Gig review: Reinhardt, Legg & Gore, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

AN annual touring mini-festival showcasing arguably the world’s most ubiquitous instrument, the International Guitar Night this year featured its founder and ringleader, Californian fingerstyle exponent Brian Gore, with German-born gypsy champion Lulo Reinhardt – great-nephew of the legendary Django – and multi-award-winning Londoner Adrian Legg.

The first half saw each performing solo, with Gore opening the show in meditative, pastoral style, his compositions mingling strains of folk, classical, pop and jazz, highlighting his minutely refined technique and immaculate articulation, together with his instrument’s beautifully full, round timbre and tone.

Soothing and exquisitely rendered though it was, his material was distinctly lacking in memorable melodies, while its somewhat over-earnest sensitivity shaded at times towards New Age blandness.

Legg, at 63, is deservedly a legend among guitar aficionados, here wielding his custom-made, round-bodied electric instrument with magical fluency and finesse, weaving his largely sparse, subtle yet wholly compelling sonic tapestries on a broad ground of blues, country and ragtime influences, atmospherically sliding and bending the notes with the tuning pegs. He also stole the show with his dry, wry, sly introductions to tunes and digressions into sundry tall tales, ranging in topic from Derroll Adams’s cremations to female mud-wrestling.

Reinhardt’s boldly-hued blend of gypsy jazz with flamenco and Brazilian styles, and his dazzling though lightly-worn virtuosity, completed an adroitly contrasting triptych of top-rank guitar prowess, which yielded an array of richly adorned permutations when the players teamed up in pairs and ultimately as a trio after the interval.

Rating: ****