Marcella at Marlborough Jazz Festival

Review by Jamie Hill

Marcella at Marlborough Jazz Festival at The Green Dragon on Saturday July 14

I don't usually do reviews of individual acts at Marlborough Jazz Festival. It's a huge event with more than 100 acts performing throughout the weekend. But when I caught Marcella at The Green Dragon in Marlborough I thought they were a bit special and I needed to scribble something about them.

First of all, let's make something quite clear. This is not jazz. Nope. This is folk. But that's fine. They're a Marlborough based band with talent in spades so they manage to slip under the jazz radar because of their locality.

They were the first people that I saw at this year's jazz festival and it was a lovely and gentle introduction to what turned out to be quite a raucous day if my hangover the next morning was anything to go by.

It was raining outside when they took to the stage but Marcella presented us with a set of slow sumptuous music that evoked a hot summer's day. It was warm and emotional stuff.

Gentle and easy folk with beautiful harmonics that really shine. The band is led by Marlborough musician Mike Booth, or the Mighty Booth as I'm wont to call him, and it is his beautifully thought provoking lyrics and songwriting that are the driving forces behind the band.

Mike was backed up by one of the strongest female voices I've heard in a long time. Angie Restorick really belted out the louder numbers like a cover of Carly Simon's 'You're so vain' but showed real range when it came to the slower more ethereal and harmonic tunes like the band's own 'Tangled'.

I'm sure these guys will be a mainstay on the circuit for years to come and are definitely worth a look if you see their name popping up in the listings.