Review: Martin Taylor & Alison Burns – Ella at 100

Martin Taylor & Alison Burns – Ella at 100, Strathclyde Suite, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow ****

Maybe it’s fitting that a star who was as unassuming in real life as Ella Fitzgerald should have a low-key centenary year – in Scotland at least. The legendary jazz singer’s birthday celebrations can be contrasted with those organised for that other great 20^th Century voice, Frank Sinatra, when he hit the C spot in 2015.

While Sinatra’s centenary in Scotland was a series of big band bashes fronted by such leading singing stars as Kurt Elling, Curtis Stigers and Frank Sinatra Jr, the biggest name on any of the Fitzgerald-themed Scottish concerts is a guitarist ….

But what a guitarist. Martin Taylor, who opened the Glasgow Jazz Festival on Wednesday with his and singer Alison Burns’s tribute, brought the house down in a way that Fitzgerald herself would have done, and in the duo format which Fitzgerald used to memorable effect with guitarist Joe Pass.

His two extended (non Fitzgerald-related) solo segments were, unsurprisingly given his status as an internationally renowned soloist, the stand-outs of the concert: tour-de-force balladeering on Hymne a l’amour (which, he joked, he used to think was a Glaswegian song because his aunty would invariably sing it after a few sherries), a beautiful and characteristically richly textured interpretation of Henry Mancini’s Two For the Road, and a gorgeous bossa version of The Carpenters’ I Won’t Last a Day Without You.

With a warm, lush voice which suited the intimate feel of the venue, Alison Burns impressed in the Ella role, bravely attempting to reproduce some of Fitzgerald’s less energetic improvisations and singing in a style which featured most of Fitzgerald’s trademark “licks”.

A slightly shorter version of this review was published in The Scotsman on Saturday, June 24th

Review: Madeleine Peyroux, City Halls, Glasgow

Madeleine Peyroux, City Halls, Glasgow, Sunday June 4th *****

After a decade’s absence from Glasgow, the American singer-guitarist Madeleine Peyroux made a triumphant come-back on Sunday, to the delight of an adoring audience which hung on her every last word and note. Accompanied by just guitar and bass, she performed songs from across her career, and although she has moved through the genres in the 13 years since her first major album, she has clearly taken fans with her on the journey – and she still infuses everything she sings with a bluesy, slightly tortured, soulfulness.

Sunday’s concert benefitted from the fact that the City Halls’ Grand Hall is half the size of Royal Concert Hall and the Usher Hall, where she has previously played, and it was therefore possible to create the sort of intimate atmosphere that complements and enhances her confessorial style.

Now in her forties, Peyroux appears much more relaxed onstage, quietly holding court from her chair beside, rather than in front of, her band-mates. Indeed, Sunday’s gig revealed her playful, humorous side as she mocked Donald Trump, pretending that he was on the other end of the phone as she sang Kansas Joe McCoy’s Hello Babe, with the memorable line “you ain’t gonna worry my life no more”, and wisecracking “I ain’t got no healthcare either” during a gorgeous, swinging version of I Ain’t Got Nobody, one of several numbers which featured lovely backing vocals from Jon Herington (guitar) and Barak Mori (bass).

Other stand-outs included Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Agua de Beber (what a treat to hear Peyroux do bossa!), Randy Newman’s Guilty  –  one of the “drinking songs” dedicated to Peyroux’s father – and J’ai deux amours, whose line “mon coeur est ravi” (“my heart is ravished”) seemed to sum up the Sunday night experience.

• First published in The Herald, Tuesday June 6th

Getting’ Some Fun Out of Life

Hello Babe

Tango Till They’re Sore

Guilty

If The Sea Was Whisky

Our Lady of Pigalle

I Ain’t Got Nobody

Bird On a Wire

It’s Getting Better All the Time

You Can’t Catch Me

Don’t Wait Too Long

Don’t Cry Baby

J’ai deux amours

Trampin’ On

Shout Sister Shout

Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky

Agua de Beber

Dance Me To the End of Love

Careless Love

This Is Heaven To Me