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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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CASSANDRA WILSON
The Jazz Café, Camden
Town, London, September 25th 2007 |
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Who
is it, Serge, who decides how much things are worth?
Is there some external arbiter of value who can,
willy nilly, put a price on any given item or commodity?
Or is it simply, and crudely, determined by some
estimate of “what the market will bear”,
or cruder still, “whatever someone’s
prepared to pay”? |
| And
if it is this latter, basely commercial, calculation,
then how do you know how deep “someone’s”
purse is? Or could it be that price isn’t
determined by value at all, and rather that value
is determined by price? Well, as ever I’m
afraid, too many questions and not enough answers.
Well, not quite. Because whoever determined (and
for that matter, however) the entry price for Cassandra
Wilson’s four nights at Camden
Town’s Jazz Café, they clearly got
it badly wrong. Knowing the extent of our Whiskyfun
budget means that there was no baulking at a £50
per head ticket for me – here’s someone
I’ve wanted to see for a very long time, and
the chance of a performance in such an intimate
atmosphere (she normally hangs out at places like
the Southbank Centre – great sound but sadly
lacking in atmosphere) was too much to resist. |
| Sadly
it looked like only forty or fifty people thought
the same – upstairs is half empty and downstairs
the floor is dotted by a sparse collection of woodentops,
largely of the male variety. Quite how she fared
on her other three nights I know not, but on a suddenly
autumnal Tuesday evening this was a sorry and shameful
turnout for such an accomplished artiste. Maybe
(because I’m told that in the two weeks since
I’ve been away the British economy has crumbled,
trust in our financial institutions has been undermined,
and consumer confidence is at an all time low) people
are simply choosing to stay at home counting their
bawbees by candlelight. |
 |
| And
you might have thought that many a performer might
have chosen to turn in a less than optimal performance
for such a tawdry crowd. But I’m glad to say
this was not the case, and I observe that even the
woodentops did their best to encourage both Ms
Wilson and her highly gifted band, led by guitarist
Marvin
Sewell, who has played with her for over ten
years, and uber laid-back pianist Jason
Moran. At the heart of Ms Wilson’s performance
is of course her deeply expressive voice with its
very broad range of notes – it has to be said
that when she moves into a really low register the
sound system has difficulty in keeping track with
her. But what is most compelling is the languid
blues groove that her bands have for many years
provided as the backdrop to her singing. It’s
a sound that has been progressively developed since
her 1993 album Blue Light ‘Til Dawn –
when Brandon Ross provided the blues guitar sound
that has also become a signature of her work –
something that Sewell has picked up and developed
in his own style. Ms Wilson also relies heavily
(both on disc and in live performance) on other
people’s compositions – so tonight we
get songs as diverse as Robert Johnson’s ‘Hellhound
on my trail’, Elmore Jame’s ‘Dust
my broom’, Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan’
and U2’s ‘Love is blindness’ –
all of which are given the very distinctive Wilson
treatment, so it’s always a bit of a guessing
game during the introductions to know what’s
coming next. |
 |
| I
observe that reviewers have in the past chided her
for this over-reliance on the work of others, as
her own writing skills are by no means poor. However
I struggled to spot an original composition in the
set which began with ‘St James’ Infirmary’
and ended with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘Waters
of March’. This latter song was from Belly
of the Sun, the fourth of a series of epic albums
that began with Blue Light, since when critics have
also found her overall recorded works less satisfactory,
somewhat mainstream, and perhaps altogether too
predictable, including the most recent, 2006’s
Thunderbird. That may be – but tonight’s
performance, even in the absence of a decent audience
is very, very good. In addition to her mesmerising
voice, the multi-layered rhythmical feel - result
of the work of New Orleans drummer Herlin Riley
(who even manages to use the underside of the overhead
walkway as an additional instrument) and percussionist
Lekan Babalola - takes songs like ‘Dust my
broom’ into deeply uncharted and intriguing
territory. And of course it plays strongly to the
African heritage of Ms Wilson’s birthplace
of Mississippi and many of the composers she chooses
to feature. |
|
Value for money? Well, who can really tell? But
certainly neither I nor the Photographer felt undersold.
And if £50 is what it costs to go and see
Ms Wilson and a band of such quality (did I remember
to mention the wonderfully sensitive string bass
player Reginald Veal?) then I for one would certainly
go again. - Nick Morgan (concert photograph
by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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