"The harmonious marriage of three great minds"

The Forster-Hammond Trio makes a welcome return to The Bell, Walcot St, this week. They play a brand of jazz that may not be ground-breakingly avant, but grooves like mad and has an elegance to it that's not always found in the ubiquitous funky Hammond organ-guitar trios.

By curious coincidence, two thirds of this trio are surnamed Hammond: Scott and Ruth, a marriage of drummer Scott and saxophonist/organist Ruth. The remainder of the trio is James Forster, the guitarist, who can also be seen around this and other towns in blues band Morganfield.

The groove of this band comes just about single-handedly (well, that'd be two hands and two feet, actually) from Scott Hammond, a drummer I rate very highly. Scott is not a loud drummer (generally, a good thing, that), but he swings with such precise force that nothing else matters. I could listen all night to him by himself.

James Forster is in that nice space of blues-inflected jazz, a space occupied by such as Kenny Burrell and Grant Green from older times, John Scofield and Jeff Beck from more recent years. James has cited Green as a favorite, but to me it's closer to Scofield. That ain't bad, besides, he can't help it - he wasn't even around in the Green years.

Ruth Hammond's organ provides the sea that these other two swim in. It's a calm sea, no raging storms, and is the source of the elegance I mentioned.

I reviewed this band a year or so ago and thought then that they had a 'dreamy' sound, a sort of Cocteau Twins meets Jimmy Smith thing. Probably overstating the case a bit, but the feeling's there and it's nice.

Of course, one can't seem to write about Ruth and Forster Hammond without pointing out that Ruth was a finalist for the Young Jazz Musician of the Year award a couple of years back - as a saxophonist. Always a good springboard for becoming a keyboardist.

Ruth doesn't play sax in Forster Hammond, though all she'd need to do would be to get a sampler and... nah, forget I said that. They're just fine the way they are, the way they'll be at The Bell Monday.