Had the joy of watching Chris Newman last night playing in a little village hall in North Yorkshire (playing again at another tonight for £5 again and I couldn't get in). I play guitar a little and perhaps recognised half a dozen chords all night as he backed jigs and reels and played jazz and bluegrass an everything else that flowed from his pick (and most of the time playing off a standard tuning or perhaps a drop d).

He has that wonderful ability though for the chords to move effortlessly through the tune. Sometimes changing bass notes but often just running down through chords - like what I do badly when I experiment with dadgad or open tunings. When he plays he plays all over the neck with such fluidity that I just loved watch him accompany Maire ni C as much as I loved him play his lead work. And what is more frustrating is he makes it look so so so easy.

Watching him and a few other people it has often struck me how close jazz players and really good traditional players are in the way that they approach accompaniment and chording behind tunes. Most of the time I'm sure that what he was playing has names but it was more a case of a hell of a lot of practice and linking chords in lots and lots of different ways.