Audience Wanted More Of Gale Garnett

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31006, 11 March 1966, Page 12

Audience Wanted More Of Gale Garnett

Folk songs as presented by New Zealand-born Gale Garnett are strictly undeodorised, and her own compositions are likewise uncompromising; but if her listeners in the Civic Theatre last evening were uncertain at first how tn react, by the end of the concert they were pleading for more.

They soon adjusted, too, to her gibes, camp allusions and wisecracks, and to an approach which switched disconcertingly from sending up isncertty to a passionate involvement with material. Miss Garnett’s voice is wonderfuly unlike any other—earthy, blurred, and, like the prism in one of her most appealing songs, capable of registering a full spectrum, from a breathy whisper to a nasal snarl.

Her own songs—she composes them, she explained tartly, because she cannot read music—are written on the hung-over rather than the intoxicated side of experience. Their personae are disillusioned, hurt, twice-shy, but never (or, at least, only once) indifferent.. Are they, in fact, personae? A Gale Garnett song has the edge, the un-glamour of fact, whatever the case, it is above all her ability to identify herself with what she is singing that makes her not just an entertainer but an artist.

Though they favoured mainly fast-tempo numbers, the Doug Caldwell Quartet tended towards nonchalant understatement, the result

being jazz which was both, lively and easy to listen to. “Stony Baroque” demonstrated Doug Caldwell’s inventiveness and feeling for form, while an old standard, “Falling in Love With Love,” contained the group’s neatest ensemble effects. Their drum,mer, Harry Voice, is inclined to up-stage the others. George Campbell, bass, joined Otis Fuller, a splendid

guitarist, in accompanying Miss Garnett.

Originally from Timaru, the Picasso Trio is exceptional: its members harmonise expertly, their voices are well-matched, and they are proficient instrumentalists. Moreover, they try to interpret each- song, instead of inflicting indiscriminately the same gusto on them all. Folk, pop-folk, jazz—a good mixture. If the compere (Murray Forgie) had been a little more "with it,” the concert would have been hard to fault.