Dean Stockdale (piano); Louise Dodds (vocals)
(Review by Russell/Photos courtesy of Mike Tilley)
Louise Dodds was on an away day from her Edinburgh home. Vocalist Dodds has worked with Dean Stockdale in the past and this duo gig up on Newcastle Arts Centre's mezzanine floor reunited the pair for a set of standards with one or two of Dodds' original compositions thrown in for good measure.
If I Should Lose You sang Dodds. Choice material with which to introduce herself to an expectant full house, our visiting vocalist, possessing a light, predominately upper register delivery impressed with her command of a lyric (sheet music, iPad, get out of here!). Dodds was the unknown quantity unlike pianist Dean Stockdale, a familar face on the Tyneside jazz scene. An innately swinging pianist with the ability to incorporate stride patterns seemingly at will, Stockdale proved to be an ideal supportive accompanist to Ms Dodds.
Freddie Hubbard's waltz Up Jumped Spring, Until the Real Thing Comes Along (Dodds' voice a bebop horn) and Kenny Dorham's Poetic Spring suggested our vocalist was more than comfortable with the breadth of material in the set list.
An original composition - Time and Place - startegically placed between Bobby Timmons' Moanin' and Horace Silver's Lonely Woman held up well. Kenny Wheeler's Everbody's Song but My Own appears to be a favourite with contemporary jazz vocalists and Dodds is no different and again with everybody's favourite, Clifford Brown's Joyspring.
More GASbook material - Johnny Mercer's Midnight Sun (languid stride piano), Gershwin's Our Love is Here to Stay (Dodds' light scatting) and Ray Noble's The Touch of Your Lips - confirmed today's guest knows how to put together a winning set list!
Pannonica, the homage to the Bebop Baroness, followed by Louise Dodds' Nowhere to Hide rounded off an enjoyable afternoon up on the mezzanine. Ms Dodds departed to indulge in a spot of retail therapy before catching a homeward bound train.
Russell
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