The richness of eagles (and a small annoyance)

To sustain an intense personal voice and musical vision across such a wealth of material is awe inspiring.*

Avishai Cohen did this at the Barbican tonight. With energy, groove and virtuosity to spare.

Wow!

Every standing ovation richly deserved. Several encores and still leaving the audience wanting more.

An oboe solo that soared, riding the desert thermals.

A sentence I never imagined I'd write. Ripping it up on the Cor Anglais.

String Quartets, no matter the context, lean to counterpoint.

It bears repeating.

Wow.

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I will try to forgive the intensely over excited chap in the seat next to me. I say "In" the seat advisedly, since mostly he appeared to be leaping out of it to roar. We will pretend that I did not mentally deploy the gig mallet (TM) or entertain fantasies of tethering him to his seat with bungee cords. Nor did I feel the urge to grab him at the wrists as if he were an errant toddler advancing towards a Manet with poster paint on his tappety tap tapping hands.

This is merely an iteration of sod's law. Toast lands buttered side down. I get seated at gigs next to the tutters, whingers, fidgeters, chewers and those who insist on picking the digital nose of social media when their phones should be off.

/rant

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I will try to forgive because to cycle in evening sunshine to amazing jazz gigs is richness beyond measure.*

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* Read what the grownups in the real reviews write to find out the details of the breadth of influences. I'm simply too dumb, too young in jazz to know them all. 

** Actual price, £10.