The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 8JH | Bookings 020 7254 4097 | Enquiries 020 7993 3643 | Email Info at Vortex

December 2007
gig reviews

Guy Barker Jazz Orchestra
Damon Brown/Yutaka Shiina Quartet
Max Grunhard Sextet
The TransAtlantic Collective
Christine Tobin
Eclectica

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December gig reviews by Chris Parker

Christine Tobin

Friday 14 December

The Vortex, for a number of artists (Ian Shaw, Barb Jungr, Annie Whitehead, John Etheridge, Deidre Cartwright, Evan Parker prominent among them) has become the venue at which they can be seen in what might be termed their 'natural environment', where a sympathetic, attentive audience assembles to repeat a pleasurable listening experience among like-minded souls.

Christine Tobin is perhaps the ultimate example of such a performer, and it would be understandable were she to coast through her gigs at the club, secure in the knowledge that she is singing mainly to friends and admirers who need no convincing of her talents.

Instead, characteristically, she seems to view such occasions as opportunities to stretch herself, to try out fresh musical approaches, to push at the boundaries of her art.

Augmenting her regular band à guitarist Phil Robson, bassist Dave Whitford, drummer Simon Lea and percussionist Thebe Lipere à with cellist Kate Shortt and pianist Liam Noble is a case in point; not only do they add two more utterly distinctive solo voices to the mix, but also impart considerable textural variety to the overall band sound, bringing, for example, a yearning plangency to the Brazilian material (Shortt's cello contributions perfectly complementing the rich, smooth, affecting power of Tobin's vocals) or a pleasingly terse denseness to the in-band originals (Noble's extraordinarily fluid but pungent explorations of the tricksiest of time signatures and chord sequences).

Add in Robson's perfectly judged selections of electric guitar textures, combining as he does breezy single-note runs with tellingly convoluted, 'squeezed' sounds and the odd controlled howl, all subtly but briskly underpinned by a vigorously propulsive but consistently sympathetic rhythm section, and the result is an archetypal Tobin gig: a judicious balance of the intriguingly new and the reassuringly familiar, delivered with unassuming virtuosity; her forthcoming album is a mouth-watering prospect.

 

 

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