Madness. Unfortunately the hostile crowd appeared to be expecting the real Madness so Cowley and his colleagues were fortunate to escape with their lives.

How times, and Cowley's fortunes, have changed. With the Neil Cowley Trio, he is now welcomed as something of a hero. On the basis of their performance at Sage Gateshead on Saturday evening, I can understand why.

I have owned their latest album 'Touch & Flee' for a few months but didn't offer my opinions then as I knew I was due to attend this leg of their tour to promote their 5th studio album. Consequently the first half of their set was a performance of pretty much the whole of the album. After a short break, they returned to the small stage in Hall 2 to run through what Cowley jokingly referred to as the "greatest hits". Throughout the whole evening there was scarcely a dull moment and the audience lapped it up.

If you are not familiar with the Neil Cowley Trio, they are from left to right as they line up on stage, Cowley on Steinway grand piano, the impressively bearded Rex Horan on upright bass and Evan Jenkins on drums. They play self composed jazz but not as you may know it. There is no piano solo, applause, bass solo, applause, drum solo etc etc. Instead they perform tight, melodic compositions with little or no improvisation and no solos to speak of. Rather there are some numbers where certain individuals are allowed to stretch out shall we say. In many ways I regard their sound as close to a local band, the Slowlight Quartet who do similar things but with the addition of saxophone. I assume that they are fans of Cowley as two of their members were spotted a few seats away from me.

Aside from the current album, I recognised 'Rooster Was a Witness' from 'The Face of Mount Molehill', 'Degree in Intuition' from their first album, 'Displaced' and  'Box Lily' a song dedicated to Cowley's daughter, which only appeared on  'Live at Montreaux 2012'.  There were others I half recognised but was unable to recall the titles - one of the drawbacks of instrumental music I fear. Switching effortlessly between gorgeous ballads and numbers that bordered on 'rock' music, interspersed with Cowley's raps with the audience about Tony Hadley (who was playing in Hall 1 next door), and Peter Andre who stole Cowley's parking space in Bristol, the two hours just sped by. I hope it will not be too long before we see them back in these parts again. Catch them live if you can.

As a taster I will leave you with a video of 'Rooster Was a Witness'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2apVXsFXM