Jazz breaking news: Ian Shaw begins Pizza Express residency with special guest Gwyneth Herbert
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
An incantatory rolling on the tongue of the word ‘Blue’, that most suitable Joni Mitchell colour, and some declarative vocal lines of both expressive joy and self deprecation, were all part of how Ian Shaw accompanying himself at the piano began his series of gigs this week last night at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London during his latest high profile residency.
Preparing to celebrate both Joni and lyricist Fran Landesman, with guest Gwyneth Herbert joining after a few numbers, Shaw knows Joni Mitchell inside out and outside in as he showed on his fine album Drawn to All Things: Songs of Joni Mitchell released in 2006, a definite career landmark.
From the off after that initial ripple of intent Shaw was readying himself like someone setting a winter fire. His excellent pianisms the dry-as-a-bone aromatic kindling sure to set off the blaze. While Joni represented the gravitational pull of the evening, the tide also came in with the words and spirit of Fran Landesman riding a wave of rhetorical flourish and salty wash.
The lyricist best known for ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’ sadly passed away last year and Herbert among a host of songwriters and troubadours including the great Beat poet Michael Horovitz have continued the ever deepening and ongoing celebratory performance of Landesman’s work since her passing.
Landesman may well have been “the poet laureate of lovers and losers”, but in Shaw’s hands singing or accompanying Herbert bespectacled like her at first, the set was an upbeat beginning to the week and revealed Herbert’s feel for the work of both songwriters with the London-based singer/songwriter’s at-times huskily contralto tones alternating by turn serious and giddy with her ragged hippie clapping at the outset. There were plenty of lighter moments throughout the set with Shaw amusingly despairing about the awfulness of January, "carbohydrates [pizza, no less] and jazz", and genially wry as he wittered agreeably to the audience. Landesman’s ‘Scars’, an accomplished ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, a silent guitar solo, and ‘A Case of You’ were some of the highlights of a first set that came to an end all too soon and augurs well for the residency.
– Stephen Graham