Gasbook Googling! Ruth Lambert Quintet - Jazz in the Café – Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 27/04/2011

Ruth Lambert (vocals), Graeme Wilson (sax), Paul Edis (piano), Neil Harland (bass) and Tim Johnston (drums).

…and the answer is: music by Victor Young, lyrics by Ned Washington and featured in the 1944 Ray Milland film, “The Uninvited”. The question, which arose midway through the first set, was: who wrote Stella by Starlight? This started symphonically then swung into an optimistic take on love not always heard on tonight’s Lambertian tour of the Great American Songbook. True, the set had opened positively (“so lucky to be loved by you”) with the sweet high-notes of Time After Time, but then the lyrics moved through resigned acceptance (“Fish gotta swim”) to emotional confusion (“I should hate you, but I guess I love you”) to the confrontational Love Me or Leave Me and the downright lachrymose Cry Me a River! Kurt Weill’s latin-ish exhortation to Speak Low seemed apt amidst all this deliciously rendered angst!

Ruth remembered being taught, by her mum, to sing Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man at the tender age of seven – a model pupil, one assumes, who has gone on polishing her range and technique ever since as illustrated in the phrasing of this bluesy number and in the quick-fire delivery of Between the Devil and the Deep, Blue Sea. Two endings in the first set – the closing notes of Speak Low and the scat ending (with VERY high final note) to West Coast Blues (the set-closer) gave some indication of her vocal range. She sounds great with a big-band, with tonight’s fab four, duetting with just piano (beautifully on Cry Me a River while the rest of the boys propped up the bar), or just with drums on the rousing intro, later, to Night and Day. I suspect the drip-drip-drip of a leaky tap while bathing is accompaniment enough, never mind tom-tom drums!

And how the fab four did play! Tim Johnston was to the fore in Night and Day and was the driving force “towing” a frantically percussive Caravan which got loud applause in the second set. Elsewhere he brushed us sensitively through blues and ballads. Neil Harland had a number of well-received solos and Paul Edis was inventive as ever with nods, at various points, in the direction of Chattanooga, the bazaar (not bizarre!) and, on Here’s That Rainy Day, a “rainy” film-set complete with Gene Kelly. Graeme’s solos underlined the assertion that things mellow with age – I’m not talking about the lad himself, but his treasured tenor sax which has more patina than a good edition of The Antiques Roadshow – and boy, is it mellow! And soulful, as on Mean to Me (more focus on the bittersweet nature of love in song!) and Ellington’s I’ve Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good (and again!!). At the end of Night and Day the audience demanded an encore and Ruth (“impatient to be free”?) said “just a quick one” but in fact we got a long enough version of Once I Had A Secret Love to enjoy solos from all the instrumentalists and more vocal gymnastics from Ruth herself. Fabulous! ….and finally, Love Me or Leave Me was Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn from the 1928 Broadway show, “Whoopee”. OK, Ruth, no prizes needed for my diligent Googling: the show itself was reward enough! Jerry. p.s. Lovely beer (Allendale) and welcoming staff (complimented by Ruth at the end) both add to the attractiveness of this venue!