Paul Wilkinson @ St Nicholas Cathedral - May 26

Paul Wilkinson (piano)

(Review by Russell)

St Nicholas Cathedral presents performances week in week out, from the liturgical to the devil’s music…jazz! This lunchtime recital – a gig if you will – located in the south transept featured an experienced tutor and gigging musician from down the road in Leeds. Advertised as part of the cathedral’s ‘International Recital Series’, Paul Wilkinson’s set of forty five minutes included two bona fide jazz tunes and three improvisations.

For something like seventeen years Paul Wilkinson has worked as a tutor at Leeds College of Music and Leeds University. A former Perrier Jazz Musician of the Year, pianist Wilkinson has written a symphony and a concerto and a number of music tuition books. Clearly a busy man, a journey north on a gloriously sunny day to Newcastle was rewarded with an attentive lunchtime crowd in the cool of St Nicholas Cathedral, a place of worship since its founding in 1091. Three meditative improvisations (of which one referenced Shenandoah) held the collective attention. A brace of jazz tunes pricked the ear of your BSH correspondent – Carla Bley’s Lawns and Monk’s Bemsha Swing. The Monk (the jazz Monk as opposed to the clerical) served to testify that Paul Wilkinson can play, and then some! Your correspondent scarcely suppressed a Yeah! Praise Be!    

Russell.