St Mary in the Castle, Thursday 5 March 2020

The newly launched festival aims to cover all aspects of the piano and so brought a jazz evening to St Mary’s, led by acclaimed international jazz vocalist Claire Martin. She was joined by her regular partners Martin Sjöstedt, piano, Niklas Fernqvist, double bass, and Daniel Fredriksson, percussion and special guests Alex Garnett and Liane Carroll.

If the piano was not quite at the heart of the evening then it certainly played a respectable part with some fine breaks from Martin Sjöstedt in the first half and the more familiar presence of Liane Carroll in the second.

Claire Martin has an eclectic style, drawing on numbers by Tony Bennett, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald as well as more recent songs. She also ranges vocally from clearly articulated items like the laid-back approach to A rainy night in Tokyo or the scat vocals of Believe in it. It was a pity that she seemed to assume her audience would be familiar with much of her music as her introductions did not carry well within the acoustic at St Mary’s so we missed much of what passed between the items.

Saxophonist Alex Garnett is a recent visitor to Hastings, bringing an evening of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz to the White Rock, but here he played duets with Claire as well as adding a number of scintillating breaks alongside the trio.

In the second half Claire was joined by Lianne Carroll who is well known to us for her many years of enthusiastic music-making in Hastings. She has collaborated with Claire Martin in he past and this shone through as the evening progressed.