Christian McBride’s trio at Wigmore Hall — three strong personalities play as one

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American bassist Christian McBride is a jazz polymath whose current projects range from big-band modern jazz to high-energy contemporary funk and the left-field piano-free quartet New Jawn. His decade of Wigmore Hall performances includes duets with classical/bluegrass bassist Edgar Meyer and the late jazz pianist Chick Corea.

This performance, a trio of piano, voice and double bass, found McBride adapting his power and pinpoint accuracy to an equally broad song-based repertory. The walking bass lines, slurs and nonchalant strums remained, but now they uplifted songs from Jacobean England and Mexican-American Texas. Jazz was a common element; pianist Francesco Turrisi is a fluid improviser with a delicate touch, and American songbook evergreens were in the mix. But it was vocalist Rhiannon Giddens referencing a deep spread of Americana roots who set the evening’s tone.

The first set opened with “You Put the Sugar in My Bowl”, a track from Giddens’ soon-to-be-released album You’re the One that references similarly titled songs by Bessie Smith and Nina Simone. Here Giddens channelled the growls, stridency and prowling sexuality of Smith over double bass and piano support. “Mal Hombre” came next, first recorded by the Mexican-American singer Lydia Mendoza in 1934, delivered here in Spanish with a fine balance of theatricality and style. Then a cover of Ethel Waters’ subtle riposte to racial stereotyping captured on a 1933 recording of “Underneath the Harlem Moon”.

Although Giddens gets to the essence of classic vocal styles, she brings a host of other influences into the mix, sometimes within the space of a few bars. Thus on “St James Infirmary”, high notes gained an operatic tone and vowels were sensuously stretched. Add in vocal embellishments darting off at angles, and accompanists needed to be on their toes.

Turrisi, a long-term collaborator with Giddens, has a strong personal voice in a broadly mainstream modern jazz piano style. Eschewing the obvious, his lush voicings and stark harmonies added romance and pathos in equal measure. The two musicians have worked closely together since releasing their first album, There Is No Other, in 2019 — a passionate “Brown Baby” ended the first set — and Turrisi consistently enhanced Giddens’ intriguing narrative shifts.

McBride was equally on song, impressively so, since this was only the trio’s second gig. The bassist’s strength of purpose and sense of time came to the fore on “How Deep Is the Ocean”, an instrumental duet, and it was McBride who opened the second half with a magnificent unaccompanied cover of “Frankie and Johnny” that conjoined melodic phrases with bursts of energy and subtle slurs and strums.

But what impressed most was the way these three strong personalities united as one and refreshed a set of evergreen songs. Each piece was packed with detail, ebbed, flowed and had dynamic highs and lows. Henry Purcell’s “Dido’s Lament” gained delicate piano voicings, a moody “Dos Gardenias” featured a subtle salsa shift and McBride followed the vocalist’s every move on “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”. “At the Purchaser’s Option”, a raw indictment of slavery, unfolded in a single key.

The set ended with “Rosetta”, the audience singing along to a gospel high. “She’s Got You” was the encore, a slice of Southern soul that brought the house down.

★★★★☆

wigmore-hall.org.uk