Back in 2015, Swiss guitarist Nicolas Meier was playing a low-key gig with violinist Lizzie Ball at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. Nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary at first, until Meier spotted somebody who looked familiar near the foot of the stage.
“It was Jeff Beck,” he says. “He had come to see Lizzie play. I couldn’t believe it. You never think a guy like that is going to be watching you from only a few feet away.”
Beck liked what he heard, so much so that he invited Meier and Ball over to his place to do some jamming, which soon turned into writing sessions. The trio then played a local gig, after which Beck said, “Why don’t we go on tour with Brian Wilson?”
“It was all very natural,” Meier says. “I guess you could say Jeff was auditioning us, but the whole thing just kind of evolved through playing together and becoming friends.”
For the next two years, Meier – and sometimes Ball – performed with Beck on tours throughout Europe and the U.S. The guitarist’s unique blend of jazz, metal, flamenco and Middle Eastern influences offered Beck a lot of stylistic flavors to work with. “Jeff would hear me playing something, and he’d go, ‘That’s really interesting. Let’s build on that,’” Meier says.
An album the two had recorded together went unreleased, but Meier recently gathered the songs he had written for Beck and rerecorded them with a stellar lineup of talents (among them Ball, bassist Jimmy Haslip and drummers Gary Husband and Vinnie Colaiuta) for a tribute collection called Last Sunset.
It’s a bracing set, brimming with rifftastic rockers (Plan 9, Blasts from the Past) and futuristic jazz fusion burners (Legend, Strange Sensations) that sound and feel vaguely Beck-ish.
“The record was a labor of love,” Meier says. “It was interesting because, when I recorded my solos, I would try to imagine Jeff standing next to me looking for the right sounds and melodies. I was influenced by my memories of how he played, but of course, I don’t play like him.” He laughs. “But being in a Jeff Beck mood never hurts.”
- Last Sunset is out now via MGP.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
