Something wasn’t right with the sound in the City Halls’ recital room, though, with the result that Claire Martin lacked the definition and tone that can make her singing so attractive. In fact, at times it was more a case of Claire Martin vs Gareth Williams rather than a duo working together to shed light on Martin’s latest album, A Modern Art.
As those who have been following Martin’s career since she forged her still-thriving association with Linn Records appreciate, the Brighton-based chanteuse has been striving to add more contemporary songs to the jazz canon since her first album.
A Modern Art underlines that policy forcibly, although it was interesting that the title track, a song that makes rather heavy weather of detailing her intentions while others around it just get on with the job, failed to make Saturday’s set list.
Totally, railing against the yoof of today’s hip lexicon, did feature, as did Steely Dan’s Things I Miss the Most, with Martin adding her DIY “drummer” (a shaker), but like the normally seductive Estate and a rather laboured I Didn’t Know What Time it Was, these weren’t Martin at her best.
Whether she was aware of any sound problems or not, though, Martin’s a trouper and she carried off tributes to Shirley Horn and Ernestine Anderson with genuine aplomb and between Lowercase’s sharp wordplay and Esbjorn Svensson’s beautiful, gospel-inflected Love is Real, she championed the old songs with a breezy Cheek to Cheek that featured Williams at his most dazzlingly creative.
Star rating: ***
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