Norma Winstone and Jeremy Robson bring Song, Humour, Poetry and Jazz to Oxford Literary Festival

It was in 1962 that poet Jeremy Robson and pianist Michael Garrick launched their first poetry and jazz concert, which went on to become an integral part of the UK jazz scene for the following two decades. So it was fitting that to mark the 60th anniversary, Robson himself was on stage, reading new poems concerning the pandemic and the effects of war, while the jazz group was led by Garrick’s son Christian, and included Norma Winstone, Art Themen and Dave Green who had all been involved in the early concerts.

The star of the verbal part of the proceedings was Maureen Lipman, whose two monologues (in which we overheard one end of long phone calls) were brilliantly funny, encompassing everything from recipes to crossword clues, by way of the contents of a freezer and interruptions from a divorce lawyer. She also sang and danced with Norma Winstone, turning the Joyce Grenfell ‘Stately as a Galleon’ set-piece into a two-hander. But it was Winstone who was the musical star, and after Robson’s somewhat earthbound poem inspired by ‘Some of these days’, she took over with a daringly slow version of the old song itself. The music took wing and soared around Christopher Wren’s magnificent auditorium. In a tightly-planned concert such as this, some of the music was cut rather short and we could have done with the band being allowed to fly more often after just a verse and chorus.

When the musicians were given space they were magnificent: Art Themen taking a flowing solo on ‘Galilee’ with a huge range of texture and feeling, Norma at her wordless best on ‘Black Marigolds’, followed by Christian Garrick’s agile violin, and the whole ensemble letting rip on ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing’. But the union of poetry and jazz was best served by Norma’s exquisite version of ‘Stars Fell on Alabama’, lingering on the lyrics with just the simplest of accompaniments from Dave Green, pianist David Gordon and drummer Tom Hooper, plus sensitive punctuations from Garrick’s violin. There can’t have been a dry eye in the house.