Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2023 Nicole Smit
George Square Spiegeltent 21st July Review
George Square Spiegeltent 21st July Review
Nicole Smit : The Travelling Tent Show returned to the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival for one night only in a larger venue this time – the George Square Spiegeltent. With an almost perfect setting and the help of singer Kat Brooks and the Tenement Jazz Band, Nicole gave us all a brief introduction to the sexually innuendo laden (and often simply sexually explicit) songs of the day that popular singers such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey (and others) would have been singing.
This show, as its name tells us, is a tribute to the travelling tent shows that many performers worked in at the time and they were a common sight throughout the Southern States of America (and further afield) in the formative years of jazz and blues music. The sheer poverty and all too often lack of any work at home that brought so many performers (singers, dancers and other acts) into working on this gruelling circuit of shows is almost impossible for us to comprehend these days and just what it was like either being a performer or in the audience at such a show is something that we can only get information about from historical records of the day. One thing is certain, and that is that tonight’s show with its singers, band, and dancers would have been very refined compared to the bawdiness common from many performers and audiences of the day.
Nicole Smit obviously has not only a big interest in the performers of these original travelling tent shows but also in the songs themselves, and some of these songs are truly remarkable not only in their lyrics but in the fact that here women were on-stage talking openly about sex, about their own self-identity and empowerment and making it so often clear that no man was going to tell them what to do in their life. Sadly the off stage lives of so many of these singers was so often very different from their on-stage personas, but the really important thing is that these songs gave so many other women the inspiration that they needed to make a stand in their own lives, to give them a voice that they had never before had.
Nicole Smit is not only a very good jazz and blues singer but one whose vocal talents cross into many other styles of music, and her ability to sing some of these songs “a cappella” tonight was impressive. Together with Kat Brooks, whether it be the sexually laden food innuendo songs like “I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl” or “My Kitchen Man” (both by Bessie Smith), “Missing That Thing”, or “Wild Women Don’t Have The Blues (Ida Cox”), we all got a little taste of just how outrageous these songs and these women were. So the next time that someone tells you just how over the top some comedy or cabaret show was, remember to tell them that these women were doing it all 100 years ago or more.
As well as singing, Nicole Smit was also MC for this 90 minute show and making everything look at times like it was completely improvised (which I am sure some of it was). To do a show like this and keep all the different elements of singers, band, audience and of course your own performance together and keep the show running smoothly from one song to the next and do it all on time is a skill in its own right and Nicole Smit made everything look so natural and at times so effortless this evening.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This show, as its name tells us, is a tribute to the travelling tent shows that many performers worked in at the time and they were a common sight throughout the Southern States of America (and further afield) in the formative years of jazz and blues music. The sheer poverty and all too often lack of any work at home that brought so many performers (singers, dancers and other acts) into working on this gruelling circuit of shows is almost impossible for us to comprehend these days and just what it was like either being a performer or in the audience at such a show is something that we can only get information about from historical records of the day. One thing is certain, and that is that tonight’s show with its singers, band, and dancers would have been very refined compared to the bawdiness common from many performers and audiences of the day.
Nicole Smit obviously has not only a big interest in the performers of these original travelling tent shows but also in the songs themselves, and some of these songs are truly remarkable not only in their lyrics but in the fact that here women were on-stage talking openly about sex, about their own self-identity and empowerment and making it so often clear that no man was going to tell them what to do in their life. Sadly the off stage lives of so many of these singers was so often very different from their on-stage personas, but the really important thing is that these songs gave so many other women the inspiration that they needed to make a stand in their own lives, to give them a voice that they had never before had.
Nicole Smit is not only a very good jazz and blues singer but one whose vocal talents cross into many other styles of music, and her ability to sing some of these songs “a cappella” tonight was impressive. Together with Kat Brooks, whether it be the sexually laden food innuendo songs like “I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl” or “My Kitchen Man” (both by Bessie Smith), “Missing That Thing”, or “Wild Women Don’t Have The Blues (Ida Cox”), we all got a little taste of just how outrageous these songs and these women were. So the next time that someone tells you just how over the top some comedy or cabaret show was, remember to tell them that these women were doing it all 100 years ago or more.
As well as singing, Nicole Smit was also MC for this 90 minute show and making everything look at times like it was completely improvised (which I am sure some of it was). To do a show like this and keep all the different elements of singers, band, audience and of course your own performance together and keep the show running smoothly from one song to the next and do it all on time is a skill in its own right and Nicole Smit made everything look so natural and at times so effortless this evening.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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