ELAINE CRIGHTON TRIO

It was a real pleasure to have Elaine Crighton return to Moray Jazz Club and this time with the ultra-reliable Mr Bass himself, Lewis Benzies . It was the first occasion we had Neil Birse on piano, what a find! Neil has returned to north east Scotland after completing his studies at the Guildhall in London and  Elaine’s pitch with Neil was seamless and his  piano breaks were sublime. Their partnership bodes very well for the future.

Elaine took us on a promenade through classic numbers starting with Cole Porter’s ‘It’s too darn hot’ ; ‘Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry’ a 1944 jazz standard, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Sammy Cahn; How Little We Know” by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer for the 1944 film ‘To Have and Have Not’; ‘No More Blues’, possibly the first recorded bossa nova song; ‘Don’t Get Around…’ by Mr Ellington; ‘Till There Was You’ ‘ written by Meredith Willson for the 1957 musical The Music Man but popularised by Paul McCartney after he head Peggy Lee sing it; a vocal arrangement of Sonny Rollins’ ‘St Thomas’; ‘Close Your Eyes’ by  Bernice Petkere; Georgie Fame’s ‘The Poet of New York’; But Not for Me” originally written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin; Nat King Cole’s ‘Straighten Up And Fly Right’; Jerome Kern’s  ‘in love in vain’ and Ray Noble’s ‘The touch of your lips’. What a brilliant set Elaine, many thanks and bring that young pianist again!