I quoted, above, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s classic from 1969 as Marrakesh was where we ended up last night in a closing ‘epic version’ of the track from the Twelve Stories album, Red City. We got there via 4 jazz standards, one pop classic and seven further originals and it was one heck of a ride all the way with a wide variety of musical styles and one constant – the outstanding musicianship of all involved!
Monk’s Rhythm-a-Ning was the opener, getting the audience’s attention with its breakneck pace and some spiky scat. The lyrics, I believe, were by Carmen McRae who featured in the next standard – Secret Love, here in the form of a tribute to two (very different) singers – Doris Day and Carmen McRae. This ‘ying/yang’ version started with Doris Day’s sweet tone and the precise diction of one who has benefitted from elocution and deportment lessons at finishing school then, as if flicking a switch, it veered towards blowsy and brash (in the best possible way, of course)!
Wes Montgomery’s West Coast Blues served as an exclamation mark/train whistle to close the first set and featured a sustained spell of what I would call ‘scat-rap’ wherein Zöe managed, without pausing for breath or for thought, to name-check the band, plug the half-time merchandise and more besides. Remarkable!
The second set started with an impressive ‘capital letter’: Paul
Simon’s Graceland performed by just voice and bass. I raved about this
when I reviewed their gig in Brampton last year so I’ll simply add that, here
too, the audience were spellbound. Andy Champion was superb all night, as you
would expect, but if I were tasked to give evidence to support that statement
I’d simply cite this one number and rest my case!
The last of the standards, appropriately (en route to Marrakesh), was Caravan which gave John Bradford another chance to shine. I have only seen John Bradford a handful of times but he has always impressed – here, not only on Caravan but, for me, even more so on the third tune of the night (apologies, I missed the title) where he did a solo using brushes throughout (I think) which struck me as unusually thoughtful, understated and very much belonging to the tune (as opposed to ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’).
Andy
Champion’s slow, melodic, voice-like bass intro ushered in one of my favourite
originals of the evening, Red Headed Girl, which I have heard many times
live since buying the CD when it was first released. For me, it’s always better
live because there are elements of performance which cannot be captured in
recording and Zöe is, above all, a performer. On the lyric: ‘click your heels
back’ she audibly clicked her heels onstage. You don’t get that on a CD! Excellent all night, Mark Williams’ soaring solo here hinted at the excitement
of going on ‘a journey to somewhere.’
Zöe is also a storyteller and that is nowhere better illustrated than in the Patrick Hamilton inspired Midnight Bell which speculates on the stories that might be told by the pub itself about the shady clientele! Listen to the Midnight Bell – this audience did! Which brings us to Red City and my Marrakesh Express link.
I found this comment on t’internet: ‘Graham Nash describes the experience in lovely detail; it makes me feel like I was along for the ride.’ The Gilby/Champion account of ‘sensory overload’ goes way beyond that, creating an immersive soundscape through voice and music exploiting extraordinary effects such as Zöe’s vocalising going from a low crooning to reach incantatory soprano heights before cradling the mike like a blues harmonica player to produce weird, vaguely disconcerting, breathy sounds. Anything goes – and in this case works! I loved the gig.
Zöe, at the end, thanked all the Crook volunteers who make these evenings possible – and rightly so. She said they had established a jazz club with pizza – Crook’s answer to Pizza Express in Soho!
Long may it continue! Next up, Crook sees the return of Paul Edis who started the ball rolling in the first place. Get in quick – tickets will fly off the shelf. Jerry
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