Laura Macdonald and David Berkman
Laura Macdonald and David Berkman
Tolbooth, Stirling
Keith Bruce
On a day when role models for young women were top of the agenda, and the one who took her place at Holyrood had a worthy parallel in the saxophonist in this duet partnership. After a short interval, designed chiefly to provide an opportunity for the audience to buy the Glasgow-recorded and Creative Scotland-supported disc of standards they are launching on this short tour, we were introduced to some of the young players Macdonald coaches at this venue. The front line of two further alto saxes and a trumpet for Jobim's One Note Samba was entirely female - take a bow Sophie, Ruby and Lisa (as well as Fraser and Chris on bass and guitar).
That detour was the only diversion on a soup-to-nuts sequential tour of the Duets disc, although any resemblance to the current rock revivalist fashion for such concerts was entirely incidental. Macdonald and New York pianist Berkman have honed their communication over years and on tunes like Jerome Kern's The Song Is You, their interaction went far beyond swapping solos, to constantly communicative improvisation. The fact is that Berkman has been coming to Scotland for over a decade - a known Scots jazzer once told me that he learns more about the local scene from contact with the American than he ever knows himself - while at least one of Macdonald's own compositions is established in the repertoire at New York's jazz clubs. Their musical partnership, a shotgun marriage in an Edinburgh club five years ago, has evolved to such a degree that even some lapses of concentration on this occasion are no distraction from a beautiful re-acquaintance with a set of old favourites.
The duo play Glasgow's City Halls this evening.
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