Singers Lounge: Berardi, Kyle/Keevers, McNulty

Chris McNulty. Image by John Abbott.

Thanks to an inspired refurbishing of the Perth State Theatre Centre’s normally outdoor courtyard area as ‘The Singers’ Lounge’—including roofing it over—a cool winter’s night on Saturday 10 May found us all sitting, or lounging, super comfortably under cover on a random assortment of charming soft sofas, cushioned couches, armchairs and pouffes provided by festival partners and furniture suppliers Shambala.

This casual air of self-indulgence was just the ticket for concentrating the mind on what turned out to be some quite serious music by seriously focused artists. On the menu for this second night of the three-day Perth International Jazz Festival was a startlingly diverse potpourri of jazz vocals, presented by three highly individual vocalists performing for one hour each.

There was no discernible linking theme, barring the fact that the much-travelled and well-honed Queenslander pianist Sam Keevers played for the first two sessions, first with Brisbane’s Kristin Berardi and then with Melbourne’s Josh Kyle. Keevers currently is a member of the Black Arm Band, which showcases indigenous Australian performers. Perhaps one other shared characteristic is that Berardi and Kyle are both relatively young, talented, artists with oodles more growth ahead of them. They are on their way.

With Perth’s Jamie Oehlers blowing a rounded alto saxophone alongside, an often strained and intense Berardi amply demonstrated her gift for using the voice as an extra instrument, at times merging so completely with the sax as to be indistinguishable. Her offerings included her own original compositions such as ‘Mr Jackson’ (an elderly gent she met in a laundromat), as well as jazz standards like ‘Body and Soul’ and ‘Just Squeeze Me (But Please Don’t Tease Me)’. Her commitment to her art was palpable, the undeniable qualities that won her top place in the 2006 Montreux Jazz Festival’s International Vocal Competition very much on show. She worked and gave her all.

The unique Sam Keevers-Josh Kyle collaboration pre-existed this session, as expressed in their extraordinarily brave and innovative ‘Songs of Friends’ collection of Australian instrumental jazz compositions re-imagined on piano by Keevers, with retrofitted lyrics created by vocalist Kyle. We were treated to a sample of this bold collaboration on Saturday, including Kyle’s lyrics for Keevers’ own ‘Simple Pleasures’ (about Keevers’ first dog) and for Daniel Gassin’s tune ‘Crossover’. An admirer of Berardi’s work, Kyle also rendered her composition ‘May I Have a Moment?’ Kyle is, much like Berardi, another meticulous, committed and intense performer, with a particular gift for attractive vocalisation in an unusually high register for the male voice.

What a contrast with all this experimentalism was the closing act, Australian-born Chris McNulty, now a quarter-century veteran of the hard-edged New York jazz scene. Seasoned professional that she is, the self-assured McNulty breezed through a classic repertoire with grace and aplomb, accompanied by the equally suave Festival Artistic Director and Associate Professor Graham Wood on piano, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ Freddie Grigson on guitar and Perth’s Karl Florrison on bass. Among old favourites such as ‘I’m Old Fashioned’ (which McNulty sort of endearingly is) and ‘On the Street Where You Live’, McNulty’s rendering of that lachrymose essay in Irish homeland nostalgia, ‘How Are Things in Glocca Morra?’ really stood out. McNulty has achieved the delicate balance of technique with heart and soul that only rich experience can bring.