Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2018: Carol Kidd

Carol Kidd, George Square Spiegeltent ****

There was a very strong sense of déjà vu about Saturday night’s concert by Scottish singing star Carol Kidd’s jazz festival concert. As with last year’s performance, it took place in the main Spiegeltent in George Square and she was once more accompanied by a trio headed by pianist Paul Harrison.

As anyone who attended the 40^th Anniversary Jazz Gala which launched the Edinburgh Jazz Festival the previous weekend will have observed, the 2018 Carol Kidd is at the top of her game again. At that all-star concert, the pixie-ish singer stole the show with a couple of heartbreakingly moving ballads – new additions to her repertoire – and she repeated those triumphs at her own gig, threatening to reduce listeners to blubbering wrecks with her perfect, crystal-clear renditions of Billy Joel’s And So It Goes and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Something Wonderful (from The King and I). She made every note, and every word matter – and she had her rapt audience hanging on every syllable.

The other stand-out ballad was an old Harold Arlen-Yip Harburg favourite, Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe, which Kidd sang so exquisitely that the effect was spine-tingling. On this, as with the afore-mentioned new ballads, she was accompanied – though perhaps not always to her best advantage – by just Paul Harrison.

Less satsifying were the numbers which featured the full line-up; a line-up which, as last year, sounded like it would benefit from the addition of a guitar for a warmer, less dry sound. That said, le tout ensemble sounded terrific on the R&B song You Don’t Know Me which opened the show, and on a dramatically executed I Think It’s Going to Rain Today.

Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2018: Curtis Stigers & Martin Taylor

Curtis Stigers & Martin Taylor, Teviot Row, Edinburgh *****

Anyone who heard Curtis Stigers – the American singer-saxophonist with the Mount Rushmore features and the craggy, soulful voice – when he played a series of duo gigs at Le Monde in 2012-2013 will have had his second Edinburgh Jazz Festival appearance of this year circled in their programme since it was announced. Why? Because not only was he coming back for his first duo gig here since then – but also because he was going to be teamed with British guitar star Martin Taylor.

This may have been Stigers’s and Taylor’s first full concert together, but – as they explained – they met years ago, and the idea of a duo gig has been gestating ever since, with a shared love for the legendary Tony Bennett-Bill Evans recordings providing inspiration both in terms of repertoire (their 2018 version of Days of Wine and Roses was a particular joy) and as a prime example of the art of the jazz duo.

Right from the off, it was clear that the full-house audience at Teviot Row – great acoustics, great sightlines, fiendishly uncomfortable heat – was in for a treat. A terrific storyteller, Stigers clearly relishes this sort of intimate setting, and the opportunity it affords him to get to the core of a song and lay bare its heart – especially when he has such a suitably sensitive musical partner.

It’s no surprise, then, that it was the ballads – notably their exquisite takes on All The Things You Are,  My Foolish Heart, I Fall In Love Too Easily and There’s Always Tomorrow – which best showcased the results of this successful summit meeting.

First published in The Scotsman on Saturday July 21st

• You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To
• But Beautiful
• Days of Wine and Roses
• My Foolish Heart
• Willow Weep For Me
• All The Things You Are
• They Can’t Take That Away From Me
• I Fall In Love Too Easily
• Comes Love (with Alison Burns, vocals)
• Why Did I Choose You (Martin Taylor solo)
• I Won’t Last A Day Without You (Martin Taylor solo)
• Georgia On My Mind
• I Wonder Why
• You’re My Centerpiece
• There’s Always Tomorrow (encore)