Audience responds to outstanding musicianship

Jazz pianist Chris Dann returned to the Globe Sunday Matinee series, bringing his own special touch of magic to a handful of classical masterpieces.

He worked with two musicians of the same outstanding calibre, Neville Lauridsen, mainly on bass guitar, and Hayden Lauridsen, on drums.

Together, these musicians presented outstanding elaborations on their chosen classical hits, stripping each to the bare necessities of melody and then adding their own textures, rhythms and harmony. This added much to our understanding of these works.

The programme opened with Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca and one could not help but realise we were in for a special afternoon when the drummer threw his sticks away mid performance, instead using his hands on the kit in response to the glorious music around him. Mozart was followed by Liszt’s Liebestraum No 3, another well-known favourite.

In Chopin’s Etude No 3, Neville Lauridsen picked up his flugel horn, and complementing the work around him with great authority. He also added the trumpet for Chopin’s popular

C-minor Prelude, No 20.

Ravel’s Bolero and a fascinating combination of Brahms’

Rhapsodie No 2 and the Louis Armstrong hit What a Wonderful World completed the concert.

With outstanding musicianship on display throughout the afternoon, the enthusiastic audience was warm in its appreciation of another great concert in this popular series.