Photograph of Lianne La Havas by Tim Dickeson

Thursday at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, 28/04/2016.

It is unusual for me to attend the midweek concerts at Cheltenham Jazz Festival as I’m usually travelling up and down over the entire weekend. However the prospect of seeing two exceptional, but very different, female artists back to back was too good to resist.

First up, at 7.00 pm in the Jazz Arena, was the guitarist and vocalist Joanne Shaw Taylor who was introduced by Festival Director Ian George as “ The Queen of British Blues”.  She was followed in the Big Top by Lianne La Havas, also a singer, guitarist and songwriter but one whose music explores the boundaries of pop, soul and even folk. They may inhabit very different musical areas but both women have achieved their success through a combination of sheer talent and hard work. The music of each has enough of a jazz influence to get them on to the bill at Cheltenham and I thoroughly enjoyed both performances as I threw away my ‘jazz purist’ hat for the evening.

JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR

The thirty year old guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Joanne Shaw Taylor was first discovered by David A. Stewart of Eurhythmics fame and has since gone on to develop into one of the UK’s most talented and popular blues performers. She is a musician with an international reputation with a considerable following on both sides of the Atlantic.

Shaw Taylor was only sixteen when Stewart came calling and was still a teenager when I saw her perform in the backyard of the Bull Hotel as part of Ludlow Fringe Festival many year ago. I remember being highly impressed at the time and although I don’t listen to much blues on record any more it’s still pleasing to see how she has gone on to conquer the world.

Shaw Taylor’s talents as a guitarist were apparent from a very early age and she names Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Albert Collins as her primary influences. Trace elements of all of these are still readily detectable in her playing. But Shaw Taylor is very much her own woman, she writes high quality original songs in the blues/rock idiom and has released a total of four studio albums plus one live set, the appropriately titled “Songs From The Road”.

Dressed all in black but with a flowing mane of blonde hair the striking figure of Shaw Taylor was joined by the similarly black clad personages of dreadlocked bassist Luigi Casanova and bearded, muscular, tattooed drummer Oliver Perry – this was a band that certainly looked the part.

From the outset it was obvious that they could play the part too as they launched into a sequence of tunes including “Outlaw Angel” and “Wrecking Ball” both sourced, like much of tonight’s material, from Shaw Taylor’s latest studio album “The Dirty Truth” (2014), recorded in Memphis, Tennessee with American producer Jim Gaines.

Shaw Taylor has won the award for Best Female Blues Vocalist at the British Blues Awards and her throaty rasp was well suited to the many energetic, up tempo blues rock songs that peppered her set. But her voice was perhaps at its most effective on slow blues numbers such as the relationship break up song “Tried, Tested and True” where she achieved an almost Joplin-esque level of hoarse, soulful expressiveness.

As a guitarist she was even more outstanding as she delivered a series of searing, scintillating solos packed with audacious runs and licks, the technical mastery again complemented by a corresponding soulfulness. Shaw Taylor also proved herself capable of blasting out chunky, Hendrix style riffs that occasionally edged into the territory of blues metal, appropriate perhaps for one born in the hard rock heartland of the Black Country. 

She was well supported by the hard hitting Perry ,who also added occasional backing vocals, and by Casanova, the latter apparently playing his first gig with the band, although one would never have guessed it. Shaw Taylor seemed to strike up an immediate rapport with the bassist while Perry’s bang on the nail drumming was just what was required to fuel the fiery, molten solos of this genuine guitar heroine. 

Not every song was announced and some of the vocals were lost in a rock volume sound mix so I’m not going to attempt to list every song. Indeed this was music in which to immerse oneself, to shake the head, tap the foot and go with the flow of those scorching guitar solos. Members of Shaw Taylor’s fan base were among the audience in a packed Jazz Arena and the trio’s performance was very well received by the crowd.

Unfortunately I had to leave the show before its conclusion to move on to the next event. The Lianne La Havas gig in the Big Top was due to be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 and all tickets bore the strict instruction “please be seated by 8.15”. Tempted as I was to stay, which I would normally have done given the scheduled 8.30 start, I didn’t want to risk total exclusion and therefore tore myself away and into the stormy night to traverse the Festival site in time for the next performance.

Shaw Taylor and her trio proved themselves to be an exciting and popular attraction and earned themselves a warm reception from the Cheltenham audience. They certainly helped to get my Festival off to a great start and this is a band that I’d be perfectly happy to see again. I’ll try not to leave it quite so long between gigs next time though.

LIANNE LA HAVAS

Although I’d seen Shaw Taylor once before she’d also been recommended to me by friends who’d seen her more recently, one a blues purist, the other a heavy metal specialist. Another mate, Steve, recommended Lianne La Havas, an artist with whom I was previously totally unfamiliar. Based on his description of her as an excellent live performer I felt that I owed myself to give her concert a try, whilst fearing that I might find it all a bit too poppy and ‘show biz’ for my tastes.

I needn’t have worried, Steve’s assessment proved to be strikingly accurate. Ms. La Havas proved to be a talented and charismatic performer with a stunning voice and a collection of intelligent songs that straddled the boundaries of pop, soul and even folk.

The London born singer, guitarist and songwriter was once a backing vocalist for Paloma Faith who played the Big Top with Guy Barker’s Jazz Orchestra at the 2012 Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Faith’s show certainly had its moments, and was reviewed on this site at the time, but overall this performance by La Havas was far more satisfying. I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed myself and afterwards headed to the on site record store to purchase her two albums to date “Is Your Love Big Enough” (2012) and “Blood” (2015).

The event was introduced by Radio DJ Jo Whiley who informed us that La Havas had been nominated in both the Grammy and the Ivor Novello awards as well as playing for Barak Obama and supporting Coldplay at a concert in Mexico City. 

The elegant La Havas took to the stage alone, accompanying herself on guitar to sing a solo version of the song “No Room For Doubt” from her début album. From the outset it was apparent to me that here was a real talent, a singer with a technically accomplished but highly expressive voice, pure and well enunciated but deeply soulful. As a guitarist La Havas may not be a virtuoso player in the Shaw Taylor mould, but her folk influenced finger picking style is ideally suited for her own music. She’s a more than capable player who tellingly played guitar on every number, even after she was joined by a competent and well drilled, if ultimately faceless, backing band (she never did introduce them to the audience)  playing keyboards, electric bass and drums.

La Havas drew on both her albums with the album taking a poppier, more soulful turn with the intelligent pop of “Au Cinema”, also from the first album. La Havas’ lyrics are clever, perceptive and often highly personal, sometimes like a less graphic Amy Winehouse.

Sticking with that first recording the title track saw La Havas exhorting the crowd to clap along, something they did very enthusiastically, presumably being more familiar with the material than I. Nevertheless I readily joined in, La Havas has a knack of writing songs that manage to be immediately accessible and memorable while simultaneously avoiding the witlessness of so much contemporary pop and r’n'b.   

“Tokyo” represented the first dip into the “Blood” repertoire, more intelligent, sharply observed soul pop. This was followed by the autobiographical “Green And Gold” from the same album, a homage to La Havas’ multi-cultural London roots and featuring vocal harmonies provided by the members of her backing group.

Still from the same album came “Wonderful, a love song of sorts with the evocative ‘electricity’ imagery of its lyrics.

In a well paced show the band left the stage periodically allowing La Havas to perform solo. These intimate, unaccompanied episodes represented some of the most compelling moments of the set and included the haunting “Ghost” from the “Blood” album and the humorous “Age” with its ‘May/December’ theme from the début. “A Good Goodbye”, a duet with the group’s pianist explored similar territory and was genuinely moving.

In more upbeat full on band mode the single “Unstoppable” had the audience on their feet clapping and dancing along to the deep funk grooves. “Grow” juxtaposed quiet, folky finger picked guitar passages with heavier, grungy episodes featuring the keyboard player on distorted violin. The rousing “turn up or this love” chorus elicited further audience participation.

“Midnight”, written by La Havas on a visit to Kingston, Jamaica finished the concert on a high note with La Havas being summoned back by an ecstatic audience in a packed Big Top for a deserved encore. Coming out with her piano player she paid tribute to the recently departed Prince (one of several over the course of the Festival) with a beautiful version of the Purple One’s “Sometimes It Snows In April”, the title also eliciting a laugh of recognition from the audience in view of the recent weather and the decidedly chilly temperature in the Big Top. Her own song “Gone” was performed in a similar format and was also dedicated to Prince. 

However rather then ending the evening on a sombre note La Havas called the rest of the band back to the stage to perform a rousing version of the song “Forget” which saw the leader strapping on an electric guitar and the audience getting to their feet again.

This had been a superb show and I was delighted that I’d taken a chance on Lianne La Havas. More than just a pop poppet this is a seriously talented young woman who writes her own songs, has a terrific voice and is an assured and charismatic stage performer. She presented her show with considerable personal charm and was helped by an excellent sound mix, one of the clearest and best that I’ve ever heard in the Big Top. My only complaint was that I’d have liked to have known who the rest of the band were, plus their contributions were worthy of proper audience recognition.

Ultimately I preferred this performance to even that of Shaw Taylor. Less idiomatic, more varied and better balanced I was pleasantly surprised at just how good it was.

Sometimes it’s good to step outside your musical comfort zone. But don’t worry readers, there’s plenty of heavy duty jazz to come in the rest of my Festival coverage.   

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