Review: Bridget St John/National Jazz Trio of Scotland - Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

By Sue Wilson
Published on Wednesday 1 February 2012 00:00

WINSOME charm was in plentiful supply throughout the first half of this show featuring the National Jazz Trio of Scotland – pianist/multi-instrumentalist and composer Bill Wells’s wilfully misleading moniker for his un-jazzy four-piece in which vocalists Aby Vulliamy, Kate Sugden and Lorna Gilfedder also play viola, marimba and glockenspiel.

Following the cancellation of celebrated saxophone adventurer Lol Coxhill, the band’s scheduled special guest, local stalwwarts Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), trumpeter Robert Henderson (A Band Called Quinn) and Belle & Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson on harmonica stepped up in his stead, for a set previewing tracks from the NJTOS’s forthcoming album, the likewise deceptively-named Standards Vol 2. Slow female harmonies, judiciously counterweighted by Wells’s piano chords, were variously suffused with eeriness, joy and sorrow, heightened further by Henderson’s wistful muted croon, while Blake contributed a lovely version of Bonnie Mary of Argyll.

Early-1970s folk heroine Bridget St John – a favourite of the late John Peel, and a friend of the late John Martyn – joined the rest for a beguiling pair of Beatles covers before the interval, then came back solo with her guitar, on which she attributes her prowess to Martyn’s influence. In a mix of bittersweet ballads from the three albums she recorded for Peel’s Dandelion label between 1969 and 1972, and more recent compositions, her husky mezzo voice – with its quivering vibrato and delicate ragged edge, – cast a compelling yet understated spell.

RATING: ****