The Neil Cowley Trio - Displaced (2006)

Neil Cowley spent most of his earlier musical career performing for the some of the best soul and funk bands of the day (Brand New Heavies, Zero 7), and producing acclaimed jazzy chill-out music. Yet by the early noughties he had begun to find the experience of extracting music from a computer chip unbearable, so he turned to his dear old piano, and set forth to present creativity without technological hindrance. He realised a long-term ambition, formed a jazz trio and began composing.

Displaced is the Neil Cowley Trio’s debut recording – an outstanding album of original recordings that presents Cowley as a thoroughly modern player with an impeccable touch.

The trio recorded Displaced in one take over two days at Real World Studios. For Cowley, the tunes had to tick the boxes of the past masters that live on his shoulders. Shostakovich, Ahmad Jamal, Frank Zappa, Errol Garner, Taraf de Haidouks. “I love a chord!” he says, “My chords always come before my melody. Each chord has to have its own life and story and touch on something I feel. The melody is often how my fingers play around those chords.”

With Richard Sadler on double bass, and Evan Jenkins on drums, Cowley assembled a masterful jazz trio whose bursts of energy and emotional infectiousness underpin his tremendous flair for creating beautiful, sometimes forceful melodies. Displaced is an album of emotional integrity, and one that earned Cowley a BBC Jazz Award for Best Album.