Kurt Elling and Ian Shaw, November 18th 2005

I walked along the South Bank from Tate Modern to the Queen Elizabeth hall. I'd never done it before and it was a really wonderful thing to do, especially on a frosty evening when you've just had a hot spiced cider from Borough market. There were fairy lights in the trees, St. Pauls across the river was lit up, the heaving throng of people rushing home along the riverside path was reasonably good natured, it being a Friday evening. It was good. At the end of it there was jazz, which was even better.

The British jazz singer Ian Shaw proved to be a pleasant surprise. When I looked at his website I thought he was a bit of a crooner (nothing wrong with that, but they're ten-a-penny these days) but he turned out to be refreshingly original. He played the piano briefly before he was joined by his young backing band, who attacked the songs with great enthusiasm. He seemed to have a bit of a penchant for picking unusual songs to sing as well as indulging in a few bits of improvisation, vocal gymnastics and relaxed, witty banter, which turned out to be the perfect way to get us all in the mood for Kurt Elling.

I saw Kurt perform with his regular accompaniment the Laurence Hobgood trio a couple of years ago and he was outstanding then. This time he was even better. I think I would happily mortgage my soul just to hit one of the notes that he managed to hit with deadly perfection. His voice sounded warmer and more polished than I remembered it, with all of the effortless scat and vocalese just tripping out. He has often talked in interviews about playing his voice as an instrument and there was such a strong sense of that last Friday. You also get a feeling of honesty in his performances. Like Mark Murphy, when he sings a lyric you believe in what he's saying. It's probably just a performance skill, but you want to believe that it's not, that it's from the heart. He sung a version of "In the wee small hours of the morning" with some self-penned lyrics about missing his new baby daughter and for me it just created such an intense emotional atmosphere in the hall that it almost felt rude to applaud and break the spell that had just been woven. Of course, I did applaud, as did others. If someone bares raw emotion on stage like that they deserve some appreciation for it, but in the little chapel of my brain I was contemplating the beauty of it all :-) Joking aside, it was very moving.

Kurt Elling seems to be in the form of his life. Laurence Hobgood excelled as he always does on the piano (I am promising myself that I will try and get hold of his solo CD) and new drummer Kobie Watkins was very impressive. One of the bonuses of Watkins being so new to the group was that they played a lot of their older repertoire, presumably to allow him to familiarise himself with it. So we got to hear one of my personal favourites "Easy Livin'" as well as "More than you know" and "My Love, Effendi" alongside "Man in the Air" and "In the Winelight" from Kurt's latest studio album. I thought bassist Rob Amster was on particularly good form. His playing seems to have found some kind of new purpose in the two years since I saw him perform last. I mean, he was good before and he comes across well on Kurt's recordings but I just thought he had a new, very cool edge last Friday. From the way he ducked down behind his bass during "In the wee small hours..." I reckon he was moved by it as much as I was... but I'm probably mistaken.

Thus my first trip to the London Jazz Festival was a resounding success. There was poetry, there was lyricism, there was emotion, there was... erm... singing. I would definitely recommend Ian Shaw to others - he has a new album out shortly. My appreciation of Kurt Elling, though, goes far beyond simple recommendation. Listen to his albums. If he plays live near you, you must go. He'll make you fall in love with the love of your life all over again (my darling J, who accompanied me to the gig, can confirm this). He'll make you laugh and he'll make you cry. He'll inspire you to read Kerouac and listen to more jazz. He'll encourage you to sing bad scat in the shower. The guy is quite simply a legend.