An airline baggage hold-up meant Coco Rouzier had to make do with an evening dress and espadrilles, instead of her full glam rig-out, but the Washington DC-born trouper gave every indication that she has long since packed her singing essentials in her memory bank and could probably turn up for work barefoot in a sack cloth and still turn on the style.
Rouzier is a dues-paying jazz, blues and soul singer from the old school. She sang at New York's famous – some say infamous – Apollo Theatre when she was 19, having won a singing competition at Howard University, and by all accounts cut the mustard, and although a lot of her work around the world since she quit the New York scene after 12 years seems to have been in upmarket resorts and night clubs, she can get down, dirty and downright real with the best of them.
She took the opening Let's Face the Music and Dance in a slow Latin-American metre, making an immediate connection with the audience with the extra relish she conjured at the suggestive tempo, and showed her trouper credentials by rearranging Duke Ellington's Take the A Train on the spot, drawing her trio into her way of thinking like someone pulling on a coat.
A motoring I Got Rhythm and It's Wonderful It's Marvellous, sung as a bossa nova alternating with swingtime, showed great technique and drew fine piano solos from Dave Patrick, but it was the way she luxuriated in The Man I Love's soulfulness and gospelised My Funny Valentine that suggested her growing fanbase here could grow a whole lot more.
✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article