Review: Music from the Penguin Cafe

RNCM, 5^th June 2009.

In Decem­ber 2007 the musi­cians of the Pen­guin Cafe re-formed for three con­certs at the Union Chapel to com­mem­or­ate ten years since the death of founder Simon Jeffes. His son, Arthur, took part and obvi­ously enjoyed it, for he has now put together Music from the Pen­guin Cafe, play­ing both his father’s music and his own, new compositions.

The con­vert covered all of the reg­u­lar favour­ites — and a few pieces, par­tic­u­larly Swinging the Cat and Dirt from Signs of Life that don’t seem to have been per­formed live before. That, com­bined with new pieces such as Fin­land and Bramble, provided a wide range of music from the Pen­guin Cafe rep­er­toire and a great intro­duc­tion to people who only know the music from CD.

There were a few tech­nical fumbles dur­ing the night, to be expec­ted given (I think) this was their first per­form­ance together. And lack of any brass meant that pieces such as In The Back of a Taxi lost some of the punch. How­ever, a few rough edges are eas­ily for­given in the sheer fun of hear­ing Pen­guin Cafe music per­formed live again.

On this basis of this con­cert, I’ll def­in­itely be look­ing for­ward to a stu­dio album of Arthur Jeffes’ new mater­ial. While of course there will be a change in style between older and newer, the concept of Music from the Pen­guin Cafe prom­ises as much listen­ing pleas­ure as ever.