BBC Proms, Prom 13: ‘Sarah Vaughan – If You Could See Me Now’

Could this year’s Sarah Vaughan Centenary be the gift which keeps on giving? Zara McFarlane has drawn inspiration from it to produce what is surely the best album of her career,  “Sweet Whispers: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan” (links below), so last night’s supersized BBC Proms concert with Guy Barker in charge, broadcast live on radio and televised as live didn’t only catch a mood of celebration, it also felt almost like an extra present, or rather a constantly unfurling sequence of them.

Some gifts are clearly labelled and there is no doubt whom to thank or acknowledge. The absolute pinnacle of the evening was a sequence of three songs in the second half from Lizz Wright, building to the number which the BBC had chosen as the strapline for the show, Tadd Dameron’s “If You Could See Me Now”. Lizz Wright was the vocal star the prima donna assolutissima of the evening. She has a magnificent vocal presence, everything so clean, authoritative, clear, totally persuasive… Vaughan-like. She also had some great songs in fine arrangements for a full studio orchestra: Sonny Burke’s “Black Coffee”, George Shearing’s “Lullaby of Birdland” and “If You Could See Me Now”. All three were just glorious, every moment of the arrangements to savour. There are always other things to notice going on underneath or alongside, like the infallible strength of Chris Hill’s bass playing, or a short but flawless trumpet solo from Pat White, but the focus stayed rightly on Lizz Wright.

An event like is a huge collaborative effort and a major achievement, and Guy Barker is able to call on a large team of trusted collaborators to deliver all these wonderful surprises. Clarke Peters and Marisha Wallace as the evening’s hosts delivered a classily written script from autocue. That script is one of the gifts we received which is a bit harder to attribute. There were elegant lines: “Sarah arrived hand in hand with bebop; they grew up together.” The speedily rolling TV credits mention Russell Davies. That seems highly plausible.

Those lines from the script were referring to another really nice surprise gift, Guy Barker’s immense “Bebop Instrumental Medley” of tunes by Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, which was a superb overture for the second half. It deserves more than just this one hearing.

Another vocalist who really staked a claim for greatness was Leeds-born Lucy-Anne Daniels who is still (can that be?) only 21. AJ Dehany loved her singing in a NYJO Amy Winehouse project in 2022 , but this was a far bigger stage and, with the occasional conspiratorial and encouraging smile from Guy Barker, she shone, particularly in “Sassy’s Blues” where she sang low, powerfully and really took command. Meanwhile Cherise won over the crowd with charm, and particularly some whistling at the end of “Double Rainbow”.

More fine musical contributions came from trombonist Mark Nightingale, and a great sax section: Sam Mayne, Giacomo Smith, Graeme Blevins, Chelsea Carmichael, Jessamy Holder. Giacomo Smith does a great clarinet fingerbuster on “Great Day” (he also does it on the Zara McFarlane album) and got huge applause for it. And Guy Barker’s compositional sorcery is unending. I want to go and savour the haunting countermelody again from the BBC Concert Orchestra’s strings in another great performance, Lizz Wright in “I Hadn’t Anyone…” The BBC CO performs the role of studio orchestra to perfection.

Occasionally some the singers could sound a bit under-powered in the hall, but that normally gets fixed in the BBC Radio 3 mix. Marisha Wallace‘s “My Man” probably had a bigger climax than we heard last night. The vocal soloists are also obliged to put in their performances for the close-up TV cameras, which, to state the obvious, is only truly visible in the TV version.

There was a great atmosphere in the hall last night and a final massed “Perdido” sent the big crowd away happy.