KERRIE BIDDELL: MORE THAN A JAZZ SINGER by Eric Myers

______

The Kerrie Biddell Group The Basement Sydney Morning Herald, September 18, 1981 ______

errie Biddell is something of a chameleon. She is regarded as the finest female singer in Australian jazz, yet she has always been more than K just a jazz singer. By the same token, she is not only a popular singer. Her voice has the elasticity, responsiveness and range which most popular singers lack, and one finds her improvisational ability only in singers immersed in jazz. That is to say, her musical interests are so wide and her talents so formidable that she is impossible to categorise.

The Sydney Morning Herald used the above photograph of Kerrie Biddell to illustrate this review…

1

Still, there is a certain focus to the new group she has formed, following the dispersal of her previous group Compared To What, when two of its members left to study in New York. As she showed at The Basement on Monday night, she is performing not only jazz, but also the more interesting popular and rock music — perhaps better called contemporary music — that is around today.

She was therefore exercising her abilities on compositions by Billy Joel, Blossom Dearie, Gino Vannelli, Peter Allen, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and others — a collection of superb songwriters firmly united by good taste.

Billy Joel (above), Blossom Dearie (below), and Stevie Wonder (far below): a collection of superb songwriters firmly united by good taste…

2

The sheet-anchor of her new group is the outstanding keyboardist David Fennell, who plays electric piano and string synthesiser. An experienced campaigner, he brings to the group real jazz knowledge, harmonic sophistication, and a bag full of impressive instrumental compositions.

Keyboardist David Fennell: he brings to the group real jazz knowledge, harmonic sophistication, and a bag full of impressive instrumental compositions…PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN

The guitarist Ed Gregson is a fine player who hitherto has rarely been seen in the jazz world. He will rapidly improve in this company. Already he is making the guitar sing beautifully in its high register, playing compact, measured lines that are carefully integrated into the group's overall sound.

The band is completed by Rick Price (electric bass) and Joe Tattersall (drums), both young, rock-oriented players who sing well enough to provide rich background harmonies for Miss Biddell's vocal lines.

If there is a weakness in this band, it derives from the tendency of these young players to build up strident rock rhythms to a volume level which occasionally overwhelms the vocal line or the lead instrument.

It is difficult to comment on Kerrie Biddell's singing style, as she has no peculiar idiosyncrasies which can be identified. Her phrasing is so perfect, her

3 intonation so faultless, her technical command so consummate, and her approach so warmly musical, that a reviewer is left speechless.

During each set on Monday night she sang a ballad accompanied only by David Fennell at the acoustic piano. It is rare for the noisy Basement crowd to be silent and spellbound, but this was the case in Kerrie's moving versions of Stevie Wonder's Lately, and the standards My Foolish Heart and How Do You Say Auf Wiedersehn? Another memorable highlight was her version of Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years, one of the great songs of the past decade.

Biddell: her incorrigibly zany behaviour is effortlessly swept aside by her thrilling artistry and commitment to musical excellence… PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN At this performance Kerrie Biddell was as incorrigibly zany as ever. Yet her apparently flippant approach is, in my view, merely a harmless smokescreen which is effortlessly swept aside by her thrilling artistry and commitment to musical excellence.

She and her new group — which is yet to be named — are appearing at The Basement on Monday nights throughout September. Also, Kerrie Biddell has taken this group into the resident Thursday night engagement at Red Ned's, Chatswood, where she has been playing to capacity houses for some years.

4