Emma Smith, Pizza Express Jazz Club review - Christmas spirited | reviews, news & interviews
Emma Smith, Pizza Express Jazz Club review - Christmas spirited
Emma Smith, Pizza Express Jazz Club review - Christmas spirited
A night of seasonal cheer to banish the winter blues
There’s much fun to be had with snow, and fun things go with it, too, such as album launches in Soho on a freezing Saturday night in December, when the rest of the country is watching England depart the World Cup in the quarter finals.
Downstairs at Pizza Express Jazz Dean Street, missed-penalty misery was banished, the snowfall was metaphorical, and the fun to be had was centred around singer Emma Smith, launching her Snowbound record to a full house with a fine quartet behind her, of Hammond organist Ross Stanley, the tasteful licks of guitarist Nick Costly-White, Leo RIchardson’s supple sax, and drummer Jason Brown.
Christmas may not be a Jewish holiday, but in many ways it’s Jewish songwriters and performers who have created the Christmas in song that we all know and love, and as a Jewish jazz singer Emma Smith is very much a part of that tradition. Her album Meshuga Baby appeared earlier this year, she’s a close-harmony singing veteran of the Puppini Sisters, and she recently starred in a 21st century big-band-and bigger-songs revival of the Swing era that was The Big Swing.
Her five-song Christmas record was reviewed here earlier this week, and on Saturday it was time to blow off the tinsel and give those songs some air with a pair of strong lungs. Snowbound’s opener, Billie Holiday's “I Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” raised the energy levels to a hot bebop setting before a delicate coupling of guitar and brushes introduced “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”, a deep-midwinter torch song that Smith wears like a luxurious coat close to the skin.
Sultry, assured, very funny and in full command of her audience, her stage, her players and her material, Emma Smith is a star singer with a fine-tuned sense of drama. She all but straddles Diana Krall’s “Frim Fram Sauce” extracting more food/sex innuendos than you may have thought possible, while even Santa looks set to get a booty call by the tone of Snowbound’s one original, written with sax player Alex Garland, “Blues for Santa”. Well, if you’re looking for a big fella with a big sack to fill your chimney…
On the likes of “Cheek to Cheek” – the Ella and Louis version – the band swung hard around drummer Jason Brown’s hi-hat, but the highlights were the quieter songs – the lyrical blues of “A Time for Love”, featuring Smith duetting with Ross Stanley’s Hammond – or the set’s closing numbers, a lovely, slow ballad in Sarah Vaughan’s “Snowbound”, and the funky “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” with a mean bass riff on the sax that could make those venerable Three Wise Men get up and dance.
All in all, the seasonal message rings loud and clear – get into the Christmas spirit, get Snowbound, and get someone nice to keep you warm. Christmas sorted.
- Snowbound is out now on Wingsor Castle Records
- More new music reviews on theartsdesk
- Tim Cumming's website
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