Kurt Elling and Claire Martin, October 25th 2007

Mr Elling is a legend and he, Laurence Hobgood, Rob Amster, Kobie Watkins and Claire Martin and her band turned in a great performance at the Barbican in London last Thursday. It was terrific and it's good to see that Kurt seems to be developing a bit of a following in merrie olde England. All the hard work seems to be paying off for him. However, I grow weary of writing straight-up reviews of performances. Thus with many apologies to the man himself, here's my attempted homage to Elling-style lyricism. Don't take it too seriously. Just go with it. It could have been worse. I could have tried to write it in hipster.

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The heady whiff of intellectual jazz is hanging like a benevolent, blessed fog over the chilly, dark streets of an autumnal London town. The slim, hunched afficiandos of the genre shuffle through the city, averting their eyes from the rampant eroticism of Lord Foster's gherkin as they pass it on their way to the Barbican. Once inside they drink wine and reminisce about times past, loves lost and books read but most of all they talk about the music. The music is what they live and breathe. The music is why they have ventured out from their offices and homes. Music hangs in the air, blended with poetry and expressed with a slight hint of sixties hipster patter - the language they long to speak in their everyday lives but that can only really be let loose in such a space as this. Kurt Elling must be in town again.

They fall silent first for Claire Martin, who makes this jazz business look easy. Effortless and easy yet totally in command, the quiet contemplation of the gathered throng retreats into the dark corners of the wood-panelled walls. Wood could have returned to elemental carbon and back again without them noticing, for this siren held them in the palm of her hand. From Sting to Streisand and beyond, she sang each song with something sublime that sent the crowd out dazed and dancing for their half-time refreshment.

More wine warms the soul and launches them headlong into the flow of the music once again following. Old, comfortable and friendly sounds, "My Foolish Heart" lifted with poetry, a classic standard now wholly owned by Elling and brought to life again here and now. In this moment they stop, start and stop, so concentrated with Kobie Watkins as he believes in the beat. Laurence Hobgood rides the ebb and flow of his piano keys and Rob Amster embraces the bass, driving "The Waking" beyond brain, body, below-dwelling things, up, up and heaven-bound. Homage and hymn, "A New Body and Soul" and "Luiza", from now to times gone, with curious loops in "Minuano" echoing memories from their own histories. They rise to their feet with a glorious noise of their own and they are rewarded. "In the Wee Small Hours..." eases them back into the outside world, the unmusic space, but now with grateful joy. "'Nightmoves' indeed," they think. The music. And wine, more wine.
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