johnbostockmusic

Before a warm and supportive audience, John Bostock’s Trio performed at their home ground last night and won a sweeping victory.

John Bostock plays music of watercolors, melodic and romantic, that gently touches sensations and emotions. Bostock’s music leaves a sense of a veiled dream, of a story told behind a fine and romantic mist.

His classical training is very evident in his playing, especially in the way he attacks the keys. He plays exactly and elegantly, producing a rounded sound. In his playing one hears the beginning, middle and end of every note.

His program contained a number of standards and fascinating original pieces, some of which appeared on his first disc “Journey to Gynthia”. As the evening progressed it seemed as if Bostock overcame is initial hesitation and his playing became freer and more confident.

In my view, the excellent performance of the arrangement of “Flow My Tears” by the Renaissance composer John Dowland, was the point at which the performance changed status from good to excellent. It was as though the positive feedback which they received from the audience for this unusual choice of a jazz format injected new energy into the trio.

From this point excellent performances followed one another, for instance “Ant’s Dance”, “Ballad” and “One for Albert” written in honor of Albert Beger with whom Bostock played for several years and recorded two albums.

As an encore the trio played “The Ant and the Elephant” with a wonderful and most unusual arco solo by Ora Boazson-Horev. Here I mention that Boazson-Horev was an excellent partner for Bostock during the entire performance both as accompanist and soloist. A pity that the microphone placed on her contrabass produced an electric bass sound losing the woody nature of the contrabass.

At the end of the evening, the audience left the hall with wide smiles on their faces.

Can there be a better criticism for a performance?