Tag Archives: 606club

Gig Review: Mel Gaynor @ 606 Club, 25 September 2025

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Mel Gaynor spent almost 30 years playing superb drums with Simple Minds in studios, stadiums and sports halls across the globe.

But it’s also oft-forgotten that he was also one of the key British session drummers of the 1980s, working with Joan Armatrading, Elton John, Heaven 17, Pretenders, Kirsty MacColl and others (and, in a 1992 Sunday Times poll, was named the world’s best rock drummer by Stewart Copeland, no less).

So it’s always interesting seeing such behemoths of the drums in tiny venues, often un-mic’d and playing small kits. And they don’t come much more intimate or friendlier than the 606 – though the club always has excellent acoustics.

Gaynor’s latest live project eschews the heavy rock of last year’s Come With Me album and returns him to the fusion and jazz/funk of his youth (he started his career playing with Britfunk legends Central Line), alongside pianist John Watson, who has also worked with Sister Sledge, Imagination and Mica Paris, and impressive young bassist Issy Brown. On this gig, they were also joined by MOBO and Mercury-winning saxophonist Denys Baptiste – a real coup.

A fit, healthy and happy-looking Gaynor settled behind the kit with no fuss and counted off ‘Got The Message’, a Crusaders-style, medium-tempo slow-burner, with Baptiste outlining a pretty melody and Brown digging in with excellent tone and judicious use of his low B string. Gaynor was the epitome of taste and groove here, but still found time for one explosive ‘Alive And Kicking’-style snare fill towards the end.

Denys Baptiste, Issy Brown and Mel Gaynor @ the 606

‘Beyond The Stars’, touchingly dedicated by Gaynor to his late father, started with an African-tinged 6/4 drum loop, before settling into another pretty, gentle tune with a touch of Jason Rebello’s writing about it.

‘Preludio’, written by Watson, chugged along with a nice Morrissey-Mullen-style samba groove, and became a feature for Baptiste’s tenor, wittily quoting Dennis Edwards’ ‘Don’t Look Any Further’, with which it shared a chord sequence.

Baptiste also elevated ‘Zeta’ – apparently Gaynor’s manager’s favourite tune. The saxophonist can do it all, from Grover Washington Jr. soul to sixteenth-note meltdown, Michael Brecker-style. It was nice to hear Watson lay out for a while too, then return to trade spicy fours with Baptiste. Gaynor also raised the volume level by about 25%, suddenly shifting into fifth gear with some terrific Tony Williams-style fills around the toms.

This was not an evening of cutting-edge jazz/rock, with not a broken beat nor drum-and-bass groove in sight, nor was it volatile fusion in the Mahavishnu or Lifetime mold. But if Mel’s music leans more towards the softer style of the late 1970s/early 1980s, from Average White Band to The Crusaders via Incognito and Morrissey-Mullen, it’s no worse for that.

And the set showed Gaynor to be an excellent ‘pocket’ drummer, with much power in reserve. But then you already knew that from his work with Simple Minds.

Bill Bruford: The Comeback

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Pop musicians make comebacks all the time – in jazz or jazz/rock, it’s almost unheard of.

Reading King Crimson/Yes/Genesis/Earthworks drum legend Bill Bruford’s fine autobiography, there was no doubt he’d had his fill of the music business when he officially retired from performance on 1 January 2009 (his last headlining gig took place the previous July).

Away from the kit, in recent years he’s achieved a PhD from the University of Surrey, curated an excellent YouTube channel and released the occasional reissue or compilation, the latest of which is The Best of Bill Bruford.

But, as they say in sporting circles, you’re a long time retired. So it’s thrilling to report that Bruford is making tentative steps back to public performance – in a recent interview he described his return to playing as ‘explosive, unexpected, and very sudden’.

He turned up at the John Wetton tribute gig last year, performing ‘Let’s Stick Together’ alongside Phil Manzanera and Chris Difford, and now he’s joined up with his old drum tech, German ex-pat guitarist Pete Roth, plus bassist (usually on acoustic but here on electric) Mike Pratt, for some low-key trio gigs.

His recent show at the 606 was the busiest your correspondent had seen Chelsea’s treasured jazz club for years. Roth’s website describes his music as ‘jazz without borders’, and it’s a pretty good summary – they generally avoid fusion clichés like the plague, sounding more like John Abercrombie’s organ trio than anything Bruford recorded with Allan Holdsworth.

His kit was a return to his youth – two tom-toms, angled snare, two cymbals. And he still has that prodigious, propulsive technique on the hi-hats and ride cymbal, even if his snare drum no longer particularly has that distinctive ‘clang’.

‘Billie’s Bounce’ featured Bruford’s trademark figures between the tom-toms and snare drum, and Roth’s organ patch and octave pedal were a novel touch. ‘How Insensitive’ developed from a freeform rubato opening into an Abercrombie-esque mood-jazz piece, though Pratt’s strident bass seemed a little out of place.

‘If Summer Had Its Ghosts’, first recorded by Bruford with Eddie Gomez and Ralph Towner, meshed odd-time fun with the blues, Roth’s guitar at its more Scofield-like. ‘Summertime’ came with a tricky vamp which Pratt and Roth rushed somewhat – never a problem for Bruford, while a section from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 was a slowburn success. Meanwhile band composition ‘Trio of Five’ (or was it ‘Fun’?) was another attractive if a little harmonically inert, vamp-based piece in their favourite 5/4.

Though there were times when Bruford seems to have lost a little of the fluidity of old, it seems churlish to judge a performance thus when the performer and loyal crowd are having so much fun.

The trio play at the Oxford Spin club later this month, and for some other selected dates next year – don’t miss. What an unexpected pleasure to see Bruford back.