Wendy Kirkland

‘Piano Divas’ featuring The Wendy Kirkland Quartet.

The theme of this evening’s set was female singer/pianists, reflecting the degree to which Wendy Kirkland, formerly solely a pianist, was inspired to combine singing and piano playing after being exposed to such performers as Diana Krall, Nina Simone, Eliane Elias and Carol Welsman.
This was a very professional set, and the fact that the quartet had been touring to promote its first album came across clearly in their tight and polished delivery throughout the evening.

The quartet (interestingly, all of whose members were involved in running jazz clubs in the north of England) comprised musicians who were clearly competent and experienced in the field. On guitar was Pat Sprakes (Kirkland’s husband), who played a very strong role in the quartet, providing a rhythmically sound and melodically sound foundation. His tone was excellent and varied and he was able to produce a range of subtle variations in sound, suggesting great jazz guitarists of the past (For guitar aficionados, he utilised a very nice custom made, thin line, semi-acoustic by English luthier Colin Keefe, coupled with a Mambo wedge combo).

On double bass was Paul Jeffries, who provided a solid and driving rhythm, with styles very appropriate to the selection of tunes. His time feel was excellent and his tone never harsh (through his Acoustic Image combo and Gage Realist pickup setup). Jeffries easily switched between styles and kept a keen eye on the quartet’s members, keeping the whole evening tightly controlled.

On drums (a lovely old Gretsch jazz, 18”bass drum, kit), mainly utilising brushes but providing a wide range of sounds, was Steve Smith, who was never too showy but provided just what was required for the numbers selected. Smith is a drummer who really listens and would fit easily and tastefully into many jazz combos. I enjoyed his laid back, but authoritative, style very much.

Kirkland has a relaxed and pleasant jazz vocal style, reminiscent to an extent of Diana Krall but maintaining her own stamp all the while. Her keyboard playing was appropriate to the styles of the songs and relevant throughout, mainly using a standard piano sound on her Korg keyboard but, on one song, using an electric piano sound to good effect.

The set kicked off with a take on Shirley Horn’s version of the Cahn / Van Heusen tune ‘Come Dance With Me’. This featured a great swinging bass and a lovely, bluesy, guitar solo reminiscent of Herb Ellis, with a few cheeky quotes thrown in, and a fine piano solo from Kirkland.

Next was a version of Hank Williams’ ‘Hey, good looking’, inspired by the Canadian Carol
Welsman’s approach. The first ‘head’, played with ‘stops’, worked well and was followed by some laid back solos from Sprakes and Kirkland. The feel as the tune progressed was sparse and bluesy, featuring some nice piano and guitar call and response passages. The vamp at the end of the tune concluded suddenly, and to good effect, on a suspended chord.

The first set continued with an interesting variety of tunes:

Berlin’s ‘Cheek To Cheek’, arranged by Sprakes in a quite complex samba style but with a swung B section, the outro featuring some fine and mellow, thump toned, guitar work from Sprakes.

‘Its Not Unusual’ - normally associated with Tom Jones but written by Les Reed and Gordon Mills. This arrangement, by Sprakes and Kirkland, was delivered in a relaxed bossa style with the intro section covered by Sprakes. This was a very mellow and pleasant arrangement with some excellent bossa rhythms provided by Smith. The tune modulated upwards for the second head and utilised some interesting harmonic substitutions under the ‘it happens every day ...’ parts. A quite satisfying arrangement overall, which the audience clearly appreciated.

The American jazz pianist Dave Frishberg’s ‘I’m Hip’, famously covered by Blossom Dearie. This song, which Kirkland explained was written about jazz fans who are less cool than they think, featured a few altered lyrics for the purpose of ensuring topicality; I think I heard macrobiotics mentioned in the vocal. This number worked well, commencing with an effective ‘two’ feel and finishing with a well executed piano and voice coda.
Kenny Rankin’s ‘Haven’t We Met?’, inspired by Mel Torme’s take on this song, performed with a jazz waltz (actually 6/8) feel. Sprake’s guitar solo was very impressive and his use of octaves conjured up a Wes Montgomery feel. The beginning of this arrangement, based around Van Heusen’s ‘Here’s That Rainy Day’ was apt and evocative.

Jobim’s ‘Chega de Saudade’ (‘No More Blues’), presented in a samba style and based on a transcription of Eliane Elias’s live performance. This was probably my favourite song of the set, the first section performed as a voice and guitar duo, followed by an open feeling piano, bass and drum section, eventually picking up a nice samba rhythm backing to a piano solo with a strong bass foundation. Jeffries’ bass tone was superb here. A drum solo, against a repeated piano motif, led to a well rehearsed and sudden surprise ending to the first set.

The second set, followed the general theme of the first but remained varied and interesting, and was equally well received by the audience. In brief, the set included:

Frank Loesser’s ‘On a slow boat to China’, based on Carol Welsman’s performance, featuring a laid back swing feel and complemented by an excellent scat/piano intro from Kirkland.

A Spakes/Kirkland original, ‘Bahia’, named after the Brazilian resort, featuring some delightfully rich piano harmonies in the intro and some fine bossa rhythmic playing from Sprakes.

Bernstein’s ‘Some Other Time’, evoking the performance of this song by Diana Krall and the fine jazz guitarist Mark Whitfield. Here the arpeggiated piano and vocal intro with a simple guitar backing worked well and was complemented by Sprakes’ use of a bowed string effect by employing his volume pedal, and by a simple but effective bass and brushed snare backing.

Peter Nero’s ‘Sunday in New York’, in an arrangement by Kirkland. Here the head, performed beautifully by Kirkland, was followed by a blue toned solo from Sprakes, with a tone reminiscent of some of the work of Lee Ritenour and Russell Malone: very classy. Kirkland followed with a scat singing section with well executed doubling of the melodic lines on piano. This number featured some stylish drumming breaks from Smith.

Walter Donaldson’s and Gus Kahn’s ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’. Here, rather than mimicking the well worn Nina Simone version, the quartet presented the song in the style of Al Jarreau, though Kirkland explained that she did not intend to try to replicate Jarreau’s voice! Kirkland switched here to a very apt electric piano sound. The jazz funk backing and Sprakes’ Wes Montgomery styled octave work, coupled with some tasteful and spacey piano soloing, made this number work very well. Unexpectedly, this unconventional approach to the song concluded with a return to the usual coda from Simone’s classic recording.

Brooks Bowman’s ‘East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon’, inspired by Diana Krall’s performance, which was again very smooth and well received.

Herb Ellis’s ‘Detour Ahead’, styled on the arrangement by Nina de Rose. This was a sound performance featuring lots of off beat emphases, some very effective and fluid guitar playing and a brilliant, spacey, final section with bassist and drummer acquitting themselves well.

Barry Manilow’s ‘Meet Me At Midnight’, which follows the chordal structure of Sonny Rollins’ ‘Doxy’. The evening concluded with this song, which commenced with a strong vocal over a bass and drum backing. The straight ahead jazz/blues feel of this number worked well and the tune featured some interesting piano work from Kirkland over a convincing Duke Ellington /Ray Brown type backing from the rhythm section.

Overall, this was a polished and enjoyable performance, and was well received by the audience. Kirkland is a capable and engaging performer and maintains a good rapport with her audience. The band demonstrated that they are very competent and experienced. For me, the only thing lacking at times was a sense of danger; the best jazz performances, in my view, take chances and push the boundaries (often with the result that things fall over a little). I would have liked to see the quartet take a few more risks, but that’s just me - the audience was very pleased with the performance and I heard murmurings of “let’s have more of this sort of thing”. Well worth catching this quartet if you get the chance.

DAVID HOBBS (for The JazzMann)

Chris Byars, the New York saxophonist, composer and band leader, was displaying the jazz musician’s hard-nosed realism when he opined that the supply of jazz would always exceed the demand for it. His ancillary point was that the suppliers would continue to offer their wares and the customers would not change much numerically, come what may. What’s come in the last few weeks has been yet another newspaper prophecy: that there is an ‘explosion’ going on in British jazz, meaning that it is undergoing one of its modestly seismic revivals. It’s been happening regularly since the 1980s, and has been of interest mainly to commercial people looking to make a buck out of a music curiously unable to turn what’s new into what’s moneymaking. Byars would recognise the scenario. Jazz, despite these unjustified tremors of excitement and to paraphrase Alan Bennett, just keeps on keeping on.

The ‘new’ usually means the young playing in a way different from their elders and usually for audiences of their coevals. It’s all very healthy but circumscribed in terms of a following. Its health is buttressed by the mainstream players who preserve traditions and give them interesting twists. This is true of the Wendy Kirkland Quartet, currently touring to promote her first album, a tribute to its eponymous ‘piano divas’, the women musicians who have made such an important contribution to the music. In her book these are vocalists who also accompany themselves at the keyboard, such as the New Orleans pianist-singer La Vergne Smith, a sophisticated performer who, however, did not figure in Kirkland’s selection for the end-of-the-month gig at Black Mountain Jazz Club, Abergavenny, but whose work is a paradigm of the deft musicianship, humour, and élan which Kirkland emulates.

Many did, including Blossom Dearie, Diana Krall, Eliane Elias, and Nina Simone. Sophistication seems to be the byword for these distaff jazzers, not least Kirkland herself, who for a long while (it’s impossible to believe that this is her début recording) has been perfecting the deceptively-simple art of singing over her own choice harmonisations, lightly picked out. Concentration tends to spread from her and her keyboard immediately to guitarist Pat Sprakes, a keystone talent in this kind of music and this sort of ensemble, in which it’s important to reflect in one’s playing an appreciation of the leader’s pre-eminence as well as how it can be enhanced by what is a rhythmic and melodic instrument. Bassist Paul Jefferies and drummer Stevie Smith know their place in the context of the music, Jefferies’s one extended solo and Smith’s opportunely taken breaks representing a judicious and proper assignment of roles, though their skill in maintaining relaxed motion, of rhythms both straight-walking and Latin, could not be under-estimated.

Interest in the album from the likes of critics Dave Gelly (The Observer) and Clive Davis (The Sunday Times) must have surprised the band, which has had to add more venues to its itinerary. This has resulted in a tighter schedule and a plethora of different surroundings that possibly accounted for some variable intonation on the night, though no diminution of the band’s pursuit of intimacy. Here, Smith’s sparing use of the sticks in favour of brushes was important. Such decisions were also crucial when it came to charts commemorating singers with different approaches. Blossom Dearie, for instance, in her own arrangement of Dave Frishberg’s I’m Hip, the only song in which Kirkland couldn’t resist a hint of imitation, elsewhere eschewed in favour of her own accomplished command of a lyric. Krall and Mark Whitfield inspired Sprakes to arrange Leonard Bernstein’s Some Other Time for an immaculate duo, and with Kirkland the guitarist contributed a joint composition, Bahia, which ought to be taken up by others. Both were responsible for a Latin version of It’s Not Unusual, brave departure in a place not far from Tom Jones’s old stamping ground, and Kirkland, no mean arranger herself throughout the set, paid tribute to the transposing skills of others, notable Carol Welsman in Hank Williams’s Hey, Good Lookin’ and Shirley Horn in the Cahn-Van Heusen number Come Dance With Me. These were performances involving original tunes, the creative interventions of others and the inspiring performances of others, too, such as Krall in Brooks Bowman’s East Of The Sun and Horn, Dena Derose and Mel Tormé in Kirkland’s arrangement of Peter Nero’s Sunday In New York.

Jazz, in other words, is a populous country, with lots of people contributing to what is a deceptively simple and easygoing branch of the art. That Kirkland makes it look so is itself a tribute to a musician who through her own devices and the collaboration of others is attracting the attention she has long deserved while newcomers, allegedly, are adding to the conventions she consolidates.

Nigel Jarrett, Arts Scene Wales

We were very impressed with Wendy Kirkland. She has a style all her own and the backing group were indeed extremely good.
She had the confidence too talk to the audience ,so that gives her an added plus.
We hope that all her future venues will be successful and wish her well for the future.” Roy Allsopp