News
Johnny Mercer Centenary Concert
- Christopher Glasgow
- Scottish Music Centre
- 29 Jun 2009
Johnny Mercer proudly boasted among his ancestors a Scots physician who tended the wounded at Culloden, but Sunday night's Glasgow Jazz Festival tribute to this "poet of Tin Pan Alley", born 100 years ago, was concerned with more recent history, and with Mercer's inordinate contribution to a golden age of popular songwriting
Presented with warmth by Sir Michael Parkinson, who met Mercer on several occasions and was joined by pianist Laurie Holloway, former musical director of his shows and an old acquaintance of Mercer's, this could easily have turned into a mawkish nostalgia trip, but instead was marked by outstanding performances from the Mercer songbook by three fine singers, working with peerless accompanists in bassist Mario Caribe, drummer Alyn Cosker and guitarist Nigel Clark, and Holloway switching piano stools with David Patrick and Paul Harrison.
