Nico Widdowson Trio: On Fools and Clowns
Trash City Records

Partnering with double bassist Joe MacLaren and alternately Jordan Hadfield and Charlie Hutchinson on drums, rising UK pianist Nico Widdowson invigorates the piano trio template with eleven hyperactive performances, the energy level so high, even the ballads feel primed to combust. Musically, the album plays like a love letter to the jazz piano tradition and the giants who created it, with Widdowson serving up stride, swing, blues, and ragtime with aplomb and referencing seminal figures like Willie "The Lion" Smith, Duke Ellington, Scott Joplin, and Thelonious Monk. There's also a lot thematically in play, as the material reflects on economic frustrations, friendships, and family relationships, its personal focus giving the release the feel of a “musical diary.”

As a jazz musician transitioning to the London scene after moving from Leeds, it makes sense that his art would, in part, concern itself with cost-of-living challenges and the insecurity that comes with life as an independent musician. Humour arises too, however, as Widdowson stoically navigates his way through whatever comes his way. The album title, by the way, derives indirectly from something Sun Ra said that resonated with him, that “a race without a sense of humour is in bad shape. A race needs clowns.” Reading that after having been called a clown following one of his shows and after listening to Mingus's “The Clown,” the pianist wrote the tune that for him ties the whole record together. How appropriate that it was recorded on Lightship 95, London's so-called “floating recording studio,” when the performances are generally more turbulent than still. There's a raw spontaneity to these takes that suggest the three were less focused in capturing perfect takes than ones brimming with personality.

Inspired by infuriating landlord-related experiences, “Angela Scott” strides muscularly into place, the pianist's left-hand figure and swinging right hand introducing the set with music by turns lyrical and funky. With a shuffling Hadfield and punchy MacLaren the pianist's like-minded partners-in-crime, the tune memorably establishes the album's oft-raucous tone and embrace of unpredictability. It's hard not to hear echoes of Monk emerging in the solo Widdowson takes midway through—not the only time the influence arises.

Name-checking Willie "The Lion" Smith in the title, the rousing “Are You There Lion?” captures Widdowson dishing out stride at breakneck speed. A punning riff on the pianist's name, “Nicotine Fingers” opens with a solo from Hutchinson before he and MacLaren lock into the groove and set the scene for Widdowson to roar, which he does with characteristic abandon. A song by Fergus Quill about a pianist killed in Chicago in 1929, “Who Shot Pinetop?” opens at a slow, bluesy crawl before accelerating for a high-velocity, at times chaotic sprint to the finish line. The album's only other non-original is a boisterous, set-ending take on Joplin's “Maple Leaf Rag.”

“Today I've Been Feelin' Blue” and the Ellington-inspired “Duke's Blues” cool the pace for relaxed trio treatments. From blistering, keyboard-spanning runs to splayed chords, Monk's channeled so vividly on the former (and on "You Can Fire Me in the Morning” and “On Fools and Clowns” too) you could be convinced you're listening to a lost take from a ‘50s session by Monk, Percy Heath, and Art Blakey. Widdowson's no clone, however, just someone unafraid to acknowledge key influences as he develops his own voice.

October 2026