Nigel Gavin is a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

based musician and composer, best known as a guitar player. In addition to being a highly regarded solo artist and session musician, Nigel has been a member of bands such as popular New Zealand jazz quartett The Nairobi Trio,

Robert Fripp Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

The League of Crafty Guitarists Guitar Craft (GC) was a series of guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the domi ...

, klezmer "Jews Brothers", and Jonathan Besser's Bravura, as well as collaborator with artists such as folk singers

Luke Hurley Luke Hurley (born 31 August 1957) is an independent New Zealand guitarist and singer-songwriter, who works mostly outside the confines of the music industry. He was born in Kenya, and later moved with his family to Gore, New Zealand, Gore in Sout ...

Wayne Gillespie
and Lorina Harding, Maori soul diva

Whirimako Black Whirimako Black (born ) is a New Zealand Māori recording artist and actress. Black sings mostly in the Māori language, uses traditional Māori musical forms and collaborates with traditional taonga pūoro instruments. Her musical achievement ...

, multi-instrumentalist Tom Ludvigson, jazz singer Caitlin Smith and harmonica maestro

Brendan Power Brendan Power is a New Zealand harmonica player, composer and inventor, living in Britain. Born in Mombasa, Kenya, Power's family moved to New Zealand in 1965 where he later attended Canterbury University at Christchurch, gaining a Bachelor of Ar ...

. He has a vast musical vocabulary which ranges from acoustic blues and folk to jazz, rock, fusion, surf pop, complex ambient grooves and various world music genres, in particular klezmer. Nigel's original jazz compositions cross boundaries of genre and combine musical traditions. He has toured extensively and performed at numerous music and art festivals in New Zealand, America, Australia and Europe. An active mentor to young artists, Nigel founded and mentored the New Zealand guitar collective concept bands Gitbox and Gitbox Rebellion. As a constant innovator, he is a regular contributor to the Auckland experimental music salon Vitamin S and has given multimedia performances with photographer Ralph Talmont's photographs.

Solo albums

Nigel Gavin has recorded three solo albums. Music for Flem volume II, Thrum in 2003 and Visitation in 2007.

Instruments

Nigel started out as a bass player and is best known as a guitarist but should probably be described as a stringed instrument player. His signature instrument is a 7-string acoustic guitar, made by New Zealand

luthier A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers o ...

Laurie Williams. His favourite electric guitars are a Fender

Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful Les Paul had built a prototype solid bod ...

and an

Ibanez is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, as ...

7-string, both of which he uses with a variety of effects. He also plays a Yamaha 6-string steel string acoustic, acoustic and electric mandolins, a banjo and an 11-string Godin Glissentar – in effect a fretless electric oud with the same scale and size as a conventional guitar. He is also a proficient piano player and percussionist. Nigel often employs live loops in both performance and recording, using a custom effects box with a large variety of foot pedals. He plays with both fingers and a pick but also has been known to strike, pick, strum and pluck an instrument's strings with a variety of implements, including a pipe cleaner.

Discography

References

* Trevor Reekie, ''Moments Like These: Nigel Gavin'', NZ Musician, 2009. Vol: 14 No: 8 * Andrew Healey, ''Nigel Gavin – One out of the Box'', NZ Musician, 2007. Vol: 13 No: 4

External links

Nigel Gavin – Official Home PageAudioCulture profileNigel Gavin's "Thrum" in iTunesBlog entry about the cover of Richard Adams's and Nigel Gavin's "Recent Works" by collaborator, photographer Ralph Talmont
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gavin, Nigel Living people New Zealand composers Male composers New Zealand guitarists New Zealand male guitarists Seven-string guitarists Crafty guitarists Year of birth missing (living people) Sony Music New Zealand artists