NICK PECK FILM COMPOSER, ARRANGER, PIANIST and ORGANIST

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Biography

Nick Peck’s musical life is a series of contradictions. For a pianist with a rich tone in the vein of Brad Mehldau and Keith Jarrett he also loves to play down-to-earth blues and soul music on the Hammond B3. Whilst he likes the open canvas that simple tunes, standards and free improvisation invite, he is also the author of complex musical scores for ensembles of all sizes and the musical mind behind a number of award-winning film and TV productions. Following teenage years spent playing everything from ragtime, dixeland, and swing and classical music, Nick studied for a Bmus and Mmus in composition, “I wasn’t really ready as a player at that stage, but I was keen to know more about the history of where all this music came from – so I think that studying ‘straight’ music helped me find out how music fitted into other cultures besides our own”. During this time, he directed the student Jazz orchestra and wrote a number of extended compositions, including a piano concerto which he performed during his time there. Following a few years of playing and teaching, he then moved to London to study Jazz at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. “I was listening to a lot of the great contemporary bigband writers and finding a really interesting voice as an arranger at that time, but in retrospect, I think my playing lacked depth. I needed to go back to grass, play a lot of straight-ahead gigs and work things out at my own pace, which is why I moved to Kent”.

Nick was based near Canterbury from 2005-10. During this time, he chanced upon recordings by Larry Goldings, Sam Yahel and Dr Lonnie Smith, and started to explore the Hammond organ seriously, culminating in the much-gigged but rather overlooked trio ‘Bearing Edge’ with guitarist Richard Rozze and drummer Vince Clark. Other notable collaborations included the jazz-rock fusion group Mahatma and Arabic-Jazz ensemble ‘Noria’ with guitarist Sam Dunn. A deepening sensitivity to a broad range of jazz meant that Nick was increasingly called upon as an accompanist to visiting artists including, Pete King, Don Weller, Paul Booth, Steve Waterman, Dick Pearce, Alan Barnes, Derek Nash, Alex Garnet, Pete Long, Mornington Lockett, Art Themen Pete Long, Lee Gibson, Liane Carroll, Christine Tobin, John Etheridge, Roger Carey, Mark Fletcher and Martin Drew. At the same time, news of Nick’s Hammond stylings had reached new ears, and he was increasingly found to be working in blues, funk and soul bands, such Blue Fuse, In the Pocket and the Kit Curtis 5.

From 2008, Nick took time out from playing, having been offered an MSc scholarship in computer science at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He was later awarded a distinction for his research which applied artificial intelligence/machine learning techniques towards the goal of stylistically-informed composition. (Not with the intent of eliminating composers!), but as a route towards understanding how complex the human sense of musical cognition is: “It comes as a bit of a shock to people, but I’ve really found it beneficial to take my head out of music every once in a while. I like systems and algorithms, which traditionally, require a very logical, information-heavy approach. That contrasts nicely with most of my favorite music, which in its most extreme form, is just emotionally and theoretically uncategorisable… I find music based solely on 'systems' to be very dry. If you look at the architecture of natural objects, you often see patterns at work, but they start to develop in very organic ways - the perfect balance between freedom, form and fantasia. In fact, it helps to bring some of that ‘free-thinking’ back into computing. The two kind of feed off nicely each other”. 

 Preferring to concentrate on a smaller number of musical engagements, he works increasingly as a programmer, but can occasionally be found bringing music to his community around Kent and the south-east.

His latest album: “That Was Then, and Now is Now” saw a return to the piano, with a stronger, more lyrical tone in the form of an intense series of solos, duets and trios with bassist Dave Whitford and drummer Jim White:

“The music was conceived as a kind of valentine to the place I’ve lived in for the last six years. I hope I'm a much-evolved musician compared to the one I was six years ago. I guess that kind of reflects aspects of the lifestyle, surroundings and all the people I hold dear to me. But I’m always discovering new things. One of the occasional hazards of “art” is the need to admit to an overwhelming sense of humility. The more you think you are finding your feet, the more you are struck by the enormity of the whole concept. The moment you think you have your “sound”, something else comes along. Of course there are no out-of-the-box solutions!”

He was the winner of the 2005 Leeds Jazz Composer's Competition, and a finalist in the 2006 Brussels's Jazz Orchestra International Composer's Competition. His music was featured as part of the 2005 BSO South-West Composer's Weekend. His scores have been performed by the Guildhall Jazz Ensemble, Conservatoires' UK Bigband, the Brussels Jazz Orchestra.  As a film and TV composer, his music continues to receive regular broadcasts on a number of channels, and has been selected for performance at film festivals including the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. He holds awards for composition and outstanding performance from the 1999 National Festival of Music for Youth.

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