With no host to silence the jam-packed audience of The Jazz Bar on the opening night of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival – Scottish Jazz Weekend, and with her opening ballads sharing a similar “delicate” texture to that of the “butterfly wings” in her breathy interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s Pannonica dedicated to the “Baroness of Bebop” Kathleen Rothschild, Scottish singer-songwriter Louise Dodds took a while to find her feet in her short but accomplished set with pianist Steve Hamilton.

Indeed, it wasn’t until her final number, the self-penned Nowhere To Hide, that she eventually hit her stride. By which stage it was time, to quote from a Dexter Gordon track to which she added lyrics, for “the real thing” to come along in the shape of the legendary Norma Winstone and her new trio comprising pianist Kit Downes and guitarist Mike Walker.

So new, in fact, that in introduction to Kenny Wheeler’s For Jan she jokingly instructed her fellow musicians: “Not so fast and not with that strange intro.” Which in black and white sounds frosty, but in reality was more jovial and relaxed. As you would expect from someone of her calibre and experience as she followed up the previous night’s gig at The Blue Lamp in Aberdeen to round off an all-to-rare jaunt to Scotland.

The highlight of the evening being a wonderful interpretation of The Peacocks by American pianist Jimmy Rowles for which she wrote lyrics and re-titled A Timeless Place. A composition she rightfully described as being “really beautiful and difficult” – just the type of song, she admitted, that she likes to sing. And boy, didn’t she nail it. Injecting it with an ethereal air befitting of its enigmatic lyric “how can anybody know you”.

Unfortunately, the here and now of Edinburgh is not a timeless place. And due to a combination of a late-running show and a punctual train (it’s usually the other way about), I missed the closing numbers of her second set. But what a class act and what a red-hot trio. So hot, in fact, that the gig had to be halted so that the expressive Mike Walker could wipe the steam from his glasses!

Peter Callaghan
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