Lunch hour jazz

I had a legitimate free ride on the Ottawa busses for the first time today; I've been over 65 for a month now, and seniors can ride for free on Wednesdays. I took myself to a lunchtime jazz concert in the Doors Open for Music at Southminster series. The last concert I attended in that series was music by Byrd and Tallis and other Renaissance composers, but they like to vary their musical offerings at Southminster, and jazz has been on the programme before: around a Duke Ellington theme. Most of the audience is in my age group.

Renée Yoxon, with a man's haircut, bright lipstick and a rich contralto voice, was the main performer today, remaining seated for some of it, which I hadn't expected to see. She was accompanied by Mark Ferguson, who'd been the pianist at the other jazz concert too, and John Geggie on the double bass, mostly plucking its strings, but in Midnight Sun he used the bow as well. All the numbers were settings of lyrics by Johnny Mercer, he who wrote Moon River. She sang that one too, to complex accompanying rhythms. The penultimate song was Trav'lin' Light in a blues style (I think; I'm out of my depth describing this sort of music) for which she pulled some painful grimaces and hit some higher than normal notes, and for which the pianist abandoned his piano and unexpectedly used the trombone as his instrument. The last of the ten items on the programme was a rendition of There's Only You composed by the singer and pianist themselves.