Music
Clare Teal’s Swingin’ Christmas
City Halls, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
four stars
OBVIOUSLY the big question is whether the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra matched the RSNO in the Christmas costume stakes. As that will not be detectable when this concert is broadcast in Radio Scotland at 10pm on Christmas Eve, it is my duty to report on the splendid Santa fat suit sported by percussionist Dave Lyons, and first cello Alison Lawrance’s vibrant cerise Su-a Lee wig (a rather good Scottish musical gag, that). On the wireless you will also have to imagine the scarlet Christmas frock worn by audience member Freda, who rather stole the show, having been cajoled into participating in the SSO’s community singalong version of the 12 Days of Christmas.
So much for the similarities with the RSNO’s Christmas concert. In other ways, we were in vastly different territory. Although Leroy Anderson’s Sleighride made an appearance as an encore, some of the other instrumental orchestral music and medleys here were rather more pointy-headed than those in the RSNO programme, while on the other hand the SSO was also a very fine big band to accompany singer Clare Teal. Heather Corbett’s percussion section was on stellar form throughout, and Teal’s trio version of the 1930s Ella Fitzgerald classic Mr Paganini was driven along be none other than the great Alyn Cosker on drums. With seasoned dance-music conductor Gavin Sutherland on the podium, the non-seasonal music also included Nelson Riddle’s arrangement of the Gershwin brothers’ Someone to Watch Over Me, and a tribute to Doris Day, who will be 97 next year, in the Cahn/Styne It’s Magic, while the Christmas hits referenced Andy Williams (It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year), Judy Garland (Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas) and – more unusually – Kay Starr, with Everybody’s Waitin’ for the Man with the Bag.
Teal seemed less comfortable on Sutherland’s own arrangement of O Holy Night (more Kathryn Jenkins repertoire, really), while the most recently written song, Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, fitted right in, thanks to the excellent big band arrangement by trumpeter Guy Barker.
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