Joanna Strand and Jacqui Tate - The Pheasantry

Jacqui Tate

Joanna Strand & Jacqui Tate - vocals
John Bailey - piano
Romano Viazzani - accordion
Yaron Stavi - double bass
Jason Reeve - drums

Romano Viazzani

Date - 16th November 2016
Venue - The Pheasantry, London, UK
Current album - Fly Transatlantic by Joanna Strand (NMP Records, 2012)

John Bailey

Future performance -
18th December 2016, The Pheasantry, Chelsea, 8pm - Christmas Show

Joanna Strand

Jazz singer and cabaret performer, Joanna Strand, brings her 'beautiful, pure and richly melodic voice' (John Etheridge) and dazzles audiences with her original arrangements.
Her musical journey has taken in many genres, which she weaves into her programmes with elegance and taste. Joanna studied at postgraduate level at The Royal Academy of Music, she specialised in lieder and French art song, and was invited to sing with the Royal Academy Big Band. Joanna enjoys performing at jazz venues across the UK and US, and has performed at the Crazy Coqs, Pizza Express Dean Street, The Pheasantry and in New York at Feinsteins, 54 Below, The Algonquin and many more. Joanna’s theatre credits include Jekyll and Hyde, Terrence McNally’s Broadway transfer of Master Class with Tyne Daly (West end), The Phantom of the Opera (West end), Dolly in Hello Dolly, Mabel in Pirates of Penzance  (WLO), as well as soprano roles with Garsington Opera, Savoy Opera, Grange Park Opera, Opera Holland Park and the Tête à Tête Opera Festival at Riverside Studios.

Yaron Stavi

Jacqui Tate's theatre credits include the Broadway transfer of Bartlett Sher's South Pacific, Avenue Q (West end & national tour), Avenue Q for Sell A Door (National & International Tour), and The Phantom of the Opera (West end). World tours have included Evita (Beirut) and My Fair Lady (Singapore) for Nicolai Foster, The Pirates of Penzance (UK & USA) and The Merry Widow (UK & South Africa) for The Carl Rosa Opera Company and Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus, for Dubai Financial Centre’s One Voice, under Brad Cohen. She has performed in concert with The London Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop and the Israeli Chamber Orchestra under Nicholas Kraemer.
No stranger to the cabaret circuit, Jacqui spent two years performing with the divas of Ali McGregor's Opera Burlesque. These ladies slipped out of their show costumes & in to their corsets for The Whoopee Club, The Famous Spiegeltent, The Gilded Ballroom and for Lost Vagueness & Continental Drift at Glastonbury Festival and the Hackney Empire. She has also appeared at New York's Feinstein's/54 Below, Live at Zedel/the Crazy Coqs, The Pheasantry and as a guest at Pizza Express Dean Street.

AL.

Joanna Strand at Crazy Coqs

Jacqui Tate

After a hiatus of several weeks the pen is once again in hand. Those who have been waiting accept my apologies. There is always a bottleneck before I escape to France for the summer break and this year was no exception.

Joanna Strand

A French night is never far away in London and the Crazy Coqs is such a venue of style and class that it is easy to transport yourself away from the grinding filth of the capital streets. The grime and plod that we walk through couldn't be further from the persona of Joanna Strand, who packed out the Crazy Coqs during her 3 night residency in June (2015).

John Bailey - piano

Joanna Strand has a poise that every sloucher covets, a light touch in both narrative and song that elevates us above the humdrum but not without losing our original romantic ideals, that of a wonder for the beauty in the everyday world. Strand is at her best when she references this world of Rousseauian abundance. Beware the dangers and unhappiness if we remove ourselves from Strand's dell of Nature. Her gentleman pianist, John Bailey, reminds us of the effete Sir Brooke Boothby in Joseph Wright's famous painting as he lounges in Strand's burgeoning gothic landscape . In fact Bailey was commissioned in 2009 by Derby Jazz to commemorate the anniversary of painter Joseph Wright of Derby (who famously painted Boothby with Rousseau's book in hand). Check it out for yourself.



Jason Reeve - Drums

Joanna Strand was joined on stage by Jacqui Tate (Avenue Q, Phantom of the Opera, South Pacific) for standards and comedic entertainments. Strand and Tate are an established duo who cross effortless from jazz to classical with the occasional foray into the popular songbook. Versatility is their byword and with a long list of operatic and musical theatre credits to their name, they entertained the Crazy Coqs audience all the way to their empty cocktail glasses.

Nick Pini - Bass

When alone Jacqui Tate took the eye in the vermillion light of the Crazy Coqs while the scrunched face of bassist Nick Pini reigned blue during Cole Porter's Love for Sale. It was Tate's performance of Padam Padam which took the night though. Eastern flavours amongst the French gave it a hard exotic punch, enough to knock our molars out and replace them some much more sharp and incisive. Which was unusual, for this was not a night for baring teeth except with winning smiles.

Romano Viazzani -
Accordion

It was a night of variety with a small v rather than the capital and Romano Viazzani rewarded ardent listeners with a solo rendition of Jalousie/Jealousy. Here we got a chance to dirty our brogues, thrilling the dancer, the chancer in us all. It even appealed to the latent dueller within, although this was no quick bout, a longer death awaited. There were stays-of-execution in which we were friends once again before an inevitable final decent.

Rodney Earl Clarke

This night reunited Strand with bass-baritone Rodney Earl Clarke for the first time on stage in twenty years. They met as postgraduate students at The Royal Academy of Music all those years ago. Strand played Tonight Tonight with a touch of frailty while Clarke was a tank of a man. He caught her in his viscous amber voice like she was the most intricate of lacewings.

AL.

Rainlore's online artist-in-residence

Rich Rainlore

I'm really chuffed to announce that I'll be working more closely with critic/observer Rich Rainlore over the coming year. I'll be his official artist-in-residence and 'live' sketcher at many of the gigs he'll be attending for his website Rainlore's World.

Rich is no stranger to the visual side of music after plying his trade for many years as a photographer, so he knows just how difficult it can be to produce the goods in challenging conditions. He is a sympathetic and knowledgeable collaborator who I know I'll enjoy working with over the next 12 months....and hopefully long into the future..

It is no surprise that since I've been working with Rich, I have gained confidence in my own writing.

I made this quick sketch of him at Joanna Strand's CD launch, The Forge, Camden in 2012. It was the first gig we worked on together and I haven't looked back since.

AL