New Ode to the Nightingale
It is just over three years since I saw Sam Lee performing,
again at the Phoenix, and that genuinely outstanding gig was one of the more
memorable I have ever attended, reviewed
here [and within that, references to
other reviews of his music].
I expected more of the same last night, but I was in for a
shock surprise – I hadn’t really paid attention to what was on offer, though I
did know about his nightingale project – yet what an extraordinary, pleasing
shock it was.
Instead of the musical ensemble I was expecting, in that
ignorance, there were just two other musicians with Lee: Adrian Freedman
playing
the shakuhachi, a bamboo Zen flute of Japan, and Chartwell
Dutrio playing the mbira which is an ancient instrument consisting of at least
22 metal keys mounted on a wooden soundboard, in this case like a gourd.
These three had never played together before,
and the night was in every sense an improvisation, especially the extraordinary
event after the interval. Before this, and throughout the night, there was much
talk about the nightingale and the wider project, based on a farm at Knepp in Sussex
where the resident ecologist, Penny Green, works and records the singing of this melodic bird. Lee rang her on his mobile at the beginning of the gig to talk
about the chances of hearing the singing that night, to be played later
into the theatre live.
It was already in full voice.
But more of this in a moment. Lee opened the
evening’s music by singing solo Spencer
the Rover, a beautiful resonant delivery as one expects from him, and a
treat for me, loving the version that John Martyn sang. Both Adrian and
Chartwell had solo spots, explaining their instruments, and it was a
fascinating learning about and experiencing of their respective superlative playing:
and with Chartwell also singing – at one point later performing throat singing.
All wonderful. In the metaphor of a camp-fire
setting – so lights dimmed and an informal presentation throughout, including
sing-alongs for those inclined – Lee talked more about the ecological realities
of the nightingales’ reducing springtime habitats in England – no longer in
Cornwall, probably not in Devon, a few in Dorset and Somerset, but mostly, when
here now, in the south east of England – and he told the story of how the
nightingale was given its voice by the She-god of his telling it. There was
also a recollection of the BBC’s first ever live outside broadcast of cellist Beatrice
Harrison playing along to the singing of the nightingale in her garden in 1924 –
an event, we are told, that was set up and recorded on the 18th May
when the nightingale didn’t appear, and then again on the 19th when
it also didn’t appear, so an American, Charles Kellogg, a vaudeville performer who imitated bird songs, was brought in to mimic the
singing of the nightingale – and it struck me that this may well be one of the
first ever and genuine Fake News stories/events!
To the extraordinary musical event of the
night – after the interval, Lee rang Green back in Sussex and to cut to the
chase, the nightingale was singing, singing in glorious variety and volume and
this was transferred into the theatre through the PA system. It was genuinely
beautiful to hear, the darkened setting of our sitting, and all that had
preceded, preparing us for the experience in as ‘natural’ a way as one could –
the paradox of this technology making just such an event possible being one
of the most perfect imaginable.
 |
| ...as if we were |
In terms of music, Lee began with his shruti
box and a low hum/murmur to merge with its sonorous sound and accompany the
nightingale’s virtuoso melodies. Freedman and Dutrio played their own solo accompaniments
and it is impossible to fully embrace that improvised and empathetic playing
with words, but it was, as I have said, genuinely extraordinary. Freedman’s
shakuhachi – and he had a range to play – obviously had the most inherent ‘match’
to the birdsong, but it was on their last ensemble jam that this trio fully
communed with the nightingale and the audience, some again who sang along to
the mantra Dutrio devised which was a beautiful descending melody.
A unique gig and I am so pleased to have
attended.
