Quercus: The Sage: Saturday April 27

June Tabor (vocals); Iain Ballamy (tenor sax); Huw Warren (piano)

(Review by Ann Alex).

This was an unusual and enjoyable concert with mixed influences of jazz and folk – I noticed some adherents of both traditions among the audience, and I'd love to see other people’s observations in the comments box below.  The two lower levels of Hall 2 were almost full, the band entered all dressed in black, and Ms Tabor struck up with the folk love song Brigg Fair, beautiful unaccompanied singing in a rich low voice.  It wasn't long before the jazz element entered, in the form of wonderful sax from Iain Ballamy, with his flowing melodies, including those breathy, throaty sounds that saxes do, and also well controlled high notes.  Of Huw Warren on the keys, I simply need to say that he played adventurously with great skill which matched the songs well.

I've been listening to these songs performed traditionally for ages, so it was strange to hear them done with jazz accompaniment, but it’s definitely something I could get used to. There was in fact a rich variety of songs and tunes, including a song about a poachers’ protest movement (very different from jazz themes!) How Insensitive, sung very sensitively and jazz-like (she should do a jazz album); the Shakespearian song Come, Come Away Death in an original arrangement; an exciting original tune Strawberries, with fragmented, staccato sax; and Dylan’s Don't Think Twice to round off the first half.

During the interval a jazz friend told me that she'd actually cried during the sad songs, so I reckon that’s the sign of a good performance.  The first few songs in the second half were well done, but there were a lot of dark songs together and it would have been good to have a jazz standard among them to lighten the atmosphere.  There was a Housman poem from the Shropshire Lad collection set to music and a song about a man shot in Belfast; but later came lighter material in the form of Les Barker (folk poet) words set to music; a lively tune from the musicians called Pig; a beautiful modern version of an old John Dowland tune from Huw called Tears, and Robert Burns Lassie Lie Near Me.  The well-deserved encore was a song with Les Barker Lyrics All I Ask Of You, a sort of love song mantra with superb accompaniment involving lots of tricky key changes, some of them in mid-phrase.  Clever stuff!

Ann Alex