Motema

2006-10-09
Times Online - Performance Review

Jazz
Lynne Arriale
Clive Davis at Pizza Express Jazz Club, W1
****

Why do some artists get the big breaks while others toil in the shadows? Why, for instance, did that painfully one-dimensional pianist Tord Gustavsen win an invitation to Wigmore Hall during last year’s London Jazz Festival while Lynne Arriale still has to make do with small club dates?

There are no obvious answers. Apart from Ahmad Jamal, I cannot think of a player as vivacious and expressive as the red-haired American, yet she is still only a cult figure as far as most British audiences are concerned. In terms of marketability, Arriale possesses obvious assets: she has an ear for eminently accessible material, and her fascination with unaffected melodic motifs is a gift to all those people who long to be won over to jazz but are scared off by the notion that it will be as enjoyable as a lecture on quantum physics.

The last time I heard her, she and her partners, the bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Steve Davis, seemed slightly out of sorts (the result, I learnt later, of an exhausting encounter with immigration red tape). On this opening set normal service was restored. When a trio opens with a Monk tune, you can be forgiven for experiencing a little déjà vu. But when Arriale tiptoed into the off-centre theme of I Mean You, it was as if the piece had been written expressly for her.

Bill Evans is an obvious influence elsewhere, yet unlike some of her contemporaries, Arriale does not take that as a licence for protracted introspection. Yes, there is a suspiciously New Age tinge to some of her original ballads: Arise (inspired by the terror attack on the World Trade Centre) is a prime example. But she is also capable of storming through a sparkling and decidedly un-touristy Latin anthem such as Brasiliana. Her version of Lennon & McCartney’s Blackbird was nothing less than joyous.

If you missed this Soho residency, catch the newly released “LIVE” album.

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