via London Jazz News
“Too much beauty can be distracting.”
Well, that’s easy for Cécile McLorin Salvant to say (as she did to Jess Gillam on Radio 3’s This Classical Life, about the exigencies of virtuosity) but when you’re faced with another evening of her exquisite voice and Sullivan Fortner’s piano mastery, distract away, I say…
There was much beauty on offer last night, the pleasures of this superduo compounded with a superb rhythm section driven by another duo of Savannah Harris on drums & Weedie Braimah on djembe, congas etc, while Yasushi Nakamura’s double bass underpinned all with a generous sound and some dramatic soloing.
Compere Kevin Le Gendre warned us of the diva’s “amazing lime green shoes” but she must have changed, for she appeared in an equally amazing pair of stacked copper clogs and layers of colour, topped with a beautiful yellow African print jacket, reminiscent of the cover of 2018’s The Window. Braimah was almost her match while the more modestly attired Fortner sat in quiet command, a smiling wizard at the piano.