Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Caro Emerald’s 2013 album, The Shocking Miss Emerald, has set more than a tone for music in the second decade in the 21st Century, it has set a bar that matches the intensity and atmosphere that Kate Bush in the 70s, Madonna in the 80s and Tori Amos in the 90s managed to frame and capture with their pivotal albums. As she came on stage for the first time in Liverpool, the mystique, the allure and the talent followed her, the voice captivated the audience completely and the music enveloped all like a comfortable and much loved blanket.
The Philharmonic Hall is used to great nights, it has more than luxuriated and revelled in some totally amazing phenomenal evenings of great work but in Ms. Emerald and her superb band, the audience were transported back to the heady days of the Manhattan Jazz cafes in which W. H. Auden would have found enthralling. It is not such a big leap in the imagination to feel that sense of history flow through Caro Emerald’s songs, the smell of rich and pungent tobacco, the customers fascinated by the sights and sounds and Ms Emerald in all her finery being the toast of Pre-War New York. Thankfully Ms. Emerald very much belongs to the 21st Century and whilst the music has an abiding memory of the past, the rich delicate nature of songs such as One Day, the brilliant Black Valentine, the outrageously divine Pack up the Louie, Liquid Lunch, the gender blurring but lyrically superb Coming Back as a Man, The Other Woman, The Lipstick On His Collar and You Don’t Love Me were delivered with such gracious but also high tempo agility.
It’s not that often a performer on stage at the Philharmonic Hall gets two roses presented to them whilst they are singing to a packed crowd. However, for two enamoured fans, the roses they carried to the stage were readily accepted with a smile large enough to melt snow. If it meant something to Ms. Emerald then to the audience it showed the absolute joy of hosting a woman who makes Jazz sound fresh and exciting.
One of the finest ever albums by a female vocalist, has now been followed up by one of the premium performances you are likely to catch in your life time. The imagery and thought that this young lady from The Netherlands manages to present through her smoky and devastatingly bountiful lyrics and fantastic music arrangements, especially that of her brass section, is enough to suggest that for the long term, Caro Emerald is a jewel oo a performer to carry music forward in a newer, perhaps exhilarating direction.
Ian D. Hall
Audiences in the North-West won’t have to long to wait till Caro Emerald comes around again as her 2014 tour has been announced and fans will be able to catch her sizzling performance on March 20th at the Manchester Phones 4U Arena.