gig review

Gig Review:

Sunday 15th May 2005

Luiz Bonfiz Society: Tribute to Jobim

Joogleberry’s, Manchester Street, Brighton

With a venue on Manchester Street, when I was in Brighton it was almost natural I went to this gig considering it also featured my pal, Bela Emerson (as interviewed at the end of last year on Setting Sun) and continued a Brazilian Samba flavour.

As though who may or may not know Setting Sun would know, I know Bela from her wild experimental cello playing which is magical to watch and experience and would also know also that I love Brazilian music and I knew before the band even played this would be a magical night and sat in a full jazz club which only contained a capacity of 80, the audience fell quiet throughout each number which featured double bass, cello, wonderful guitar picking and beautiful singing on top of ever-changing flue, sax and god knows what else.

Considering I am familiar with Bela for her slightly wilder music and also near folk music with Caroline Martin and Leanne Hall, this was certainly a complete change in tempo but it worked wonderfully made possible by wonderful acoustics.

I have no idea of the song titles here but the quality of the artists allowed each member of the band to shine in their own different way from Bela who was described as possibly Brazillian with a surname like hers to an excellent guitar player called Paulo Richards who I can remember playing one lovely instrumental piece and the audience actually started singing along in the background which surprised more than a few people, but only succeeded in adding to the magic of the night.

Excellent stuff all round.

Deserves to come out as a live album.