Fringe 2023 Angels & Demons Lorna Reid The Jazz Bar 24th August Review
Angels and Demons at the Jazz Bar is a new show for this year’s Fringe (Wed 23 + Thu 24 August) from Scottish singer/songwriter Lorna Reid. As the show title tells us, this show features songs that often focus on the polar opposites of emotions and human behaviour that each can represent and for any singer/songwriter, these extremes of our psyche are often where the most interesting stories can come from. Sometimes though black can become white and vice-versa and in that transitional space between each other a diverse range of colours to reflect who we can be at any given time have been captured in many of the songs on this set list tonight.
This was very much a red and white themed show tonight with Lorna in red, the band in black and red, except one in white (there always has to be one), and even a red guitar to match the mood of this show.
As always, Lorna has attracted some of the best musicians in town (and further afield) to be with her on stage tonight - Konrad Wiszniewski (saxophone), Campbell Normand (piano), Jim Drummond (drums), Andy Mitchell (upright bass) and Neil Warden (guitar). With musicians that Lorna has worked with many times and in an almost home from home at the Jazz Bar, the fun that everyone on stage was having playing this show was evident all evening and that love of the music transferred as it should always do to the audience tonight.
Set wise, this was a mixture of classic jazz/American Songbook standards, and songs written by Lorna herself and with skilfull arrangements of both, the two merged seamlessly together. With a show title like this, what could be more appropriate than to start the show with the Harold Arlen classic “Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea” and follow it up with Lorna’s own composition “Someone Brought Me An Angel”.
A few surprises in this set list tonight including “The Gypsy In My Soul”, (a song that Lorna does not often sing live these days, but Todd Gordon was right, it is a perfect song for her) and a very good interpretation of the Cole Porter classic “Miss Otis Regrets”.
There were many moments here for the band to highlight their own unique talents, but as always, whenever Konrad Wiszniewski is on stage in a show like this one, there were some outstanding performances on saxophone. This band have so much experience between them as musicians on stage and that was clearly showing all evening as moods, themes and colours of music shifted and changed effortlessly and sometimes took even the band by surprise as to where all of this led them at times.
As always when he is playing, Neil Warden was always there, rarely taking the spotlight, but doing exactly what was required on guitar. A new funkier arrangement of “Smash Gamble” (written by Lorna) did allow us all to see just how good and versatile a guitarist Neil Warden is and with Konrad playing some great saxophone here, this was maybe the best that I have seen Lorna and the band play live for some time as, with a good band, some great songs, a good venue, a good crowd and of course Lorna’s vocals, everything just seemed to fall into place for this show.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This was very much a red and white themed show tonight with Lorna in red, the band in black and red, except one in white (there always has to be one), and even a red guitar to match the mood of this show.
As always, Lorna has attracted some of the best musicians in town (and further afield) to be with her on stage tonight - Konrad Wiszniewski (saxophone), Campbell Normand (piano), Jim Drummond (drums), Andy Mitchell (upright bass) and Neil Warden (guitar). With musicians that Lorna has worked with many times and in an almost home from home at the Jazz Bar, the fun that everyone on stage was having playing this show was evident all evening and that love of the music transferred as it should always do to the audience tonight.
Set wise, this was a mixture of classic jazz/American Songbook standards, and songs written by Lorna herself and with skilfull arrangements of both, the two merged seamlessly together. With a show title like this, what could be more appropriate than to start the show with the Harold Arlen classic “Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea” and follow it up with Lorna’s own composition “Someone Brought Me An Angel”.
A few surprises in this set list tonight including “The Gypsy In My Soul”, (a song that Lorna does not often sing live these days, but Todd Gordon was right, it is a perfect song for her) and a very good interpretation of the Cole Porter classic “Miss Otis Regrets”.
There were many moments here for the band to highlight their own unique talents, but as always, whenever Konrad Wiszniewski is on stage in a show like this one, there were some outstanding performances on saxophone. This band have so much experience between them as musicians on stage and that was clearly showing all evening as moods, themes and colours of music shifted and changed effortlessly and sometimes took even the band by surprise as to where all of this led them at times.
As always when he is playing, Neil Warden was always there, rarely taking the spotlight, but doing exactly what was required on guitar. A new funkier arrangement of “Smash Gamble” (written by Lorna) did allow us all to see just how good and versatile a guitarist Neil Warden is and with Konrad playing some great saxophone here, this was maybe the best that I have seen Lorna and the band play live for some time as, with a good band, some great songs, a good venue, a good crowd and of course Lorna’s vocals, everything just seemed to fall into place for this show.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com