Glasgow Jazz Festival
David McAlmont presents Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall
St Luke’s, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
*****
THE OPENING event of this year’s Glasgow Jazz Festival encapsulated exactly why it is such an essential part of the city’s cultural calendar 33 years after its inception.
Attracting a packed and diverse crowd to the venue that has established itself as the successor to the Old Fruitmarket, on the evening before the first concert there, singer David McAlmont re-contextualised the “tragic” tale of Lady Day, who died 60 years ago, by performing a joyous celebration of her music with a band that - by the by - reflected the goal of a 50/50 gender balance at festivals towards which Jill Rodger’s event has blazed a trail.
The Performing Rights Society, which is behind that “Key Change” initiative, was, incidentally, name-checked by McAlmont late on in the show, with an anecdote about the significance of its quarterly payments to musicians illustrating the poor remuneration Billie Holiday received for her classic recordings.
That was indicative of his approach, finding parallels between Holiday’s life and his own in a spoken-word component of the evening that stayed focused when it seemed in danger of waffle, and in which the scripted component was sincere and poetic.
With the November 1956 Carnegie Hall concert of the title another element of that framework, the music itself showed his love for, and debt to, Holiday’s back catalogue, without being any sort of impersonation.
And what a repertoire it is for a singer of the capabilities of McAlmont. George Melly - who had very little voice at all - would have given his eye teeth to be able to deliver a Billie’s Blues like this one, and the second half sequence of Loverman, I Cried For You and Don’t Explain was a masterclass in jazz vocals. A stripped-back duo encore of God Bless The Child, to which musical director added his own original piano riff, recast the song for contemporary ears.
Over the rest of the two sets, McAlmont was superbly accompanied by a trio completed by Flo Moore on bass and Sophie Alloway on drums, and a front line of saxophonist Denys Baptiste and trumpeter Sue Richardson, the latter often the crucial foil to the singer in Webb’s fine arrangements.
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 here