Swing That Music

Swing That Music
With Tom Burlinson and Emma Pask. Musical arrangements by Ed Wilson. QPAC Concert Hall, South Bank. Friday, February 8, 2019

Jazz sensation Emma Pask was five when Tom Burlinson rode into the heart of the nation in the 1982 movie The Man From Snowy River.

The launch of their singing careers was more closely aligned, with Burlinson debuting in 1990, and Pask being discovered by Jazz legend James Morrison in 1994.

At the QPAC Concert Hall on Friday night, the pair collaborated for only the second time on stage in Swing That Music, after recording an album and premiering it at Sydney’s State Theatre last year.

The result was a heartwarming, funny, revealing concert of swing and jazz numbers, in which the two singers gave more to the audience than they perhaps gave to each other.

Musical arranger and jazz band legend Ed Wilson pulled the set together and with Ralph Pyl’s 18 piece All Star Big Band (all but three of whom were local Queensland performers) created a musical journey from the 1930s to songs being heard for the first time. Every piece was not only introduced, but it’s place in history was celebrated.

Wilson’s arrangement of Lionel Richie’s “Hello”, sung by Pask, was very moving. There was the duet of “Unforgettable” featuring Darren MacPherson on tenor sax, who had previously accompanied Natalie Cole on stage as she sang the song with a recording of her father Nat King Cole.

And the animated rendition of “Mr Bojangles” brought Burlinson the storyteller to life on stage.

What I craved and didn’t get out of the night was a connection between the two performers, who seemed to be caught up in either the ‘Pask camp’ stage left, or ‘Burlinson camp’ stage right.

And please stop with the costume changes. After three changes in the first half even Pask had had enough, declaring to the audience when she came out in costume number four that she wasn’t doing it any more.

To let Frank Sinatra’s lyrics speak for us all: “I love you just the way you look tonight.”

Debra Bela

Photographer: Gail Phillips

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.