The Melbourne International Festival of the Arts 1999
The Prince of Wales Hotel October 19 - 24

The Age Melbourne, Australia

Lady sings the blues

Jackie Gordon - Black Pearls and Strange Fruit ( The Prince of Wales Hotel, St. Kilda) October 1999 Reviewer: Fiona Scott-Norman

It is always difficult to define exactly what makes a cabaret show a good one, but if it makes you weep, it must be doing something right.

Jackie Gordon's Black Pearls and Strange Fruit is as emotional as it is entertaining, a compact history black American female singers, from the introduction of slavery through the civil rights movement of the 1960's

The cabaret begins with Gordon singing and explaining Billie Holiday's haunting ballad Strange Fruit, which refers to the dead bodies of black people, who were lynched in America's deep south.

This is not a frivolous show, but neither is it a litany of complaint. Black Pearls and Strange Fruit is a celebratory show that brims with authority, full of pride and admiration for women who became successful despite racism and poverty.

Gordon, with a three-piece band and two back-up vocalists, sings songs from the repertoire of Bessie Smith, Holiday, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt and Nina Simone. Gordon accompanies the songs with biographical information about the singers, contextualises them in time and place, and explains the treatment they received.

Washington for example, sold out a 3000-seat room in an La hotel, but was not allowed to actually stay in a room there and was given a trailer out the back.

Black Pearls and Strange Fruit,directed and co-written by Paulene Terry-Beitz, also includes the projection of historic black-and-white stills.

There is also enough of a breath of Gordon's own family story - she is the daughter of a white woman and black father, she moved to Australia from New York seven years ago - to make the show personal, intimate and immediate.

This is a very restrained, beautiful show with a surprising amount of humor. Gordon is shy performer, but she has plenty of presence, the ability to spin a yarn, and a strong, textured singing voice.

Black Pearls and Strange Fruit would be a satisfying show even if it were solely a concert, with such songs as I Want To Be Evil, Stormy Weather, What A Difference A Day Makes and Ain't Nobody's Business (But My Own).

Gordon's finale a rendition of Maya Angelou's poem, I Rise, followed by Simone's anthem for the black civil rights movement, Young Gifted and Black, is a stirring and funky way to finish a profound, powerful hour.

It is also a grand opportunity for Melbourne Festival goers to get out of the CBD and into another part of town. It may be the only time many people step inside the lovely lounge of the upstairs section of the Prince of Wales Hotel.