By DAVID ALSTON
Francesca Tandoi / Theatre On The Hill / Roodepoort, Johanneburg
Looking remarkably fresh after a flight from Rome the previous day and with little time to rehearse, Italian jazz pianist and vocalist Francesca Tandoi’s recent concert at drummer and impresario Tony Yoko’s venue in Roodepoort once again proved to be “a swingin’ affair”, which sent the audience away happy with a variety of standards.
Her musical cohorts – Justin Holcroft on tenor and soprano saxophones, Marc Duby on bass and Yoko on drums – all of whom had played with Tandoi during her previous visit in 2018, quickly settled into a groove with a blues For Sonny Rollins and Teach Me Tonight, with Tandoi, on vocals, including some mean scatting. Two bossa novas followed, a blues rave-up with some double-time insertions driving it forward, and the first half ended with The Sheik Of Araby, unlikely material but given a swinging treatment.
After the interval, a moody Night Train – with a bow to Oscar Peterson’s CD of the same name – preceded a spontaneous improvisation based on notes randomly selected by the audience, followed by a soulful ballad, Maybe You’ll Be There (written in 1947 by Rube Bloom and Sammy Gallop and covered by many pop and jazz vocalists including Frank Sinatra and Diana Krall) and Someday My Prince Will Come from Cinderella – brought into the jazz mainstream by Miles Davis – with a great soprano solo by Holcroft.
An original by Tandoi; then The Christmas Song (composed by Robert Wells and Mel Torme in 1945 before subsequently becoming a massive hit for Nat ‘King’ Cole), and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, brought the concert to an appropriate close, the final tune demonstrating that even trite material can be turned into good jazz in the right hands. Although Tandoi’s piano playing and vocals were obviously the main feature of the evening, Duby ’s sympathetic bass playing and inventive solos, Holcroft’s rousing playing and complete mastery of his instruments, plus Yoko’s tasteful drumming, all added to the mix of great Jazz For The Holidays.
Tandoi’s subsequent two sell-out concerts in Cape Town and The Theatre on the Square showed once again that there is always an audience for good music, and while she is the first to acknowledge her influences – such as Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson – she remains very much her own person, with that overall quality that defines what jazz is really all about: swing, with flawless technique to back it up.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”default_sidebar”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
