IAN STEPHEN enters a plea for a stronger response to jazz

A FRONT room gig. Now for me that’s nothing like an insult – an overheard comment on a gig, saying it’s not that different from being in your own front room. In the same way as the intimacy of a kitchen party can make for the best of songs and yarns and intimations.

One of the three Fiona Mackenzies (reviewed by a fourth one in Northings at their last Island outing) has just returned to Stornoway with her own band. So it could not really be termed a solo performance. The guitar, percussion and double bass amounted to much more than backing for the featured singer.

Fiona ‘Bosie’ Mackenzie (of Callanish and Edinburgh) is blessed with a voice that’s swift and mellow at the same time. She can ring through the changes and she can refrain from doing that too, so you become aware of great depth. And then there is the interplay – most developed with the guitar playing of Graeme Stephen.

I’ve heard him play in several combinations now and he’s beyond that stage when you complement him by saying at times he’s like Martin Taylor or anybody else. He’s like Graeme Stephen playing at his best, and he’s given the scope in this ensemble.

Percussion, too, was subtle. I began by thinking the level was down that bit far and the soft hits were a shade subtle, and then I stopped thinking at all and was engaged by the contrasts in Guy Nicolson‘s gently rattling variations of an assembly of objects that you would not normally call a “kit” but which seemed just right.

According to the band’s MySpace site, this player has made a study of congas and tablas. That’s a clue. Euan Burton’s bass was the stronger rhythmic force and the cymbals or other reverberating skins worked the variations through that. Tight enough and free enough. What more do you want?

Well, we could have done with more folk in the audience. This was a pretty fair summer’s night but even so, it seems to me that we have to work at developing an audience for jazz-based music in these latitudes. People are willing to give dance and opera a try but it seems to be more difficult to bring them out to anything called jazz.

Here’s a plan. Writers, let’s try to do previews as well as reviews. Outreach people, let’s try to liaise with young or old or any local musicians to workshop with visiting jazz musicians. Then they’ll bring their parents or offspring to the gig which will have something from the workshops as a feature spot. An Lanntair have run this successfully in the past, with dance as well as jazz, and it could help more people approach music they’re less familiar with.

Now for the confession. I was only able to attend the first half, so can’t comment on the gig as a whole except that friends who were there for the duration said the second part was very similar in tone. Now a certain sameness in the pace could be a bit of problem.

There were a few racy runs to get you going, especially in the cover songs. I found Mackezie’s own compositions melodic and sometimes hypnotic, but was looking for more verve. A little more of the arresting strangeness in the familiar which makes a lyric pull you up short. A bit more of that variety of pace which sets up expectations and defers them with intermittency.

But a lot of it has to be to do with the mood you’re in. I’m thinking of Sean O Rourke’s The Keltz and some other bands where the improvisations could be called meditative. You could say that Coltrane’s full length A Love Supreme makes great virtue out of sameness by repeating until it’s risk. And I was about to drive over the Clisham to a wedding dance on a beach so was probably desiring the up-tempo.

That said, this was a quality performance by a very fine singer with a big range in her voice, bursting with potential. There were no weak links. Personally, I could say I have an equal fondness for a voice and a guitar. On this occasion, I’d say that the guitar playing had the edge for energy, subtlety and attitude.

But it was still a privilege and a pleasure to be in what felt like family, in a front room, a gathering to enjoy the explorations and talent of a fine singer holding court. Please let’s have her back and let’s have more exploration. Maybe we just need more and more jazz till more people acquire the taste for it.

© Ian Stephen, 2010

Links

•  Bosie 
• Ian Stephen