Lindsay Hannon Plus - Splinter @ The Bridge.

Lindsay Hannon (vcl); Alan Law (pno); John Pope (bs); Mark Robertson (dms).

The old adage was that 'if you can't do it' you teach! Well Lindsay disproved that tonight at The Bridge. Earlier, at the Jazz Café, one of the star pupils of her Jazz Vocal Class at The Sage Gabby Heller had delighted the room with her version of Skylark and now the master (or should that be mistress?) herself gave a stunning performance of songs both classic and contemporary that may have re-shuffled the local vocal standings.

These included a couple of Joni Mitchell's, Jim Morrison's I am a Spy, Night in Tunisia - with an incredible bass introduction - Lullaby of Birdland, Stomping at the Savoy and Why Try to Change me Now? This last number was particularly outstanding. I first encountered it as the B side of Sinatra's 1953 recording of Birth of the Blues. Birth of the Blues was possibly the transitional moment when Sinatra moved from crooner to swinger whereas Why Try to Change me Now was definitely from his crooner era. Lindsay managed to incorporate the two moods in the one tune brilliantly! An upbeat tempo with a contrasting, slowed down, middle eight worked perfectly. Up there, I'm sure Mr Sinatra is saying "Why didn't I think of that?!"

John Pope (is that a surname or a title?) was his rock solid self gelling perfectly with Alan Law who played wonderful piano and the ever swinging Mark Robertson on drums.

This was a great, well attended, gig and all I can say is, "When are you going to put this all down on CD Lindsay?"

Photos.

Lance.