Amid all the thrashing of drums, blaring of horns and squealing of strings which have charged the humid air of this year’s Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, Becc Sanderson provided an “oasis of calm” with her classy reimagining of her 2011 fringe show Passion Flower named after the opening track by her beloved Billy Strayhorn.
Though given the floral (and at times fauna) inspired titles which made up her two forty-five minute sets at the intimate basement of the Ronseal-inspired institution that is The Jazz Bar, perhaps that should read a garden of tranquility – albeit one populated by “an awful lot of roses”.
The first half was maybe too subdued and downbeat in its repeated portrayal of “pathetic” female victims who, as Sanderson humorously remarked after her self-penned megaphone-elevated Chamellia, loved and lost and “died of consumption”.
Though the range of styles – which swung from the thorny The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be by The Magnetic Fields featuring her deadpan trombonist husband Chris Greive on melodica to the “nerve calming” and herbally-heightened opener underscored by the ever-excellent Graeme Stephen on guitar – was as eclectic as it was impressive.
The second half, however, was in the words of Monty Python “something completely different” – and judging by the louder and longer rounds of applause all the better and more engaging for it – as Sanderson slinked out of the sophisticated straitjacket of standards to freely express herself in more contemporary, experimental and emotionally-charged material.
A lyric in her Radiohead opener Lotus Flower mirroring her bud to blossom transition: “slowly we unfurl”. Which was followed by a series of pin drop-hearing numbers including a bluesy Poisoned Rose by Elvis Costello, a rare rendition of another Thom Yorke track Last Flowers and a brace by the “extraordinary genius” that is Tom Waits: the poignant The Last Rose of Summer and the polar opposite Trampled Rose.
After which Sanderson, together with her fellow musicians Chris Greive and Graeme Stephen, who were subtle and sophisticated in their support throughout, rounded off the evening with a charming interpretation of La Vie En (yet another) Rose. To which the audience no doubt left thinking: Roses are red, violets are blue, like a dry flower bed, I bid you a dew. Badum tish!
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