Janette Mason delivers classic jazz and pop tunes with a twist for ReWired album launch

In the 1940s and 50s, many classic jazz standards began life as popular tunes – on Broadway, in film scores, or as mass-produced records. But as the decades rolled on, jazz and pop music increasingly diverged into separate genres. With her latest project, ReWired, pianist Janette Mason seeks to revitalise the musical link between the two. Joined by Tom Mason on double bass, Eric Ford on drums (picured below), and Richard Beesley on tenor saxophone, the band cast fresh eyes on an adventurous selection of classic pop tunes at this Pizza Express album launch.

Mason’s choice of repertoire felt very personal – like a cassette of radio recordings form the formative years of her musical career. Tunes by Gary Numan, Kate Bush, David Bowie, and the Eurythmics all featured prominently. The take on The Zombies’ She’s Not There was particularly inspired, the scrunchy vocal harmonies and driving rhythms of the original recording lending itself particularly well to Mason’s jazzy twist. Throughout, the combination of the familiar and the novel was highly engaging.

The band also performed a stellar cover of Oasis’ ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, a group Mason has played with in the past. It began with a solo piano intro – harmonically sparse, lyrical and ballad-like. As the tempo began to pick up, Mason started to tease out subtle blues cadences from the arrangement.

The evening would have been incomplete without a nod to the digital age of music. Mason’s reinterpretation of Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 smash hit ‘Good 4 U’ was a revelation: once stripped of its glossy production and angsty teenage lyrics, a complex composition emerged from the angular melodic intervals, funky triplet syncopations, and momentum-building drum breaks. Tenor saxophonist Richard Beesley delivered a particularly electrifying solo here and locked in wonderfully with Ford’s nimble cymbals.

Several classic standards were intermingled into this setlist of ‘new’ standards. This included tunes such as ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ and ‘Lullaby of Birdland’, which were tastefully chosen for their strong, haunting melodies. Vocalist Claire Martin joined for a moody, seductive performance of ‘Blue Moon’. The band also performed a rendition of The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, a tune which has become a familiar jazz-pop-standard since The Jazz Crusaders’ classic 1968 recording.