Above: Natalie Claire… Photo credit RealTales Audiovisual Productions
On May 9, 2026 I took public transport to Sutherland in order to witness a somewhat amazing jazz performance at the Sutherland Arts Centre. It was an unusual gig – what used to be called a matinee, commencing at 4 pm. I left home at Lane Cove North at 1.30 pm and travelled by bus, light rail and train, arriving in Sutherland shortly before 4 pm, just in time to be seated in an auditorium which held 163 people. The performance was sold out, which augured well for the performers; there’s nothing like a sell-out to raise the morale of a bandleader who appears to have done much of the marketing herself.
The vocalist Natalie Claire led a quartet including, other than herself, Hugh Barrett on piano, Jason Smith on double bass, and Steve Ley on drums. Overall it sounded like a very capable band but Barrett was by far the most interesting player; in fact, he’s an acknowledged piano virtuoso and every solo of his was a delight to hear throughout the gig. The audience was surprisingly receptive, and warmly clapped his solos, which were well amplified by a good sound technician, whose name was Liam (surname unknown). For that matter, they also clapped the occasional solos by Smith and Ley, but Barrett played a solo in virtually every number so, along with Claire, he tended to dominate the music throughout.
The trio opened each of the two sets with an instrumental, Jimmy van Heusen’s It Could Happen To You in the first set, and I Should Care, written by Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston, in the second set. Both tunes being prominent in the Great American Songbook, they reflected the theme of the concert – an exploration of compositions in the Songbook. Claire’s opener The Boy From Ipanema was followed by a string of well-known songs from that Songbook. For the uninitiated, Wikipedia defines the Songbook as “the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century that have stood the test of time…”.
If the performance had ended at the end of the first one-hour set, this review might have been somewhat different. During the 20-minute intermission we were not to know that the second set would see Claire taking her performance to a completely new level, as if whatever she imbibed during the break had emboldened her. More on that below.
Meanwhile, the first set proceeded with many great tunes, the exploration of which amounts in my view to the essential language of jazz: another Jimmy van Heusen classic The Very Thought of You; Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies; Erroll Garner’s Misty; Ellington’s Don’t Get Around Much Anymore; the Sinatra classic Fly Me to the Moon; Peggy Lee’s great hit Fever; and Doris Day’s Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps.
From the outset, it was clear to me that Claire possessed a very unusual approach to singing jazz that was entirely unique to her. To be honest, this was a new experience for me; I had never heard a female jazz singer quite like her. What fascinated me about Claire’s phrasing was her propensity to hold notes at length, rather than cut them off. I mean this as a simple observation, not a criticism. I prefer a much leaner approach to phrasing lyrics, and less use of long notes with vibrato; that’s just my personal preference. At the same time however, isn’t it the genius of jazz as an art form, that it gives artists permission to express their own individuality, and unselfconsciously put it out there for an audience to hear, for better or worse?
During the first set there was very little in Claire’s approach that might lessen her chances of success. On the contrary there was much evidence of the sort of variety that would ultimately guarantee her success. For example, in introducing the Nina Simone classic My Baby Just Cares For Me, Claire discussed Simone’s interesting background and asked the audience if they knew that Simone’s original name was Eunice Waymon. To my way of thinking, this is the sort of interesting background information which always enlivens a cabaret performance, and brings the audience in.
Similarly it was important that, in closing her first set, Claire sang the first chorus of Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps in Spanish, before moving on later to the English lyrics. This last tune also introduced a Latin time-feel – always a good idea for the sake of variety, which breaks up the swing-feel which is characteristic in Songbook standards. This foreshadowed Claire’s second set, where she again explored Latin time-feels with the Jobim bossa nova One Note Samba, and the well-known Latin hits Besame Mucho and Sway.
Other than those Latin hits just mentioned, Claire continued in her second set to present the music of Duke Ellington with In a Sentimental Mood, a notoriously difficult song which she sang very well. She was later to do Ellington’s It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) and, returning to the Songbook, she presented two Cole Porter numbers, I’ve Got You Under my Skin and Night & Day, always guaranteed crowd-pleasers.
Towards the end of the set Claire spoke about the famous Birdland club in New York, and mentioned that “someone” had written a song in tribute to the club. I would have liked her to mention that the composer was in fact the pianist George Shearing, and that Lullaby of Birdland, which he wrote in ten minutes, is generally regarded as Shearing’s most famous song.
By this time, however, midway through the second set, it was apparent that there was a new mood in the air that had been steadily accumulating throughout the performance. With a big ending to Lullaby of Birdland Claire was now flying high, palpably full of increased confidence. I realised that, throughout the second set, Claire had become more expressive as the performance went on, no doubt stimulated by an audience that was emanating positive vibes towards her and the band members. Some minor elements of Claire’s style may not have been my cup of tea, but they did not prevent me from working out what was going on; I know a triumphant and successful jazz performance when I see one.
The final set nominally came to a close with the abrupt “cha-cha-cha” ending of Sway, with the audience erupting in generous applause. The ovation was so strong that an encore was inevitable, indeed compulsory. Accordingly Claire finished up with Bobby Troup’s R & B classic Route 66. It was a rousing end to a great night for the Natalie Claire Jazz Band and, as I foreshadowed in the first paragraph above, I was left with no alternative but to concede that this indeed was an amazing performance. I was very glad to have been there in Sutherland, of all places, to witness it.
