A night on Finchley Road - Ian Shaw at JW3

Ian Shaw gave a world class performance on Sunday night at the brand new JW3, Jewish community centre for London on Finchley Road. This was the first of a series of monthly top flight jazz concerts that will also feature Tina May, Lianne Carrol and Julian Joseph as part of a humungous programme of music, theatre, cinema, adult education, youth and family activity and much more in this beautiful building. Oh yes, and there is a rather fantastic cafe too - Zest (kosher), which just happens to be led by chefs Josh Katz and Eran Tibi - both of whom formerly worked at Ottelenghi (not kosher!).

But back to Mr. Shaw. He opened with an interesting arrangement of a potentially risky song choice - You've got to pick a pocket or two - Fagin's song from Oliver which received a polite response before things took off in a big way. Linking songs with humorous stories, confessions and reminiscences our Ian had us eating from his hand very quickly. There were a couple of numbers from his  A Ghost in Every Bar album of Fran Landesmann's songs - Feet Do Your Stuff and Small Day Tomorrow, a witty version of Barbra Streisand's I Want Everything from the soundtrack of A Star is Born and another Babs favourite - the Michel Legrand composed What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life. His reference to Michel Legrand as Mickey Big made 'em laugh as did his story of demanding to sing at an Amsterdam jazz club despite being well oiled with beer, being refused and slurringly replying "I've won awards" before storming the stage and singing anyway!

He made us laugh but he almost made us cry when he moved from Harold Arlen's Last Night When We Were Young to a heartbreaking version of Amy Winehouse's Love Is A Losing Game. He manages to do this to me at least once in every gig! But there were other highlights too. A master of improvisation, I loved the insertion of the word "profoundly" into the Billie Holiday number Lover Man Where Can You Be..."when I remember all the little things we used to do, I am so profoundly lonely". Oh yes. And this too was cleverly linked to another Billie standard -What's New. 

Ian Shaw is one of the few jazz singers that can easily turn from jazz standards to what might be termed contemporary music and he did it again here including his version of Where Are We Now, a David Bowie song from his most recent album - still holding the audience. I liked this too, but the absolute highlight for me was Ian's reading of A Night In Tunisia during the second set. Soaring vocals, gorgeous improvisation and a stonking piano performance (throughout the gig!) from Barry Green.  Ian - please record this! The trio was completed by Geoff Gascoyne on double bass and Dave Ohm on drums - both excellent.

A terrific night on Finchley Road, with wonderful music in a great venue. I know I am going to be back for more...and Mr. Shaw mentioned a forthcoming new musical project, so look out for that too. Sundays might never be the same again...

You might also like Anat Cohen live at Pizza Express or Nicola Conte - more than entertainment at Ronnie Scott's

Jazz, jokes and use of "language" - Ian Shaw at Canada Water Library

Last night, Ian Shaw treated a small but select audience at Canada Water Library's Culture Space to a brilliant evening of jazz, jokes and chat. His "A bit of a mouthful" one man show included songs written (by Ian) for the show he took to the Edinburgh fringe earlier this year - songs about the often hilarious, sometimes sad business of every day life - the horrors of approaching 50, the completely unintelligible language of texting and Facebook and the privilege that comes with maturity, such as being able to have a "hate list". Ian's list included Piers Morgan, Claire Sweeney and corn on the cob!

There was more amusement with references to his upbringing in North Wales. His parents had sent him and his sister to Sunday school despite not being particularly religious. When in later years Ian asked them why they had done this, the reply was "well, we couldn't afford crayons" !!! Being a lover of words, I was very amused by another Sunday school story where the vicar, in that strange North Wales (Ian described it as South Liverpool) accent would remind the children every week to "remember the prairie tortoise". Mr. Shaw and his sister puzzled for years over what kind of animal this was until eventually working out that this was a reference to the Lord's prayer - "the prayer he taught us".

Ian swears a lot. That works for me as does the inadvertently rude humour he makes such great use of - the reference in one of the songs to the aunty going into shock when reading a menu typo that instead of advising about the offer of 10% discount, actually said there was an offer of 10% disco cu-t! And I won't spoil the bed wetting and Johnson's baby powder story in case you get a chance to see the show...

And what about the music? The music was great. A stunning version of the old Gilbert O'Sullivan song, "Alone again naturally" had me hanging on to my chest - see the video above to get the feeling, whilst "Scars" from his latest (and in my opinion, best yet) album - "A ghost in every bar", a wonderful collection of 15 Fran Landesman songs demonstrated a very reflective Mr. Shaw. His mischievous side came out again with his take on Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi", including the silent guitar solo (!) and the affectionate imitation of dear Joni's high voice, deep voice ending to the song.

This was a great evening of music, humour and fascinating anecdote including some about Fran Landesman herself, George Melly and others. The venue is part of the new major library in Canada Water which not only has a great performance programme but also stocks over 50,000 books, CDs and DVDs, has a great cafe, lots of study space and rooms for hire. And its open seven days a week too!

Ian is a very busy performer and has forthcoming gigs at the Vortex in Dalston and also as part of the forthcoming London Jazz Festival. You can find the details of these and other shows on his website. See him if you can - and buy that new album if you can't (or even if you can!).