When Diana Torto, the impeccable but adventurous Italian singer, appeared at London’s ReVoice! vocal festival four years ago, it was with the late Kenny Wheeler’s quartet, on a repertoire of Wheeler’s enigmatic tenderness. But though she saluted Wheeler’s big personal influence with a slowly gliding Sweet Dulcinea Blue, Torto’s visit to this year’s festival focused on a venture of wider appeal: the music of Paul McCartney. But, since the Italian is both an actorly handler of the nuances of a lyric, and an imaginative and skilful improviser, the show was a long way from a covers gig. Torto appeared in a light-stepping trio with frequent piano partner John Taylor, and saxophonist and bass clarinetist Julian Siegel– an exposed situation which showed how resourcefully self-contained yet ensemble-tuned all three participants were.
Sunday’s gig opened with a short set from the energetic ReVoice! curator Georgia Mancio, in a duet with pianist Andrew McCormack that neither had attempted before. Mancio, who has steadily grown in quiet authority to become a fine multilingual standards and Latin singer, was at her lucid and unfussy best with McCormack’s intelligent prompting. She revealed the thoughtful results of her new songwriting partnership with Grammy-winner Alan Broadbent, and gave the set a welcome unorthodox twist on a looser voyage through McCormack’s distinctive postbop original, Vista.
Torto, Taylor and Siegel then opened with Fool on the Hill, with Torto steadily unfurling the theme with Taylor’s arrangement endorsing and then chafing it, before the singer accelerated into a passage of glowing tone-changes, register-leaps, fiercely secure long sounds and sax-like runs. Blackbird was escorted by Siegel’s bass-clarinet obbligato and Taylor in infectiously funky, Jarrett-like mood, and a dreamlike For No One and a waltzing, riffy Here, There and Everywhere mixed the originals’ enduring freshness with the performers’ instincts to strip layers off all their materials. Taylor’s bluesily vaporous Ballade and a fast-swerving Torto tango added further personal touches to a low-key but gripping performance.
