Gig Review: Norma Winstone

Published on Monday 20 October 2008 20:22

NORMA WINSTONE CITY HALL, GLASGOW

PUT singer Norma Winstone together with a pianist and a horn player and thoughts inevitably stray to the great Azimuth trio with John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler. In this recent updating of the format, she was joined by Italian pianist Glauco Venier and Austrian Klaus Gesing on bass clarinet and soprano saxophone.

The group has already put their distinctive stamp on the concept. Winstone's microphone level was too low in the opening song, Venier's setting of a poem by James Joyce, but that was quickly remedied. What followed was a wonderful display of the art of jazz singing framed within an imaginative and highly interactive instrumental conversation.

They drew on a number of songs from their album Distances, released on ECM earlier this year. The Munich label is a natural home for their thoughtful chamber jazz approach. Winstone assuaged local sensibilities by balancing her own A Song for England with a lovely reading of The Heather on the Hill, and treated a group of Italian visitors from Venier's home region to a song in what the pianist insisted was their local language rather than a dialect.

Several songs featured her wordless vocalisations employed in instrumental fashion, while digressions from the album included re-workings of Nilsson's Everybody's Talking and Tom Waits' San Diego Serenade.

Coltrane's iconic Giant Steps was re-imagined as Giant's Gentle Strides, while Venier's Troll's Party and Gorizia fired up the tempo and energy levels.