Julian Arguelles: Live at the 606 Club

Four brilliant musicians came together at London’s 606 Club to perform original jazz tunes and one standard. Many of them were from sax player Julian Arguelles’s forthcoming album, ‘Echo Fields’. All of them were blisteringly good.

It’s around 40 years since I last heard Arguelles play and a bit longer since we first sat together in the sax section of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and (briefly, in my case), Loose Tubes. He’s just celebrated a significant birthday and this gig brought him to London from his home in Austria in a rare ensemble that left the audience delighted.

For this one-off gig, Arguelles employed the talents of three more of the UK’s best musicians: Gwilym Simcock (piano), Conor Chaplin (bass) and James Maddren (drums). I have heard all of them playing in other ensembles, but together with Arguelles, they unleashed something very special at the 606.

Chaplin, Maddren and Arguelles

Throughout the evening, the quartet brought structure to tunes and improvised individually and collectively as if they play together regularly and are in the middle of a tour. True professionals, they listened to each other and traded solos and licks on tunes new and familiar.

The collection of tunes from Echo Fields included Leap Year Marvel, dedicated to drummer Martin France who sadly died in September 2024. Another tune - Lek-Lock - was written for pianist Brian Kellock who died in May 2025. Arguelles is a sensitive soul and he was visibly moved by a number of old friends who joined the 606 audience, including revered saxist Stan Sulzman. After performing Piece for Jess, Arguelles said he’d been thinking about the times he’d played with Sulzman during that tune.

Arguelles is now professor of jazz sax at the Institute of Jazz in Graz, but his playing goes back since he was barely a teenager and already showing a maturity of sound and dexterity. He was awarded a Parliamentary Jazz Award for his album Let it be Told in 2016 and a Fellowship of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for Services to Jazz in 2017.

Simcock and Chaplin

“I’d play ballads all the time”, Arguelles admitted, and the quartet’s performance of the one standard (that was nearly a ballad) - Nancy With the Smiling Face - explained why. Even on slower tunes, his tenor comes to life with freedom and dexterity. All the tunes were breathtaking, and it was great to hear the Chaplin/Simcock Haven performed by the quartet: sometimes, it just feels like you’re in the right place when something extraordinary happens.

Watch this space for an incoming review of ‘Echo Fields’, which is set to be released on 27 March 2026.