Marlena Shaw takes a bow after the third song and raises her glass to the Jazz Cafe's clientele. "To your health," she salutes, adding, "and if you've got something strong, drink up - I'm real good when you've had a couple."
The truth is, Shaw's real good even if you're stone cold sober. A vocalist of astonishing versatility, looking uncannily like an '80s Tina Turner in glittery jacket and trousers, her voice and her ability to use it to its maximum potential are as fiery as they must ever have been. And for a woman with her history, that's really saying something.
Marlena made her first appearance on stage aged only ten before embarking on a career that would see her record for practically every important jazz label, from Cadet to Blue Note and beyond.
Along the way she co-wrote the northern soul classic 'Wade In The Water' made famous by Ramsey Lewis, and made albums that have become the stuff of legend. London's Soul Brother Records have this year released a peerless 'Anthology', which provides the reason for this two-night stint.
Most of the recent collection gets an airing, highlights including a devastating 'Woman Of The Ghetto', Marlena's lyric of hope in desperate times ringing ever more true 32 years after its release.
The standout, though, is a lengthy, ad-lib strewn reading of the Goffin/King standard 'Go Away Little Boy', adapted by Shaw to reflect her own bitter but barbed tales of man trouble. Switching from a husky scat to a soaring wail without any obvious effort, her control is formidable, and the lyric all the more believable.
A closing run-though of 'California Soul' sounds the only false note of the evening, Marlena uncharacteristically forgetting the second verse, while her admirable four-piece band inevitably struggle to do justice to the magisterial string arrangements that help make the original 1968 recording one of the finest three minutes ever committed to tape.
But this is unreasonable nit-picking: Marlena Shaw restores your belief in the power of soul music. And you surely can't ask for any more than that.
