Pictures: Louis Burrows
Lucy Dixon performed at Live At Zédel, London.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
This Art Deco cabaret spot might have been purpose built for the talents of the English-born, French- domiciled singer Lucy Dixon.
The descending staircase takes you past a galaxy of French artistes that won Parisian hearts between the two World Wars. Then much of the repertoire Dixon sings was written and broadcast back and forth across the ocean.
Wearing a hat, jacket narrowing on the waist, shirt, spotted tie and slacks, her slight figure epitomises the gamin look much copied in French culture ever since.
She lays her credentials down in the first number ‘Shall We Dance’, the song made famous by Astaire, tapping her way through its infectious rhythm, then brushing the side drum and acting the clown in ‘No Strings’ (Astaire again), before singing and tapping to ‘Fascinating Rhythm’, egged on by a grunt or two from her characterful bass player Sebastien Gastine. The pianissimo conclusion is deftly handled.
In ‘When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful’, Dixon creates an atmosphere through a street artist’s mime, before introducing herself and her musicians with undue modesty to an evening of “old songs”.
‘After You’ve Gone’, from 1918, starts gently, then swings, in the spirit of Reinhardt and Grappelli, with the tip-top line up of Sebastien Gastine, brother David on guitar, and Julien Cattiaux, acoustic, all hot foot from the Eurostar!
With this vintage jazz standard, we come to appreciate the voice, small but true, effectively employed, a lyric interpreted with feeling, as the reflective close of this number illustrates.
In ‘Lulu’s Back in Town’, the title of her new CD, she delves into what looks like a hat box for castanet, tea pot and tambourine.
Later, she takes out a paper tissue to rustle alongside the doo-wahs in ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’. A wacky ‘Nagasaki’ evokes memories of Victoria Wood, and there are smiles all round for her spotless solo with ‘Gypsy in My Soul’, the enthusiastic audience joining in with a click of the fingers a la ‘Fever’.
A dramatic guitar tremolo takes us in to ‘Get Happy’, interpreted with revivalist fervour.
Dixon credits the fondly-remembered Blossom Dearie as inspiration for a couple of numbers: ‘Ev’rything I’ve Got’ and ‘C’est le printemps’ (which turns out to be nothing less than ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’).
Indigenous French song is on offer in ‘Chez Moi’, a vocal duet with guitarist David (good voice too) and ‘Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup’, an entente cordiale love lesson, much performed, here newly voiced.
The alert and stylistically impeccable musicianship of the band is a joy throughout the programme. Earlier on they show us their vocal aplomb in ‘Oh Me, Oh My, Oh Gosh’. Then, with Dixon, ukelele in hand, they send us out into the evening with an infectious ‘Runnin’ Wild’.
A trimming here and there, perhaps less tap, and another solo number, and this entertainment, in a venue of this kind, should go far.
Adrian Edwards
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