Lucy Baker (violin); Dean Stockdale (piano).(Review by Lance).
An intriguing afternoon! Jazz? Maybe, maybe not. Music? Most definitely and of the highest quality!
Stockdale, one of the area's highly regarded jazz pianists and Baker (A.K.A Mrs Stockdale), an internationally known highly qualified classical violinist presented an enthralling hour that the Lit and Phil habitués - they turned out in force -warmly appreciated.
And so they should! Perhaps not for the jazz extremists or the purists but for music lovers it was a treat.
The opening Prelude 1 by Gershwin told us two things one, that Ms Baker is an exceptional violinist and two, that George Gershwin should be given much greater esteem than he is usually accorded by classical pundits.
It Ain' t Necessarily So and My Man's Gone Now from Porgy and Bess moved into jazzier territory but it wasn't until they departed from the Gershwin canon that Stockdale allowed some rein to his jazz chops in the form of Sweet Lorraine, Skylark, I Want to be Happy and Dizzy's Groovin' High and A Night in Tunisia.
I've never quite worked out the difference between improvising and extemporising suffice to say that I felt that Dean was in the latter camp and Lucy belonged to the former!
Whatever, both did justice to the music and themselves.
The final piece, Reverie by Angela Morley, once again rubber stamped the credentials of the two participants as well as reminding us of what a great talent we lost when Angela Morley died.
Lance.
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