‘An Evening in Paris’ presented by Sassafras. Image: www.fringeworld.com.au
A hot Perth night with some hot jazz. Gee this gig sounds good in theory; experienced jazz musicians presenting the best of French gypsy music evoking Edith Piaf, Django Reinhardt and others like Eartha Kitt who made Paris their home at Perth’s Ellington Jazz Club. Appearing early as part of Perth’s Fringe World 2016, Sassafras by their own admission thought they’d get together and do some of their favourite French Jazz inspired music. It’s as simple as that.
Gypsy Jazz also called jazz manouche was founded by Django Reinhardt and his quintette de Hot Club du France and has a traditional acoustic sound often also associated with a violin sound. Instead of a drummer the rhythm guitarist uses la pompe strumming technique which forms a jumping steady beat.
The Sassafras instrumentalists excelled throughout the evening, with virtuosic solos and seamless transitions. The acoustic guitar playing from Lachlan Gear and Aaron Deacon was perfect and lovely. Adrian Galante on clarinet did some swinging rhythms taking us back to 1930’s Paris and Pete Jeavons’ reliable double bass playing shows his great experience.
Clearly they are very comfortable playing together with Jeavons forming the core on double bass and Jessie Gordon fronting the 5 piece jazz ensemble. And front she does! Several people in the audience commenting on *that* skin coloured revealing dress…. does she have anything on? was one of the comments I overhead. This is where the evening was going pear-shaped. A 35 degree Celsius night in a small jazz club packed to capacity i.e. 155 bodies plus band and staff does not for a good night out make. We are standing almost body to body and mostly couldn’t see much of the stage, so comments overheard were the only indication until I moved. This was a momentous task.
When Gordon makes an off the cuff comment after finishing a French gypsy folk-jazz number that usually gets people up waltzing on the stage, my jaw dropped. It was a struggle to make your way to the bar to get much needed refreshments let alone move in this crowd. Dancing was completely out the question. Being able to sit at one of the highly sought after round café tables and enjoy this music at your leisure would have been ideal.
Gordon has great emotional engagement with both the audience and her material as well as excellent phrasing with her singing. Many of the audience were rapt in her delivery with a number of well-known songs getting people’s toes tapping. She is incredibly comfortable handling the audience and during instrumental solos, not always an easy thing for a singer to do.
Sassafras is undoubtedly a smooth, well-rehearsed and a tightly run ship headed by a sassy great singer but I was not the only one leaving due to over-crowding and heat issues in what was not the most appropriate venue for such a sold out gig.
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
An Evening in Paris
Performed by Sassafras
Jessie Gordon, Pete Jeavons, Lachlan Gear, Aaron Deacon, Adrian Galante
The Ellington Jazz Club at Fringe World 2016, Perth
