Review: Billy Jenkins’ Songs Of Praise, The Shed, Hovingham Village Hall (From York Press)

Review: Billy Jenkins’ Songs Of Praise, The Shed, Hovingham Village Hall

7:54am Tuesday 10th October 2006 in

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BY serendipity, Billy Jenkins' Songs Of Praise night at Hovingham fell on a Sunday, traditional Songs Of Praise day on BBC1.

Rather than being in service of the Lord, however, Billy defined his night's work as a celebration of spontaneous communication.

Shedheads have come to expect the unexpected from boundary-breaking Billy: avant-garde battered Bromley blues, audience song sheets, even knitting live on stage in Hat. Even by Bill's outr standards, Songs Of Praise was danger, danger, high-voltage.

For his 50th birthday tour, Jenkins has invited a band of jazz hounds for a stand-up row with his frenetic guitar and woebegone blues sensibilities. Winner takes all. Game on, alto saxophonist Nathaniel Facey, responded to Billy's initial teasing on Sunday with increasingly daring, hardcore runs.

This was risk-taking, sink-or-swim performance, as tricky and cerebral as jazz can be, and yet with the pungent wit, punk spirit and beer-and-banter entertainment that leavens a Jenkins show in the vein of Ian Dury.

Not everything worked in Jenkins' mad world. He dragged Everbody's Talkin' too far out of shape, losing its uplifting essence, but First Day In Hell and Jazz Had A Baby Called Avant Garde were as inventive as their titles.

"Blues Stay Away From Me," he sang at the singalong finale, as the band played on until out of sight. The blues won't leave him, however, even when avant-jazz flirts so provocatively with him.