(Review
by Ann Alex/photo by Mike Tilley).
There was a full house
for this unusual gig from Gabi and Steve, including people from Germany and Brazil . The material covered jazz standards, Gabi
originals in cabaret style, a bit of blues, and numbers written by Sting,
Billie Holiday, and others. The general
theme was ‘The City’, well illustrated by adventurous use of electronics, with
sirens and people rushing about. And the
percussion made an effective appearance even in the first song, about not being
able to get out of the city, when Gabi made a defiant ‘chock, chock’ sound by
hitting a bar with a stick. (What is
this called, BSH readers?) Steve showed his considerable talents throughout
the whole set, many long solos, up and down scales, chords galore, guitar
wizardry, but always fitting to the song being sung.
We had Gabi’s song Wallflower; then a song about early life
before cities, with made-up language which sounded like ‘skee ya dum day’, very
imaginative; Sting’s Hole In My Life
with a scat refrain; a softer-voiced Angel
Eyes with an exquisite guitar solo; Holiday’s Tell Me More And More And Then Some in an upbeat version; songs
dedicated to the boat people, with an African style introduction, Kurt Weill’s My Ship, merged with a Latin bossa
novarish song Little Boat, and to
round off the first set, a blues, Sail On.
The second set opened
with a song by Queen Dead On Time,
with another good guitar solo to suit travelling in a city; then Gabi read
excerpts from a poem Electricity (I’m
not sure if this works at a jazz gig); a lovely version of the mythical Nature Boy followed; then came I Will Say Goodbye; True Love, written
by Gabi and her husband; Tom Waits’ song about putting on a performance, with
interesting use of a walkie talkie microphone. Kurt Weill’s Speak Low was the last song I heard
properly as the Metro called me home, so I left to the sounds of Billie
Holiday’s Don’t Explain.
I enjoyed this gig
immensely, but I wonder if the sound levels needed some adjustment as Gabi’s
voice was very loud on some songs, giving a very in-your-face effect. Just a thought and I don’t know if other
people noticed this.
Ann Alex
1 comment :
The "Chock Chock" was either claves or castanets or a combination of both!
And yes, particularly down front the sound level did seem high.
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