James Morrison, The Trumpeter and Others

Was so out of it that when I said yes to the friend's invite to a concert, I didn't read the details save for time and venue. A day earlier, it suddenly hit me that we were going to watch this James Morrison on the horn and the trumpet instead of that James Morrison on the guitar and vocals. ROTFL. She did say jazz, and I completely missed that.

For about 15 minutes in confusion, I wondered why he would be playing on 27th at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall when he had already played at Esplanade Concert Hall three weeks ago on the 2nd! Had to retrieve the email to do some googling. Also, the girlfriend didn't strike me as the kind who would watch this James Morrison. :P Anyway, this wasn't a camera-sort of gig. No nazi ushers lurked, but it would be bad form to sneak a photo. I've been well trained by Esplanade. The dance performances have been super nazi about locking up cameras outside of the venues, so I've consciously left the camera at home for these two weeks and stuck with crap quality phone photos.

Thoroughly enjoyed James Morrison's delightful performance. He effortlessly toggled between the favored trumpet, the trombone, the piccolo trumpet and the saxophone. He had 13 musicians (not travelling with him. A brass ensemble from Brass Acts and Sultan Jazz) to back him up. Full sounds on trumpets, horn, trombones, tuba, a guitar, double bass and drums. They were rather messy with the opening piece 'All of Me', but soon found groove by the third piece 'Masterplan'. Pleasantly surprised that he would attempt it, and not that impressed when he rehashed old jokes, which, well, did inspire the writing of the piece. Somehow, while he was brilliant on the trumpet, the band did nothing for this piece, which is probably my favorite of all eight songs tonight. 'Fugue II' was well played. Very Bach indeed. The band and James Morrison showed most chemistry and coherence in doing a lively 'On The Edge', and later, a reprise of it for the encore.

In this 2010 clip below, he played 'Autumn Leaves', one of my all-time songs of nostalgia.