Jazz and Voices
The summer concert is often something special, and as always unusual in its content. This year it brought us a welcome return visit of The Bob Hudson Trio , who have a very enthusiastic following in this area, and some unexpected contributions from the choir. It all added up to a pleasant and enjoyable summer evening in a relaxed mood, at least for the audience!
The Trio, Geoff Parsons on bass, Mick Saunders on drums, and Bob Hudson himself on piano are an amazing ensemble, clearly well used to performing together. Their own enthusiasm for what they do is infections and they treated the audience to a mixture of old favourites and one or two lesser known works, but all delivered with panache. Many in the audience would have memories revived, but the arrangements were fresh and the playing dynamic. Moon River. Bye Bye Blackbird, Happy Talk, Autumn Leaves, to highlight but a few, represent the great tradition of American show business and hits of previous years. Reminding us, too, of that powerful tradition of native talent across the Pond.
The choir, not to be outdone, also sang some arrangements from the same era, but there main contribution, was first of all the Shakespeare setting Songs and Sonnets by George Shearing. These were quite a revelation to me. The challenge, following the efforts of a long and distinguished list of composers who have tried their hand at these texts, and often with memorable success, is extremely daunting. Yet the memory of the performance is of something new and a contribution to our understanding of what the words mean. They are very beautiful and they are clearly quite hard to sing with their very pianistic texture. As always in the summer, the choir turns from the great oratorios to something different and as in the past they did not fail to impress with their musicality and their ability to get into the right “mood”
The same was true of of the Barrie Carson Turner arrangement of Beatles songs Revolver, which is more recent in its origins, but in this arrangement a real challenge to the choir. They were convincing and the audience loved it! Amanda Kornas accompanied magnificently and Richard Barnes directed, compeered and held the whole evening together. Just as well for us that his admission to a first love for mathematics was replaced by a love affair with Brahms which lead to a final choice of music for a career!
John Tarn