Eclectica
Recent Article on Eclectica in Dorset: http://www.viewfrompublishing.co.uk/news_view/4699/6/1/world-class-musicians-come-to-marine-theatre
Live at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club - Tully Potter – The Strad 2009
Eclectica! claims to be redefining the string quartet by replacing second violin and viola with guitars. Actually the line-up of violin (Lizzie Ball), two guitars (Pete Oxley and Nick Meier) and cello (Bernard Gregor-Smith) is not too far from that of the old Hot Club de France; and as with that group, the main animator is a guitarist, Oxley.
Both guitarists came across as superb improvisers and Ball was clearly also improvising some of the time, but I got the impression that Gregor-Smith (formerly of the Lindsays) was sticking to the scripts. Immediately, in Luis Borda’s Baionga, Oxley produced a terrific break – what a fine artist he is. Gregor-Smith also played strongly here. Oxley led off his own quiet piece To You with a long solo before the strings entered with long bows. The effect was very Romantic. Tico Tico confirmed the group’s liking for South American rhythms: it featured nifty playing and showed Ball’s viola-like tone on the lower strings. In Joni Mitchell’s River she even sang, rather nicely.
Oxley’s own Flight of Fancy featured effective pizzicato from the strings; and they were to the fore in another Oxley tune, Missed, with a nice solo from Gregor-Smith. This Is One of Them, an easeful, swinging minor-key blues by Oxley, had no cello but dazzling jazz fiddle from Ball and intricate guitar work.
Besame mucho pitted Romantic strings against guitars and Chick Corea’s Spain, an upbeat number to end with, brought exciting virtuoso riffs from Oxley. Eclectica! is a very pleasant group to spend an evening with, although a good acoustic bass would enhance the impact…..”
Plymouth Museum – April 23rd 2009
At the end of any concert season, you usually can’t wait till the next one.
But after Eclectica! took the final slot in the current International Lunchtime series, there’s really little left to look forward to.
For this amalgam of string quartet and jazz guitars was not just magnificent, but as an event of its kind, it’s unlikely to be bettered!
Even for those who had heard Eclectica! before, there were still further revelations.
A quartet relies on total empathy between its members. Here, guitarist, Nic Meier didn’t merely take over from his predecessor, but has really injected some fresh magic.
Violinist, Lizzie Ball’s virtuosity à la Grappelli is undisputed, but now she takes the occasional vocal.
Her sensually persuasive delivery in Joni Mitchell’s River, and Jobim’s Girl from Ipanema, with an impressive verse in the vernacular, added yet another dimension.
Pete Oxley is the supreme jazz guitarist, but now he increasingly adds composer to his many talents, with his To You providing an especially poignant example of his art.
Cellist, Bernard Gregor-Smith, brought his wealth of experience to the ensemble, and nowhere more apparent than in his quite ravishing tone in Bésame Mucho.
A breathtaking performance of Monti’s Czardas provided the ideal conclusion to this all-too-brief recital transcending the traditional boundaries between classical music and jazz, and one that will surely be impossible to forget.
Phillip R Buttall - The Plymouth Herald, April 2009
Lizzie Ball Sings! Eclectica at Buxton Festival 2008
Bernard Gregor-Smith plays jazz and samba – to the manor born! Not long ago leader of the City of Sheffield Youth Orchestra, Lizzie has branched out considerably and now plays jazz, Latin American styles and classical music, with idiomatic ease on the evidence here.
She appears to have started this group (violin, cello, two guitars) nearly two years ago. Already making a name for itself, later this year sees its debut at Ronnie Scott’s itself, later this year sees its debut at Ronnie Scott’s.
It’s doubtful the excellently-played violin/cello classical duos, two short Gliere pieces and first movement of Kodaly’s Duo, heard here will be at London’s famous jazz venue – but, you never know! The slow Piazzolla tango played, discovered in an Argentinian market by Lizzie and arranged by her for the two instruments might, as may many of the items in this mainly Latino jazz-populated concert with one of country’s finest jazz guitarists Pete Oxley involved in them as performer, arranger and composer.
A new piece by him, Missed, rather bluesy and growing in intensity, was particularly effective, Joni Mitchell’s River and a smashing account of the The Girl From Ipanema both sung by a violin-playing Lizzie with pleasing, easy delivery being notable among the arrangements.
The arrangement of Chick Corea’s Spain worked extremely well too, as did Tico-Tico no Fuba (arranged Lizzie), the former featuring a sizzling duet from the two guitarists, the other been Nicolas Meier whose faced beamed with pleasure throughout.
Bernard Lee – Sheffield Telegraph, 17th July 2008
Live at Holywell Music Room, Oxford - Saturday 15 December 2007
A quartet comprising a founder member of the Lindsay String Quartet, cellist Bernard Gregor-Smith; a violinist, Lizzie Ball, who has performed with everyone from the Covent Garden Soloists and the Philharmonia to Simply Red and Meatloaf; Argentinean guitarist Luis D’Agostino and long-standing guitar-duo partner Pete Oxley, is appropriately named Eclectica! (as in the label Impulse!, or the musicals Oliver! or Oklahoma! the exclamation mark is part of the name). This was billed as a Christmas concert, and started, suitably enough, with a graceful version of the Tormé/Wells classic ‘Christmas Song’, swiftly followed by a simple but affecting arrangement of ‘Silent Night’, but subsequently the quartet applied their characteristic mix of filigree delicacy and tastefully restrained power to a broad range of material, from Brazilian and Argentinean music and original blues and ballads by Oxley to songs by contemporary singer/songwriters. Thus a yearningly lovely visit to Consuelo Velázquez’s evergreen ‘Bésame Mucho’ was juxtaposed with a touching arrangement, respectful but not over-reverent, of Joni Mitchell’s self-critical, melancholy study of loss and regret, ‘River’, flawlessly sung by the multi-talented Ball; or the ‘classical’ elements of the quartet performed a moving version of Zoltán Kodály’s plangent Duo for Violin and Cello, balanced by the guitar duo playing a piece by Brazilian maestro Egberto Gismonti. Culminating with an exhilarating rush through Chick Corea’s breathless ‘Spain’ (which aptly and uncontrivedly tied together the majority of the quartet’s musical enthusiasms in a single piece), this was an unequivocally enjoyable, unaffectedly wide-ranging concert performed by four musicians whose undoubted virtuosity was consistently deployed solely in the service of the music.
Chris Parker, Vortex Jazz Review – 2007
