Review: Annette Gregory Believe Tour

An incredibly intimate hour and twenty minutes of beautiful jazz music from vocalist Annette Gregory. Citing Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn as influences, the audience was in safe hands with a singer who not only knew and loved the Great American Songbook Standards, but treated them with a tender love and respect that made them feel genuinely fresh and authentic.

The repertoire included such favourites as I've Got You Under My Skin, Blue Skies, In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Call Me Irresponsible and Stella By Starlight. However, I think the highlights were Gregory's original songs, of which she shared three or four. It was on these numbers that she paused before singing, giving us an insight into her writing process, her inspiration, her airplay on BBC Radio 6, and the emotional resonance of the songs in terms of her own life story. Hailing from Manchester and with Jamaican heritage, there was much about family and journeying in her lyrics, as well as the 'mad' joy of love.

Accompanied by the swinging piano of John McDonald, who managed the create a broad range of moods and styles on the keyboard, Gregory had us mesmerised by her sultry, smooth vocals. She has a tendency to flatten out melody lines which runs the risk of making the tunes blend into one another, but that risk was ably countered by her strength of tone which made every note feel luxurious. Moving through her music was like floating across a tropical lagoon. 

Overall, superb jazz standards delivered with confidence and clarity in an intimate performance which she playfully compared to being like singing to friends in her own living room. She has certainly made a friend in me. Bliss.