Review: The Forgotten Memories Show at The Duke of George
The Forgotten Memories Show at The Duke of George
w/ Sophie Foster and Michael Pignéguy with Jarrad van Dort, Joe Powell, Tristen Wells
Saturday, April 22, 2023
A full house at the Duke of George last Saturday were treated to a great night’s music from diva extraordinaire Sophie Foster in collaboration with Mike Pignéguy’s ever-revolving ensemble. In a quintet with Tristen Wells, Joe Powell and Jarrad Van Dort, they delivered a funky show that held the room in quiet awe.
Like all successful collaborations, two streams flowed through this show, both steeped in jazz, soul and funk, one tempered by the polyrhythmic interplay of world music, the other filtered through the grooves and space of contemporary pop/rock. The channel that drew the streams together was producer/player Brodie Stewart who co-produced Pignéguy’s Awakenings Ensemble album Duality (2021). Pignéguy was looking for a female vocalist to fill in for those he’d worked with in the Middle Eastern iteration of the band.
As soon as they started working together, Foster and Pignéguy clicked. They wrote two new songs for the second disc of the album as well as forging a new version of Pigneguy’s extant Forgotten Memories, the tune that gave this show its name. In Duality’s wake, they continued to collaborate. Foster wanted to further develop her songwriting, an urge Pignéguy was eager to support. Since mid-2022, they have been writing new compositions and interpreting the classic repertoire. Last Saturday’s show was the second airing of this material.
Foster is a fantastic soul singer. She can really belt it out, as she did time and again the other night on songs such as Georgia On My Mind and the show’s eponymous original. But she also can be incredibly soft and restrained, as she was to great effect on the subtle off-beat melody of Moonchild Band’s The List.
As musical director, principal composer and arranger, Pignéguy was the force beneath the music. On stage as drummer, he drove the band, and along with Powell’s subtly infectious bass and Wells’ absorbing keys, providing a sumptuous bed for Foster’s intoxicating vocals and the dexterous guitar of her long-term collaborator Van Dort.
Having met as fellow students at the Academy of Performing Arts, Foster and Van Dort share a fascination with contemporary musical styles. In the decade they’ve been playing together, they’ve developed a strong on-stage chemistry. The sparks of this flew when they riffed off each other in two unaccompanied duets, one in each set: Jill Scott’s He Loves Me and Kirby’s All My Love. There was magic in these spare versions.
But the true power of the show lay in the tension between the jazz-funk fusion Pignéguy, Wells and Powell created and the angular edges of Van Dort’s guitar. Bridged by Foster’s vocals, the band explored the full range of this highly effective combination, moving from the funky grunt of John Legend’s Darkness & Light, through RnB to an atmospheric interplay between keys and guitar on Snow Allegra’s Home. The highlight was their rendition of the Bobby Hebb classic Sunny. Beginning with a staccato bass, the band gradually built a syncopated bed on which Foster sang soulfully and ultimately Van Dort laid a nasty lead. It was unexpected and glorious, taking this old standard into uncharted waters.
The subtlety of the mix was further enhanced by each member of the band in turn beginning songs with an unaccompanied solo. Wells led the way with a sly keys intro to Georgia, Pignéguy with a dramatic drum solo on Eva Cassidy’s Wayfarer Stranger, and Powell with an über funky bass improvisation on Home. It was novel way to feature the virtuoso playing underlying the arrangements. The only shortcoming perhaps was that the electric piano solos were a bit lost. It would’ve been more engaging had they shone through on an acoustic piano.
The show began with Van Dort’s solo set of acoustic originals in the vein of the great 1970s singer/songwriter/guitarists. A fine finger-picker and supple song-writer with a warm baritone, this was a neat contrast to the funk that followed, a gentle way to launch into the night.
From here, Foster and Pignéguy intend to focus more on their original music and reinterpretations of extant tunes, less on other people’s arrangements. Given their performance at the Duke of George, we can expect great things.
Most immediately, they are launching their co-written single, Make Me Feel, at 7pm this coming Monday night, May 1, on Pignéguy’s YouTube channel. The track featured on the Duality album while the footage was taken from their first show at Lyric's Underground in March this year.
IAN LILBURNE
Photos by Alan Holbrook
