Published: 11 August, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

YOUNG jazz singer Michael L Roberts is filling the Jazz in the Crypt slot at St Martin-in-the-Fields next Wednesday evening.

Still not 30, he’s a crooner well above the average Sinatra wannabes, noted for singing fresh originals, reworked standards and hidden-gem ballads with an award-winning band.

He’s also a noted composer. His most recent work is The Avocatus Suite song-cycle for soprano and piano, influenced musically by the works of Strauss, Debussy and Shoshtakovich and lyrically by the beat poets.

Others to fill the Jazz in the Crypt slot on Wednesday evenings in coming weeks include Marion Joseph and the Fabulations on August 24 and TJ Johnson’s Bourbon Kick on the last day of the month.

• A concert for early music lovers is being given by Jennifer Bennett at Handel House in Mayfair next Thursday.

She’s a noted player of the violin, bass viol and renaissance flute; at Handel House, she’ll be playing in improvisations on madrigals by Palestrina and De Rore.

She’ll also be performing works by Bovicelli and Ortiz and bass lines such as La Follia and Romanesca, best known as the bass of Greensleeves.

Vocal pieces will be performed in lute versions by Yair Avidor.

At Handel House, on Thursday, August 25, Nathaniel Mander is giving a solo harpsichord recital, playing Scarlatti, Soler and Blasco de Nebra.

And on Thursday, September 1, soprano Elin Harris accompanied by cellist Vladimir Waltham and harpsichordist Joseph Chesshyre, is performing cantatas for soprano and bass continuo by Handel, Hasse, Vivaldi and Daniel Purcell.