Another Sunday, another night a Snape. No idea why the gigs we chose to attend are frequently on a Sunday night but there you go. This was supposed to the second of two jazz events we had booked to see, but unfortunately we had to cry off the Clare Teal gig because of a health related incident that I won’t expand on here….
Anyhow, this set featured the excellent and much acclaimed jazz singer Claire Martin and jazz vocalist and saxophonist Ray Gelato, backed by a very fine trio featuring the superb David Newton on piano, bassist Dave Whitford and drummer Sébastian de Krom . Been a fan of Claire Martin since the early 90s and still have her first two Linn CDs in my collection. She seems to be able to grasp the essence of any jazz-oriented style that appeals to her and make herself instantly at home in it. Gelato on the other hand I’d heard of but never heard. I guess when you cover such a broad spectrum of jazz in one night, there are bound to be highs and lows and occasionally for me the ‘swingin’ component got a little bit too near the middle of the road. Generally though, this was more than offset by excellent material from as diverse a set of artists as Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Charlie Parker, Louis Jordan and Ray Charles. A couple of the self penned songs that can also be found on the accompanying CD were pretty good. However, I remain convinced I’d been promised an Amos Milburn song in the publicity blurb and unless it completely passed me by, I remained sadly disappointed 🙂 . Overall an entertaining evening, but music I’d go and see in a live setting rather than actually buy to listen to at home.