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Review: 'The James Taylor Quartet Live At The Barbican'
'With the London Studio Orchestra, Yvonne Yanney'   

-  Album: 'Rochester Choral Society, Graham Day,Nitin Sawhney' -  Label: 'Snowboy'
-  Genre: 'Dance' -  Release Date: '18.7.25.'

Our Rating:
This was billed as being a one-off event, certainly the chance to see the James Taylor Quartet perform with close to 80 members was unique and The Barbican is the perfect venue for as widescreen an event as this was. The first two songs Temps Perdu and Kyrie Eleison were performed with the Rochester Choral Society and the London Studio Orchestra along with the usual members of the James Taylor Quartet, who numbered in total over 70 people on stage to kick off this night, with a huge sound the Choir giving this a wonderfully engrossing sound, the voices intertwined with what the strings were doing, James' Hammond organ flourishes almost felt like minor decoration. Kyrie Eleison with the choir had a bit more of a funky edge to it and the choir acting more as an additional instrument rather than vocalists.

The first tune without the Choir was The Frug it was a full on 70's style symphonic funk soul stew with great sweeps of strings set against the super funky brass section that got everyone grooving in their seats. Making Tracks was good and funky with a central bassline from Andrew McKinney that seemed like the anchor for everything else going on. The New Money Spider has shimmering strings, some cool harp flourishes and that all important brass section adding all the stabs needed to get the groove going properly.

James then brought out his old school friend Nitin Sawhney to add some magic to Electric Black that had a full-on Blaxploitation soundtrack to some street action, for us all to groove along too. James then introduced Yvonne Yanney to re-imagine Teddy Pendergrass' Love TKO, Yvonne sounded great surrounded by the orchestra pouring out her sorrow at another Love TKO. James and Yvonne then encouraged us all to Boogie On Through The Night that with a full string section really sounded like a Philly soul classic from the mid 70's with the over the top sound bringing joy to the audience.

James then introduced his old band mate Graham Day onstage to play guitar and sing a couple of classics from there time together in The Prisoners, Winter In June had Graham telling us who he would be seeing, his guitar seemed to add another layer of energy into this huge sound that swelled in The Barbican hall to immense proportions. He then sang My Wife with some cool backing from Yvonne, the brass section really lifting things.

Then Yvonne and Graham left the stage before they went into Danzig Connection that sounded like it should soundtrack the chase scene from a heist caper, with the Hammond glissando's feeling like handbrake turns, will they ever make it out of Danzig. James then told the band to vamp for the Fist Bump outro to the first set and the core quartet laid down the rhythm that the brass and string sections then joined in with, the orchestra's conductor brought the violins and cellos in separately bringing the first set to a crescendo like ending.

The second set opened with the harp solo intro to Winter Shore the violins and cellos added sweeping feelings of a storm slowly breaking on the shore, this was more classical than funky. James then re-introduced Nitin Sawhney this time with his tabla player Aref Dervesh to play Nitin;s Prophecy, with Aref really interacting with Snowboy's bongos and Pat Illingworth's drums to set up an incredible percussive storm.

Then we had the most stripped back song of the set Street Hustle between James, Pat and Mark Cox that felt loose almost like a musical bed. The full orchestra came back in on Man In The Hot Seat that had some great trumpet stabs and James encouraging people to get up and dance to it. Yvonne Yanney came back on to sing Who's Gonna Break The News the violins really added an intensity to this and Yvonne blasted it out. People Get Ready was the song that got most people up and dancing along to this classic that built immensely and had some of James most intense Hammond flourishes on it.

They stripped it back to a 6 piece for My My My that sounded pretty close to the Hung Up On You album version. We then got a full intense version of the JTQ Theme that had plenty of dance breaks in it. Then Yvonne came back to sing Love the Life that was dedicated to the memory of Noel McKoy, it was a joyous upbeat celebration of making the most of your life, before they closed with a long version of The Theme To Starsky & Hutch even if James refused to put on the cardigan for it, this was a great finale to a really enjoyable concert.
  author: simonovitch

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