Tara Lily @ The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 16 Jun

After an uncharacteristically sunny spell in Glasgow, thunder rumbles in the distance and rain breaks through the muggy June heat. “I stepped off the train in Glasgow earlier tonight and saw people walking through the rain,” Tara Lily remarks on-stage. “It reminded me of the monsoon season in Bangladesh,” she continues, a wry smile. 

Tonight’s gig is part of the four-day long Glasgow Jazz Festival, with jazz talent both local and international drawn to play at venues across the city. Peckham-born, British-Bangladeshi Lily is among the exciting artists featured – reimagining what it means to be a jazz artist in the contemporary age – with influences spanning Indian classical, alternative R'n'B, classic jazz and traditional Bengali folk music. 

We’re warmed up tonight by similarly genre-fusing support act Kapil Seshasayee, accompanied by his band: Diljeet Kaur Bhachu on flute and Edwin Stewart McLachlan on drums. The trio provide an electric and energetic working of Seshasayee’s material on the live stage, electronics combining with live percussive elements to mesmeric effect. At the close he asks if we’re up for one extra song – the intimate crowd gathered happily obliging, we’re played out with glorious flair. 

Image: Tara Lily by Marilena Vlachopoulou

Energy flowing, there’s a short interlude before Tara Lily takes to the stage, unassuming but assured. Cheers reverberate across the intimate, sold-out gig and it’s a smooth start. Lily’s honeyed vocals glide effervescently across the tracks, dipping high and swooping low at times; piercing with clear emotion at others. Standing centre-stage behind a keyboard, she is flanked either side by her band’s saxophonist and bass guitarist, and drummer to the back. Original material features with a couple of covers of classics – Miles Davis – thrown in for good measure, and it’s exciting to witness Lily rework them into her own unique stylings. 

Many times, melodies, vocals and instrumentation play beautifully off one another: we lose ourselves, together in the graceful spell cast as if we could live in it forever. Keeping us on our toes, there’s a few surprises – drum'n'bass influences show a new side to Lily and a staggeringly impressive drum solo features at one point, eliciting cheers and awe from the crowd. Elsewhere, on her latest single Double Time she cries out, ‘I’m not afraid to die’, dancing to the rhythm, uninhibited and anarchic.

Another stand-out moment is present in Lily’s rendition of single Hotel Armour. Introducing it as a song she wrote while in Paris, the downtempo track is transformed live into something which gradually picks up the pace and volume as it builds in emotion, rushing to the final crescendo where she makes the final, definitive declaration: ‘Last night was the end’. As we reach the end of tonight’s set, the spell is broken, and there’s a bittersweetness as we come to a close, back to reality, but that’s surely the sign of a great gig.