11/12/2007 John Fordham, The Guardian

HIGHS OF 2007
....and British piano-playing wunderkind Gwilym Simcock released a debut album, Perception, that testified to his potential as a composer.

01/12/2007 The Guardian

Gwilym Simcock
On tour

When young UK pianist Gwilym Simcock played a couple of years ago in a Kenny Wheeler band that included veteran birth of the cool sax legend Lee Konitz, the latter noticeably took a long look over his shoulder whenever Simcock unleashed a solo. The newcomer seemed to have absorbed the jazz piano tradition whole, added ruminative and cross-idiomatic notions from his teacher John Taylor and blasted it with his own style. Simcock's current tour takes in solo piano shows, trio gigs and appearances with Tim Garland's Northern Underground Orchestra, but much of the material comes from his enthralling album Perception. He's already an awesome original, but a creative listener too; there are echoes of piano bands including EST and an infusion of South African jazz melody.

29/11/2007 Peter Bacon, Birmingham Post

Britten Sinfonia uncovers hidden treasure
Britten Sinfonia * * *
at Birmingham Town Hall
The hidden treasure of the evening was to be found at the start of the second half: Jackie's Dance, written specially for Britten leader, violinist Jacqueline Shave, and with Gil Evans' spirit at his shoulder, by the young British jazz musician Gwilym Simcock.

This was the only piece that incorporated Evans' legacy while sounding like it was centred in 2007.

11/11/2007 Observer Music Monthly, Stuart Nicholson

No young musician outside the pop world has moved as fast into the upper reaches of his profession as Simcock.

More at:
OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY

26/10/2007 John Fordham, The Guardian

"the ever-awesome Simcock"

01/07/2007 Chick Corea

“Gwilym’s an original. A creative genius”

10/05/2007 Chris Parker, Vortex website

Gwilym Simcock put extra gloss on an already shining Cheltenham reputation (last year he was hugely impressive both supporting the enigmatic Lee Konitz and in his own right leading a band including Stan Sulzmann) by performing his ‘Lichfield Suite’ with a stellar big band, including Sulzmann, Mark Lockheart, Julian Siegel, John Parricelli, Laurence Cottle, Martin France et al. – a sixteen-piece outfit, including two french horns. Judiciously balancing carefully weighted composed elements with just enough solo space to infuse the whole with unpredictability and individuality – not to mention, at times, irresistible pep and infectious swing – Simcock, who sensibly devolved conducting duties on to Jules Buckley, while keeping an eye on proceedings from the piano, drew rousing yet elegant performances from all his soloists, contributed a number of characteristically cogent solos himself, and overall, proved himself to be a classy jazz composer in a medium that dearly needs such infusions of fresh talent if it is to be kept vibrant. Simcock’s arrangement of ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’, too, subtly and delicately brought out all the song’s gentle power without a hint of sentimentality – Simcock is a class act, and richly deserved his recent ‘Jazz Musician of the Year’ award from the All-Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group.

26/04/2007 Rob Adams, The Herald (Scotland)

REVIEW OF THE SCOTTISH EMSEMBLE 4 STARS ****
Bringing together separate traditions, particularly the jazz and classical ones, can result in a mixture rather like oil and water. Not here, though. Perhaps it's because the ensemble's guest, pianist Gwilym Simcock, works in and understands both these genres so fully, but with the help of a band that's really on top of its game, his Point of Contact for Piano, Vibraphone and Strings achieved a beguiling ease of movement and a real unity of purpose.

Simcock is a marvellous player. In his expansive solo work, his meticulously plotted duetting with Ben Bryant on vibraphone and his writing for strings he showed great imagination, wit and conceptual awareness. It was all fine stuff but the way he brought the piece to its conclusion, with a surge of energy, was sheer class.

There was much class, too, in Russian jazz pianist Leonid Chizhik's Variations on a theme of Mozart, with Bryant adding weightless drumming and the ensemble's artistic director, Jonathan Morton, a swing violin solo as Simcock interpreted the variations with brilliant clarity.

24/02/2007 John Fordham, The Guardian

Gwilym Simcock played piano on a Kenny Wheeler birthday tour two years ago - and the turn of the head and raising of an eyebrow with which sax legend Lee Konitz greeted his first solo said everything. Still in his 20s, Simcock has already ascended to the podium occupied by only a handful of UK jazz pianists, from George Shearing to Stan Tracey, Julian Joseph or John Taylor. His direct influences are Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and John Taylor, but classical music influences him just as much, particularly Ravel and Stravinsky. Those associations have him lined up for a project with composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, and his groups range from trios to big bands, to 40-piece ensembles featuring gospel choirs and strings. Now Simcock's a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, notable as he's the first ever jazz musician to qualify.

13/11/2006 John Fordham, The Guardian

"pianist Gwilym Simcock shone all the way through an unaccompanied solo"

03/03/2006 Tony Dudley Evans, Director, Cheltenham Festival

one of the great new discoveries of the London scene, Gwilym Simcock

01/03/2006 John Fordham 4 stars ****The Guardian

As a pianist alone, Gwilym Simcock would have deserved all the hype, but this performance confirms that he doesn't see his composer's identity as his second string

28/02/2006 Chris Parker, Vortex Jazz Club

Gwilym Simcock enhanced an already enviable reputation as one of the UK's fastest-rising jazz stars with his 25th-birthday quintet gig

09/12/2005 Review of Acoustic Triangle's new CD Resonance 4 Stars **** The Guardian

Gwilym Simcock frequently dazzling, especially on a tumultuous unaccompanied feature

11/11/2005 John Fordham, The Guardian

The Waterman band was preceded by recently risen star Gwilym Simcock's piano trio. Simcock has rocketed through jazz education and out into a creative world of his own almost overnight. In a varied set, he included a typically flowing tribute to his teacher John Taylor's harmonically demanding Ambleside Days. But it was a fast exploration of a standard (How Deep Is the Ocean) that cried out for a recording machine to be running, in its headlong momentum, occasional classical flourishes, and melodic queries resolved or left quizzically suspended in space

04/11/2005 Jamie Cullum Interviews by John Fordham and John L Walters,The Guardian

From our own scene I'll be watching our finest young piano-player Gwilym Simcock (606 Club, Nov 16; Purcell Room, Nov 17) - don't miss him while you can still see him in venues without ushers

08/10/2005 The Independent

Though still in his early twenties, Gwilym Simcock has already played with the cream of the jazz world, including Kenny Wheeler and Tim Garland, with whom he appears in both Bill Bruford's Earthworks and Acoustic Triangle. He looks like being a piano star of the future

09/09/2005 Surrey Online

Gwilym Simcock is a truly amazing piano player. His solo in John Taylor's Coffee Time was like nothing I have ever heard before - an exhilarating and intricate improvisation that sounded as if every note on the piano was being played. Several other times in the evening, the audience was treated to similarly dazzling explorations of themes.

18/01/2005 John Fordham, The Guardian

Young piano recruit Gwilym Simcock delivered the first of a series of glittering solos. A startled turn of the head and appreciative smile from the old master Konitz confirmed what a class act Simcock has so quickly become