Brigitte Beraha, the lyrical, Italian-born singer-songwriter, and Gareth Williams, the powerful Welsh pianist, between them embodied the fundamentals of the Jazz With Soul weekender in London's Highgate: spontaneity, high-class UK jazz artistry and a cherishing of popular song. Beraha's Saturday performance and Williams's Sunday afternoon show with his Power Trio also called for other kinds of improv skills – Beraha had to reinvent her gig for a duo in the absence of her traffic-jammed trumpeter, Williams found himself wrestling with a recalcitrant PA – but neither artist's style was audibly cramped.
The last-minute reshuffle probably inclined Beraha to more jazz standbys than originals, imperturbably propelled by the resourcefulness of excellent pianist Ross Stanley. She's a fine singer of well-travelled materials, however. Jobim's Wave found her coolly squeezing and stretching the samba pulse, My One and Only Love and I'm Old Fashioned were softly confiding and briskly improvisational respectively, and Jerome Kern's In Love in Vain was yearning and robust. Beraha's more impressionistic, Norma Winstone influences nonetheless did surface on gracefully folksy, mostly wordless originals in both sets, and her handling of Kenny Wheeler's steadily building, wide-interval song, Kayak, showed how much subtle technique she keeps in reserve.
By coincidence, Williams also performed In Love in Vain at his Sunday gig. His version was vocally huskier and more shruggingly resigned, with the real focus being his scalding piano solo over Laurence Cottle's bass-walk. With Cottle and the emphatic drummer Ian Thomas, Williams mixed crisp blues and funk on electric piano with fast, rising lines (Evans the Piano) and an inventively choppy, dissonant account of John Coltrane's Giant Steps on the acoustic instrument. Williams's big strengths are a Bill Evans-like talent for varying the weight and shapes of phrases across long improvisations, and a blazing uptempo swing. He's an unassuming local star in a jazz-piano territory jammed with hot competition.
