We saw her in a jazz club, outside at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, but also in front of a handful of spectators in a suburban hall lobby. Each time it was great. Intense and irresistible, tornadoas much as gentle breeze: Tami Neilson is everywhere and all the time the best singer in the world (her and Rhiannon Giddens, let’s say). That she has a large ensemble in a majestic place, the most careful arrangements, a panoramic sound recording was rightfully hers: it happened. The Kiri Te Kanawa Theater in Auckland, the jewel of his adopted New Zealand, suited him perfectly. The Canadian of origin makes it her own. The 80 musicians led by David Kay serve her as legendary producer Owen Bradley served Patsy Cline. Ideally. Grandiose without bombast, twangy guitars across the desert (think Morricone), skies gutted in I Can Forget : it lifts without ever losing its footing. A summit.
To see in video