Liane Carroll

Liane Carroll
Greenwich Jazz Festival
The Tudor Barn, Eltham, November 11, 2011

British singer-pianist, Liane Carroll, launched the Greenwich Jazz Festival at The Tudor Barn, Eltham with a mesmerising, magical and soul-stirring performance. The Festival, one of series of cultural events sponsored by Greenwich Council, is testimony to the cultural richness of Greenwich. She will be a hard act to follow.

The 16th century Barn, an elegant mix of new bricks and old beams, is set in 13 acres of parkland and the ideal location for an evening of jazz. Intimate, charming and acoustically excellent, the food looked good too. "I love coming here", Liane smiled warmly. It's like singing for friends".

With minimal fuss, she simply sat down and played and 150 people fell silent to a ballad from Tom Wait, “Take me Home”, and that old Peggy Lee classic, “He’s a tramp”. Carroll’s talent is natural, unassuming and unpretentious and her playing appeared effortless. She started playing at 3, a concert pianist as her tutor. “Did you ever mind practising”, I asked before the show. "Only as I got older and saw my mates playing out", she smiled wistfully. They were hours well spent. Her timing is crisp, her phrasing is tight and her rhythm just perfect.

Liane was but 6 when her parents divorced and she admits that she had difficulties adjusting. But, with both parents as singers and a grandmother who played piano, she was "destined for music", Barely pausing for breath, she moved on to Cole Porter (Love For Sale) and then to her own spectacularly improvised version of Joni Mitchell's, "Put up a parking lot". "I play what I want", she laughed smiling, “but give the songs my own style, even though", she added turning briefly serious "people were forever telling me to change". Thank goodness she didn't or we might never have heard her version of Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust “which I loved playing with Humprey” (Littleton), or the highlight of the evening, Waits' "Take it with me when I go”.

The second half was somehow as enchanting as the first with Laura Nyro's” He's a runner” and Carole King’s “You’ve got a friend”, showcasing the power and range of Liane’s chocolate-textured voice. Another ballad from Wait – Picture in a Frame - was charged with such emotional intensity that it had the audience close to tears. She closed with Dublin Morning, a song of her own, dedicated to her husband, bassist Roger Carey, but in memory of her (Irish-born) father. “I love doing what I do, it’s a simple as that”, she told me later.
How it showed. 10/10.

DM
November 2011