Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

As debuts go, to be given a rousing reception before you start playing and a wonderful closing applause which resonated around the glass panels of the Capstone Theatre, the four men who make up the Jazz combo White Canvas couldn’t have asked for a much better start to their music career. In response the audience were given an insight into what awaits them in the coming months and hopefully years ahead as the music, sometimes sweet, all together delightful and completely delicious, resounded through the huge audience that had gathered in the auditorium.

Clutching a few of their own compositions and a couple of great nods to some of the legends of the genre, Andy Hume, Barry Dallman, Adam Goldberg and Dean Ravera took the audience on a trip that excited everyone who felt very privileged to be there. The music flowed, diverted and took separate approaches but stayed true to the ideal of Jazz, so much so, that by looking down the rows of occupied seats there wasn’t a single person’s foot wasn’t visibly tapping away in time with the Jazz on offer.

White Canvas opened up their debut slot with the beautiful Tiny Acorns before lurching creatively into Keith Jarrett’s The Magician In You. The four men who perform as White Canvas proved within minutes that not only are they very good at showcasing their own work but by taking on one of the American Jazz pianist’s major productions they showed they are more than worthy of carrying the Jazz flame forward into what looks like a very healthy future.

White Canvas played a few more of their own pieces during the set, including the sensuous Stay Beautiful and the two-parter While I’m Away and The Way Home. Between these the band diverged once more and went down the Herbie Hancock trial with a cover of the track Tell Me A Bed Time Story.

If one of the main purposes of the first International Jazz Festival to come to Liverpool is to introduce the city’s population to a wider range of Jazz, especially new bands that come along, then in one afternoon the organisers achieved this with aplomb.

Ian D. Hall