Zoe Gilby
(vocals); Mark Williams (guitar); Andy Champion (bass); Richard Brown (drums)
(Review
by Ann Alex - photo by Jerry Edis.)
This part of the gig
impressed mightily from the start. Love For Sale intoned Zoe, with feeling,
bringing out the whole meaning, about a woman with a ruined life, not an easy
song to put across. And Zoe looked
stunning in a short blue dress patterned with red roses and white colours
(bought in China
The musicians were right ‘on the money’, as
my bebop colleagues say, but we expect no less from these three. The band’s
next album is out soon, but tonight we were to hear mainly songs from the 2
previous CD’s, such as Song For You,
a love song without the drums, a band not afraid to take a risk. Then came a delightful version of Nice Work If You Can Get It, with just
voice and bass, lots of tricky verbalising and scat and a long coda of repeated
‘how do you do it’.
Next came an original,
showing that Zoe and Andy are no mean songwriters. On The Edge, about a woman stalker, with Richard providing an
ominous steady drumbeat; and Monk’s Straight
No Chaser, from the singing of Carmen Mcrae, Zoe’s favourite singer, with a
scat chorus where our singer just about turns herself into a saxophone. There followed two more original songs, a
song of lost love Your Words (quote
‘why does this fire feel so cold’) and a delightful jazz waltz Eleanor, a love song for Andy’s young
daughter. And to close the concert
romantically, a track from the new album(Twelve
Stories), a song called Marrakesh,
‘the red city’ where Andy and Zoe spent their honeymoon, wandering the chaotic
streets and markets, so the song gives a graphic list of the sights and sounds
and even the food. The band was superb
for this number, with Andy opening with an Arabic-type tune, and then the whole
band going eastern, and yet a quiet fading-out ending. All held together with friendly chat from
Zoe, a fitting finale to an excellent evening.
Ann
Alex.
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