Music: Sequins & Shpiel: An Evening with New York’s Rachael Sage

Date: August 12th, 2009 Author: Martin Walker
Category(s): Music: Sequins & Shpiel - An Evening with New York’s Rachael Sage
Comments: 0

Music
***
Sequins & Shpiel: An Evening with New York’s Rachael Sage
City Edinburgh

Rachael Sage is an imaginative, versatile, jazz singer / songwriter whose performance exudes much sex appeal.  Her show begins, however, with the much quieter twenty-something keyboardist / vocalist Seth Glier (who wasn’t introduced) alone in support.  Imagine the voice of a young Art Garfunkel, singing about his parents, about feeling isolated, about the melancholy and angst we’ve we heard so much about from artists in his genre.  Half way through his set he confides, “This is my first time in the UK ever and I’m going to move here when I get a career”.  We only found out his name when, in a rare display of interaction, a member of the audience demanded to know who he was.

After half an hour came Sage.  Almost her entire set was crafted around self penned material, taken from across eight albums – although her cut down version of ‘The Theme Fame’ was a genuine highlight.  For the most part her performance was brash and ballsy and thoroughly enjoyable.

An over-excited United States audience would have lapped this up, no doubt whooping constantly.  But neither Sage’s stunning vocals, her forays into the audience, or the returning Glier’s back flips, or the stuff with the kazoo, got Edinburgh going.  “In New York people don’t respect you unless you make a noise,” she confides, before adding, “Can somebody cough?”

One suspects that Sage didn’t quite deliver the best of herself with this polite audience.  She is clearly an exceptional performer on her way up, but with a show that feeds on interaction.  Oh, to see her in a jazz club in New York!

MW