Craig Ogden

The Point, Eastleigh, Saturday 14th May 2011

Programme

Mauro Giuliani ~ Grande Ouverture
Callum Dewar ~ Sonata
William Lovelady ~ Three Incantations
Incantation in G (Donegal) ~ Incantation in F (for Hugh Masakela) ~ Jolly Swagman
Agustin Barrios ~ Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios & Vals Op.8 no.4

INTERVAL (20 minutes)

Isaac Albeniz ~ Sevilla & Asturias
Greg Caffrey ~ Five Preludes
Miroslav Tadic ~ Walk Dance
Gary Ryan ~ Lough Caragh & Rondo Rodeo
(Encore) Django Reinhardt (arr. Dyens) ~ Nuages

Review

I found a website, which describes Craig Ogden as “a classical Jack Johnson through his laid back, effortless naturally brilliant approach to guitar playing.” I am not a huge fan of Jack Johnson, but I am a huge fan of Mr. Ogden, not least for the huge diversity of his playing. I have CDs of his playing with a percussionist, playing very 20th century guitar pieces, two excellent CDs with the late mandolinist Alison Stephens, with whom he toured extensively with a Captain Correlli style programme, and last but definitely not least, his first CD for Classic FM, the magnificent The Guitarist.

Craig kicked off the performance with Giuliani's Grande Ouverture, a spirited rendition which warmed him and his fingers up and enabled us to shuffle about a bit to get comfy, cough, unwrap sweets, etc. We were then into a serious piece unknown to me, Sonata by Callum Dewar, a student of Craig's. On first hearing this was quite accessible, betraying the composer’s obviously Celtic roots, and would be well worth follow up listens.

William Lovelady then provided 3 Incantations: In G, (Donegal,) In F (Hugh Masekala) and Jolly Swagman. The first again displayed a Celtic connection and the second is a homage to a great jazz trumpeter. For those of you interested in complete trivia, Hugh played with the Byrds on their classic “So you want to be a Rock n Roll Star” and at the legendary Monterey festival in 1967. Jolly Swagman was an arrangement of Waltzing Matilda, normally Craig’s encore and theme tune. William Lovelady has written some gorgeous pieces for guitar, some recorded by Amanda Cook and some (not these) by Craig on The Guitarist. In case I've never bored you before with this further trivia, William (or Bill as he was then) used to play guitar in a band called Oasis which also featured Mary Hopkin, Peter Skellern, Julian Lloyd-Webber and session guitarist Mitch Dalton.

Craig wound up the first half with Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios, and Vals No 4, both by Barrios. He has always had a nice line in patter between pieces but he was in vocal overdrive tonight with the result that the first half over ran by 20 minutes and I met my pre-ordered ice cream coming to meet me in the foyer.

The second half started with Albeniz' Sevilla and Asturias before moving on to 5 Preludes by Greg Caffrey. Very contemporary, not easy listening, taken from the collaboration between Greg and Craig “1st Construction in Nylon” these pieces would have had attendees who had come to hear music from The Guitarist reaching for the oxygen.

For me, the evening's stand out piece followed. Walk Dance by Macedonian composer Miroslav Tadic, a beautifully rhythmic flowing piece. I know the modern Macedonia is not the same as the ancient one but I have always been interested in Alexander the Great, probably Macedonia's most famous son, who equipped his armies with 18 foot long spears. I could not escape the image of rank upon rank of soldiers holding 18 foot spears dancing, Monty Python style, to Walk Dance. Probably something in my ice cream!

Gary Ryan's Lough Caragh and Rondo Rodeo were the only two pieces taken from The Guitarist and finished the concert in grand style.
It is always interesting to speculate on what the encore piece would be. I would normally put a fiver on Waltzing Matilda for Craig but he had already played that. I mentally speculated that his rendition of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme would be a light finish but, as always, I was wrong. Roland Dyens' arrangement of Django Rheinhart’s Nuages was a spectacular finale. Taken from Dyen’s book of jazz arrangements, Night and Day which, as Craig pointed out, are ridiculously difficult to play but he made a pretty fair fist of it and, while the purist may not call it jazz, it was a superbly played rendition of a superb arrangement.

A magnificent evening of entertainment.

Jon Clelford

Craig Ogden's website is: http://www.craigogden.com/. His new CD, Summertime, is available now