Glasgow Jazz Festival, Jarrod Lawson/Hamish Stuart Band, Rio Club
Rob Adams FOUR STARS
There was a moment during Jarrod Lawson's Glasgow Jazz Festival debut on Friday that chimed with another Glasgow debut last summer. Friday was Lawson's drummer, Josh Corry's birthday and if having a cake, complete with candles, delivered onstage left the drummer abashed, then hearing his boss leading a chorus of Happy Birthday to You must have been a reward on a par with the divine Lalah Hathaway literally singing her guitarist, Ben Jones' praises at the end of his solos at the 02ABC.
Lawson has a voice, songwriting depth and piano-playing talent that have been likened to Hathaway's late father, Donny. He's also acknowledged Stevie Wonder's influence but while both of these masters sprang to mind, as well as a few others - vocal harmony sophisticates Take 6, for example - his live performance confirmed Lawson as a strong enough character to stand on his own two feet.
His songs don't shy away from big ideas, or even big words, but they're carried on strong melodies, classy arrangements and inventive, mobile basslines that, along with blue-eyed soul singing that speaks of honesty and authority, makes them life-affirmingly attractive. His duet on All the Time with Tahira Memory, one of two backing vocalists who created a fabulously lush, church-choir-with-added-snap team with Lawson, was magnificent and the Afro-Latin swing of Sleepwalkers, the generous bounce of All That Surrounds and the grooving urgency of Gotta Keep fed the mind while keeping whatever body parts folks felt like shakin' sweet on the beat.
On the more familiar end of the Glasgow audience's radar, former Average White Band singer-guitarist Hamish Stuart and his superb band honoured the stay-true-to-the-groove sentiment expressed in one AWB classic, Queen of My Soul, as well as reconfiguring and deliciously slowing down another, Cloudy, in a late-night set of sincere soul searchin' and feelgood rhythm and blues.
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