Another visit to Howard Assembly Room. I love this place as it presents acts which are a little more niche, meaning that I would not normally get to see them. Most have been pleasant surprises but there have been some disappointments and, sadly, this was in the latter category.
The evening began with a short set from Rory A Green who was born in Ghana but now lives in Manchester. His contributions were all instrumentals played on guitar with a loop station to provide a backing. This worked especially well on his first tune which was composed to evoke his childhood memory of the season in Ghana, called Harmattan, when heavy rain causes a yellow dusty deposit to cover everything in sight. He first recorded a short sequence of staccato notes on a loop which gave the impression of a downpour as he played the melody above it. The result was mesmerising.
His set ended with a piece called Out Of Necessity which he wrote after taking a gig and then realised that he didn’t have enough material to fill the time slot! You can hear the result by clicking on this link to a version on YouTube. He didn’t have any backing musicians with him this evening, so the gizmo was used again.
Mr Green’s inter tune banter was very informative and he struck me as an affable chap who was just happy to be there and perform. There were no pretensions whatsoever.
After the interval, Cyrille Aimée took to the stage with her backing trio, whose names she dropped during the evening but didn’t reach me. I have tried to find them online but there is no record to be found.
If Rory A Green was a modest, retiring chap, Ms Aimée was quite the reverse, with more than a touch of the diva about her. I thought that we might be in for a display when, during the first song, she asked for the monitors to be turned off, saying to the sound engineer that she could hear in her mind how she sounded. I am no musician but I would have thought that that was something which she should have sorted out during the soundcheck.
The set began with her saying that she would be singing songs from her new album, A Fleur de Peau, which, according to my research, means skin deep. I was really pleased about this as I had listened to a couple of tracks in preparation, so was prepared for some sophisticated, mellow, jazz infused songs both in English and French. What I got was a selection of pretty raucous renditions of them with the singer cavorting enthusiastically around the stage.
I do like modern jazz and the musicians were of the highest quality, the pianist wrung every ounce of sound out of the room’s Steinway grand piano, including the now almost mandatory leaning over the keyboard and plucking the strings in the body of the instrument, the bass player was superb and used both the electric version and the acoustic double bass, an instrument I love. It has a much more rounded sound and is more expressive. The percussionist was a master, with not just a drum kit but several other pieces of equipment with which to make sound by bashing them. In one solo he discarded the sticks for a while and played everything by using just his hands. Cyrille Aimée is quite the musician too giving us the benefit of her prowess on the ukulele. She also had a burst on the kazoo, but it was inaudible, possibly something she would have noticed had her monitors been switched on.
My problem with the set was that, with one exception, it was so formulaic. The initial introductory verse and then a series of fairly lengthy solos. I realise that this is the structure of the genre however, not only did I find myself looking at my watch after twenty minutes, but also being distracted by a chap a few seats away, the ones in between being unoccupied, as was a fair portion of the room, checking his phone on a fairly regular basis, possibly looking for something to distract him too. I would usually be annoyed by this but tonight I felt that my verdict on the performance had been vindicated. There were, however, three or four other people a couple of rows behind who were obviously of a different opinion, as they were whooping and hollering throughout, although old enough to know better.
To get a taste as to what I was anticipating, please click on the link below, the song and presentation being wonderful, as are the other tracks available to view.
As if to add insult to injury, Ms Aimée took a break from the scat singing and leaping around, to sit on a stool and accompany herself on her uke, with help from the pianist, to sing a beautiful ballad. A couple more of this ilk would have been splendid. Her jazz voice is pretty good in the lower register, but gets a bit watery when higher pitched, so that didn’t help. Monitor?
At the end of the set there was the obligatory encore which was another diva moment with a committee meeting convened by the star to decide what they should play. This took longer than a VAR review and I can’t believe that, as a professional, there was not a rehearsed piece in readiness. In the event we got an enthusiastic version of You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To, which totally nullified the sentiment of the song.
Despite the let down I am looking forward to my next visit to the wonderful Howard Assembly Room already – if I am allowed in that is!
For more information on Cyrille Aimée and details of the rest of the tour, which has now entered its European mainland leg, please go to https://cyrillemusic.com/
For Rory A Green go to his X account https://x.com/roryagreen
To see what is in store at Howard Assembly Room it is https://www.operanorth.co.uk/event-tag/har/
Feature image from Howard Assembly Room. Photographs by Stan Graham
Tyke It To The Limit 