CLAIRE Martin is one of the most distinctive voices on the UK jazz scene, and rarely falls into the standard clichés of the genre, either in her treatment of jazz standards or her choice of contemporary repertoire.
We are used to hearing her with
a band on her forays into Scotland, but on this occasion she was accompanied only by her resourceful regular pianist, Gareth Williams. And the occasional suspicion that both musicians were feeling their way into the situation was confirmed after the interval, when she revealed that this was the first time they had performed as a duo.
There were also moments where Martin still seemed to be in the process of sorting out just how she wanted to perform some of the songs from her new recording, in terms of details of phrasing and emphasis. Overall, though, it was a typically confident set, and Williams was more than up to the challenge of filling in for his missing band-mates, while providing inventive solos of his own.
They threw in a sprinkling of up-tempo standards, but most of the material was drawn from the new album, A Modern Art, a selection intended to broaden the range of songs regarded as suitable for jazz treatment. She was adept in catching the sardonic tone of material such as Colin Lazzerini's Like Totally and Steely Dan's Things I Miss The Most, but also gave Esbjörn Svensson's Love Is Real a heart-tugging expressiveness.
