Singer Denise Jannah follows up Hong Kong debut with two weekend shows
Pianists Allen Youngblood and Jason Cheng with their respective trios will join Jannah in separate shows this weekend following her first-time appearance that had Hong Kong music lovers calling for more
Vocalist Denise Jannah and pianist Allen Youngblood met for the first time on Wednesday night at Foxglove. A quarter of an hour later they were beginning the first of three sets in the Central speakeasy bar, and sounding as though they’d been making music together for years.
This was Jannah’s Hong Kong debut, and the first of three public gigs plus one private club engagement which constitute a mini tour here organised by her friend and fan, Joe Ritchie, who introduced her.
On February 25, she will be appearing with pianist Jason Cheng’s trio at Ping Pong 129 in Sai Ying Pun and on Sunday night with Youngblood and his trio at Peel Fresco, but for this show the two were winging it as a duo.
The evening offered the rare pleasure of listening to two jazz musicians of a high standard getting to know each other on the bandstand.
The songs were chosen on the spot, mostly from the American Songbook repertoire, reflecting Jannah’s great inspiration Ella Fitzgerald who made definitive recordings of many of those standards with the eight Songbook albums she made for the Verve label in the 1950s and 1960s.
Jannah, who lives in the Netherlands but was born in the Republic of Suriname in South America, regularly performs a musical theatre tribute to Fitzgerald, and has recorded a CD tribute to her.