Wednesday 6th November 2019 @ Foundry 616

Reviewed by Chris Borton (Jammin’ Sundays)

The stars aligned at SIWJF last night: cool venue, great backing band, full house with a definite buzz of excitement! But most importantly the international act, Veronica Swift was outstanding. A young singer from the USA who, at age 25, surely stands on the brink of stardom. She has a warm and welcoming stage persona and the vocal talents to go with it. She can swing and she can scat and she can burn a ballad into your brain.

She came to Australia without her band but she found a wonderful rapport with her local backing musicians which was a tribute to the musicianship of the Matt McMahon Trio, local favourites in Sydney, who demonstrated the quality of Australian jazz. In particular, her stylish duets with the bass player as she scatted the bass part along with him and played the air bass were wonderful to behold!

The evening was full of highlights including, for me, a wonderful vocal cover of the Bobby Timmons composition “Dat Dere”, “Pennies From Heaven” and a wonderful impromptu cover of “Cherokee” requested as an encore by an audience member and done as a scat because she could not recall the words! With Veronica’s vocal abilities as her instrument, I don’t believe anyone felt cheated!

Veronica is appearing again Friday night and if you can wrangle admission you should do so. You might be competing for tickets with people who were in the packed house last night and are coming back for seconds!