Over the recent summer months, St Andrew’s has hosted its now annual Lunchtime Recital Series where, each week, audiences have been able to get a light lunch, while enjoying some forty or so minutes of musical entertainment by well over thirty different performers, from organ recitals and a school choir, to small brass and string ensembles, and more besides.
Most musical genres have appeared on the menu from time to time, so it felt quite opportune to finish the season off with some light jazz – or jazz-salad, as saxophonist Elaine Davies affectionately referred to her choice of repertoire.
Swinging through a mixed-bag of Latin numbers by Jobim, old favourites like Lerner and Loewe’s Almost Like Being in Love, or Jimmy Van Heusen’s Polka Dots and Moonbeams, jazz standards like Georgia on my Mind and Sonny Rollins’s Doxy, Elaine arguably sounded at her best on tenor sax, where it blended better, in terms of balance, with the adjacent guitar speaker, rather than her vocals and flute-playing, which relied more on remote speakers, positioned a little further into the church.
Elaine might have fronted this jazz duo, but it was really Fraser Weekes’s contribution on electric guitar that stole the show. Providing the harmony, rhythm, bass-line, as well as taking solo choruses, requires a great degree of talent, especially when accomplished with real panache, and delivered in such a laid-back and confident manner.
PHILIP R BUTTALL
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