Alison Rayner Quintet

It had already been a sensational weekend of female composers and band leaders across the land celebrating International Women’s Day. So how better to round off the festivities than with Alison Rayner leading her well-established quintet at a packed to the gunnels Pizza Express?

Rayner and long-time guitar supremo Deirdre Cartwright have of course been there since the beginning of feminist rock in the 1970s. Joined now by Diane Mcloughlin’s sax, Buster Birch’s drums and Steve Lodder’s piano, the music remains as fresh, vital and relevant as ever.

Spurred on by the uber-fan Arq-Angels, the quintet kicked off with the life-affirming ‘Espiritu Libre’, which, like most of the music joyfully delivered to the ecstatic audience, comes from the band’s new release SEMA4.

It was somewhat surreal being at the launch of an album which itself is a live album from nearly a year ago. But there were poignant and professional reasons why the music was only heard again now. Indeed, it was a song from an earlier album, ‘There’s A Crack in Everything’ (from Short Stories) that signalled the deep sense of loss that underwrote much of the powerful emotions expressed through Rayner’s supple and subtle compositions.

These came to the fore in ‘All Will be Well’ which Rayner wrote during the years of her sister’s sickness. A song of hope yet of ultimate loss, Rayner was moved to tears while playing, and it’s an inestimable tribute to the professionalism of the band and the power of music to heal, that nary a beat was missed as the music grew toward its moving climax. And as the music decayed to silence, all of Dean rushed the stage with tissues.

But this was emphatically a night of joy, with Cartwright’s own ‘Signals from Space’ a highlight along with the surfing celebration ‘Riding the Waves’ replete with lyrical tenor from McLoughlin. Tears of sadness, tears of joy, a time to look back but also to look forward with hope.