Wilma Baan wows at Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho

It’s one of the great questions in music: what makes a piece of jazz vocalese great, the singer or the song? Sometimes it’s both, as with greats such as Ella or Sarah, with the result we get something magical.

Singer Wilma Baan, launching her second album Look At Me Now! (reviewed in Jazzwise 289 and an homage to the great American songbook) at Pizza Express’ famous Dean Street venue, seems to sit in the ‘the song is the star’ camp. She eschews pyrotechnics in favour of phrasing; the songs are always the centre of the performance, and thus, perhaps paradoxically, she ends up illuminating and elevating herself. It helps too, that she understands the material so well and has such affection for it, as this is a crucial part of her appeal.

This is perhaps not accidental, as Baan has had to work hard to overcome adversity. A former nurse who pursued her dream of singing jazz, she suffers from a hearing condition that prevents her from hearing any sound with a frequency of above about 1kHz. Although modern hearing aids help, she also relies on sound engineers and her musicians. This means that her approach in the studio and on=stage is collaborative and ego-free.

After an introduction by album producer Claire Martin, Baan took to the stage to rapturous applause. Backed by a first-class, simpatico band of  Graham Harvey (piano), Jeremy Brown (bass), Sebastiaan de Krom (drums), with Nigel Price and Nat Steele guesting on guitar and vibes respectively, Baan wowed the audience at Dean Street with a two-set, 16-song show. Much of the material was drawn from Look At Me Now!, which allowed the band to shine on stage as much as they do on the album – and, characteristically, Baan unselfishly allows her musicians to shine, the superb Harvey especially. A hard-swinging ‘Old Devil Moon’ draw appreciative cheers, while ‘When In Rome’ saw the singer having a whale of a time and Steele’s vibes on a shimmering ‘Waltz For Debby’ were perfect. Meanwhile, ‘The Day It Rained’ featuring sensitive guitar playing from Price, exposed the raw, untutored edge in Baan’s delivery, which actually improved the song: despite the slick, attractive presentation, Baan’s music never descends into smooth jazz hell.

Highlight of an enjoyable evening were a splendidly mellow version of Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Lush Life’ (written when he was just 18), in which Baan emphasised the wondrousness of the composer’s precocious lyrics; and a take on Kermit The Frog’s mournful Muppet anthem, ‘It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green’ which really bought out the song’s humour.