Sarah Gillespie Quartet featuring Gilad Atzmon, Black Mountain Jazz, Kings Arms, Abergavenny, 27/05/2012.

Tonight’s performance represented a very welcome return for singer/songwriter/guitarist Sarah Gillespie who last visited the club in January 2011 attracting one of the largest crowds seen at BMJ for some time. This evening’s event was less crammed but the attendance was still gratifyingly healthy with Gillespie and the quartet earning a warm reception for their distinctive music. This was the third time I’ve seen Gillespie appear live and for me this was her most convincing and assured performance to date.

Gillespie seemed to emerge from nowhere in 2008 with her acclaimed début album “Stalking Juliet”, a stunning release that also featured the playing, arranging and production skills of multi instrumentalist Gilad Atzmon, a significant recording artist in his own right. This was followed by 2011’s “In The Current Climate”, another strong collection which cemented Gillespie’s reputation as a skilled and highly literate songwriter. Her current tour comes in the wake of the release of “The War On Trevor”, an EP containing a mini suite of four songs which has recently been reviewed elsewhere on this site.

It’s something of a mystery to me that Gillespie is still only a “cult” artist. Her songs are excellent, she possesses a distinctive voice, striking good looks and fronts a characterful band of superb musicians but to date mainstream success seems have eluded her. Perhaps it’s because her songs are too wordy, too musically exotic and too politically uncompromising. Her tunes have great choruses but they’re a far cry from Coldplay’s anodyne stadium anthems, I guess the great British public just doesn’t like to be challenged too much. Their loss is my gain, one of the joys of being a fan of jazz or any other so called “minority” music is getting the opportunity to witness artists of this calibre performing in intimate situations such as a jazz or folk club. Whilst I wish Sarah every success there’s still a part of me that’s grateful that she’s still playing in venues like this.