Review: David McAlmont, St Georges

David McAlmont is one of the great British vocalists of modern times. A hugely gifted singer with a three octave range, technically precise, capable of  diverse stylings with a virtuoso’s delivery. Best known for his knock yer socks off vocal on the Brit Pop era defining Yes, recorded with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. A little piece of pop perfection.

He brings that wonderful voice to a very different setting for tonight’s performance. We are back in Carnegie Hall in winter 1956. Billie Holiday, one of the defining voices of the twentieth century, battered by prison terms, long term heroin addiction and a history of brutal abuse, is headlining one of the great music halls of New York City.

‘No one sings the words hunger or love like I do’ Holiday rightfully claimed. The miracle of her voice was finding a startling beauty in this great pain. In 1956 her voice was still intact- mostly and sometimes only just. Still pretty good most of the time. The Carnegie Hall show was a triumph captured on The Essential Billie Holiday album for posterity. A pause before her final tragic decline. She would be dead three years later.

Tonight’s show is not about an impersonation of Billie. McAlmont is at pains to describe it as a songbook show rather than a tribute evening. McAlmont’s high register, frequently soaring to falsetto, voice is a million miles away from her lower, cracked, pain infused, brutally authentic yet pure tone. His vocal performance this evening is as much informed by the black music greats that followed her – Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, even Prince as it is by Ella, Sarah Vaughan or Dinah Washington.

Tonight is a joyful and swinging jazz show. There is happiness, friendship and love here alongside the narcotics and misery. Also a words and music show. There is lots of spoken word to provide context and back story to Billie’s journey to the stage that night. The original show also had included readings from her then recently published autobiography.

A very fine mixed race, mixed gender quintet, led by musical director Alex Webb are an able and dextrous backing. They open with a soulful Lady Sings the Blues and find a lightness and humour in What Mooonlight Can Do. McAlmont is resplendent in his all white suit, perhaps a knowing nod to the white frock Billie wore that night. Billie’s Blues has a delightful groove punctuated by swinging solos from Sue Richardson on trumpet and, and Brit jazz legend, Denys Baptiste on Sax. The St George’s crowd are already whooping their approval.

McAlmont perches on the edge of the stage to deliver a swooning I Cover the Waterfront. Intimate and lovelorn. We swing back in with Yesterdays, his skittering vocal sitting on top of the nimble and driving rhythm section. He manages the enormous vocal flourish required at the end of Fine and Mellow with consummate ease.

This is popular music at its most adult. The lyric of My Man tells of serial infidelity and ‘He beats me too, what am I to do’ is a difficult listen for a modern audience. Songs of female experience delivered tonight with a male voice. McAlmont bravely shares his own childhood traumas. We are in a grown up place here.

We finish on a storming Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone. Every side of the hall rises to greet them. Then back again for a plain lovely piano and vocal God Bless the Child and things bought to an end with a joyous Body and Soul.

The world is full of tribute shows. Billie Holiday retrospectives are in not in short supply in jazz lounges the world over. They have paid their dues to her genius tonight but also found some new angles and different views on her legend. Finding swinging joy in these songs whilst never losing their authenticity or credibility. Quite a tightrope to walk but met tonight with a euphoric audience response.

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