Trudy Kerr and the Michael Garrick Trio 19 September 2009 – Scarborough Jazz Festival
Michael Garrick’s lyrical compositions rank among my favourites, and his precise, careful playing fits with Trudy Kerr’s meticulous intonation and elegant swing. This was reason enough to look forward to tonight’s set. I am also a firm believer in the dictum that you need a strong jazz singer on stage about half way through the festival. Most popular music has featured the voice heavily, and while I’m a fanatic about jazz playing, getting back to a singer is a refreshing restorative 15 hours into a festival.
The trio were ideal accomplices for Kerr, turning reserve into a virtue, gently swinging behind her, and then filling the instrumental solo spaces with distinctive ‘voices’ of their own. Garrick and Clark Tracey echoed each other’s percussive lines, but the pianist’s pastoral feel is never far behind, while Geoff Gascoyne was responsive to every situation.
The Ellington pieces (from Kerr’s current CD with Garrick) were a joy. She made the well-known compositions her own. This is a woman who commands a stage anyway, but she loves to sing and I was drawn in to very number. But Garrick was always an equal in the musical stakes, even if he is more self-effacing up on the stage.
This was genuinely a jazz trio with a jazz singer, and everyone in the room seemed to feel that they earned their place in a very strong festival line-up. I like a singer who respects as well as uses the jazz tradition.
Tim Wall, justlikejazz.org