So, Kennedy’s back in town. Back for more larking about and kicking footballs and making bad jokes. Back for more talking like a fishwife and playing like a dream.

Brix Smith, Ex-Fall guitarist and ex-wife of Nigel Kennedy describes him with affection in her memoir, The Rise, the Fall and the Rise Again, published last year.

“He’s a magical elf,” she says. “As a friend, he’s amazing”. (She goes on to say she doesn’t recommend him as a boyfriend.)

Magical elf, mouthy oaf. Whichever way the wind is blowing, he’s worth listening to. This was what I thought of him ten years ago (which appeared originally in the Sydney Morning Herald).

Nigel Kennedy
Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, March 1
Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham

Nigel Kennedy is never going to make a career as a stand up comedian. His jokes tend to be lame, in Polish, or both. But he giggles infectiously as he tells them, and if that’s what is needed to rev him up for making some of the most beautiful sounds on earth, bring it on.

Last night’s official program was a two hour concert of concertos by J S Bach and arrangements of Duke Ellington’s big band greats. The reality was a three-and-a-half hour jam session where a cadence could be a harmonic trampoline to melodies from every corner of the musical spectrum; where ‘what if?’ meetings developed into searing musical partnerships; and where Kennedy nudged, cajoled and tickled musicians and audiences out of their comfy concert zone and into a musical lovefest.

Some highlights: Kennedy and Catherine Hewgill playing Bach Two-Part Inventions, first with great delicacy, and then with wild abandon at twice the speed; a soaring slow movement of the Concerto for Oboe and Violin, with Shefali Prior; and some bonus Bartok with a fabulous young violinist Kennedy bumped into at his Basement gig. In Kennedy’s estimation Sonja Schebeck “plays classical like a motherf*#ker”. I agree.

Kennedy also brought a very classy quintet of jazz musicians from home with him, who slotted into the Bach without fuss before shining in Duke Ellington. Kennedy switches to electric violin for these numbers, giving him a whole new set of toys to play. ‘In a Jam’ was a grinding, bad boy flood of improvisation, while ‘Dusk’ revelled in floaty resonances and ‘Prelude to a Kiss’ was George Clooney charismatic.

Whether you endure or enjoy his foul mouth and anarchic stage manners, in the end it’s simple. The man plays in perfect octaves like no other, has a tone which makes concertmaster (and fellow Juilliard student) Dene Olding’s sound merely good, and triple stops his way through a jazz riff without ever sounding ugly. Unless, of course, he wants to. You can do anything when you’re King Kennedy.

Nigel Kennedy appears at Sydney Opera House on January 27 and 28, 2017, with his new reinterpretation of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. And don’t tell anyone, but he has also been known to hop up on stage at the Basement while he’s in town…