Emily Masser Quartet – June 2025


Progress Theatre, Reading Friday 27 June 2025

Emily Masser vocals, Matyas Gayer piano, James Owston bass, Mark Taylor drums

The remarkable Emily Masser has an irresistible stage presence which held the Jazz at Progress audience utterly captivated on Friday 27 June from the first moment of her appearance to her departure amid rapturous applause; two hours and thirteen songs later.

Perhaps it’s no surprise. One has the feeling that Emily was born to perform. The offspring of a musical family – her father is saxophonist and jazz educator Dean Masser – Emily had mastered almost every instrument in sight by her teenage years, before concentrating her recent studies at Guildhall School of Music on singing and saxophone. But there are some qualities that you can’t learn at ‘school’ and here lies the essence of Emily’s appeal. She simply exudes with personality – joyful enthusiasm, the candour of her home town of Wigan, generosity and a work ethic that leaves you breathless. How could you not be bowled over by this talented young lady of just twenty-one years.

Even the record-breaking temperatures couldn’t curb Emily’s enthusiasm and she set a breakneck tempo to launch the evening with a Latin-tinged ‘Old Devil Moon’, the Burton Lane/ Yip Harburg favourite from the hit Broadway show ‘Finian’s Rainbow’. She negotiated the lyrics perfectly and with crystalline clarity, adding an exciting scat chorus before handing the mantle to her sublime rhythm section. Hungarian born, Matyas Gayer, whose career has included periods of study in Austria as well as work on the New York jazz scene, is an elegantly inventive pianist in the tradition of Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, with a distinctive touch that immediately captures the imagination. James Owston, a finalist in the 2018 BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year Competition, is no stranger to Progress audiences, having performed with Xhosa Cole, Clark Tracey and Gaz Hughes. His playing simply becomes more compelling on each visit. Mark Taylor, dep for the advertised Steve Brown, brought his wealth of experience from twenty-five years playing in New York with such legends as Monty Alexander and Kenny Barron, to keep things tightly swinging from the drum chair.

Emily followed through with another straight-ahead swinger in the form of Lerner and Lowe’s ‘Almost Like Being in Love’, before using her own lyrics to transform Bobby Timmon’s soulful classic ‘Dat Dere’ into a dedication to close friends, her second family. It worked beautifully, retaining the feel of the original tune, while expressing the emotions and good humour of a treasured relationship.

‘The Boy Next Door’ evoked images of the great Judy Garland in the heyday of her early movie career in ‘Meet Me in St Louis’. The changes in time from 3/4 to 4/4 kept everyone on their toes.

Could there have been a better choice of song for an evening of almost insufferable heat than Jobin’s ‘Double Rainbow’? Oh, how we long for the sound and touch of the gentle rainfall that its lyrics conjure and which Emily expressed so perfectly with the ‘mystical’ support of the rhythm section.

‘My One and Only Love’ has long been a favourite of jazz musicians since it was first recorded in 1953, notably the 1963 collaboration between John Coltrane and vocalist Johnny Hartman. Played at walking pace, it featured the exquisite bass of James Owston.

As a prelude to the closing tune of the first set, Emily sought a vote from the audience – would we like Jobin’s ‘No More Blues’, to be sung in English or as ‘Chega de Saudade’ in Portugues. A resounding show of hands voted for Portuguese, to which Emly retorted, ‘It doesn’t really make any difference, because I make up the words anyway.’ Not true. She took the song at a brisk pace in flawless Portuguese, followed by a scat chorus which gave her full creative rein to invent any words or sounds she liked. A joyous ending to the first set.

I have to admit that I’ve never been a great fan of vocalese. While I could respect the skill and invention involved in the vocal gymnastics practiced by such performers as Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross in putting words to ‘previously existing instrumental tunes or recorded solos’ (thanks to writer Brian Priestley for that quote), it all seemed a bit too clever by half for my taste. Having said that, I’m pleased that Emily Masser has taken steps to revive what had become a lost art and found her 21st century interpretation of the Gershwins’ classic ‘The Man I Love’ both exhilarating and good humoured. With references to student grants and the need for a little car – ‘a Mercedes Benz or a Jaguar’, it was bang up to date and good fun, not to mention dazzling solos from the guys in the rhythm section.

‘East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)’ continued this playful mood as a lilting bossa nova, while Matyas Gayer cut through the ‘pea soup’ with his gorgeous introduction to ‘A Foggy Day (in London Town)’, clearing the way for a sensational scat outing from Emily, backed by Mark Taylor in full flight.

The applause gave way to poignant silence as Emly announced that the next song, ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, had a special place in her heart as she had sung it at her mother’s funeral four years ago. Its simplicity fully conveyed the feelings of loss that she must have experienced on that occasion – and almost certainly still does – but it also offered hope for the future, for those we love are always with us.

In the later stages of each gig at Progress it’s customary for the band leader to personally thank the MC who booked the evening as well extending a generic thank you to the Progress Theatre House Team. Being the person that she is, Emily Masser took things a little further, by thanking everybody, BY NAME!

With the clock moving rapidly towards 10 o’clock and ‘gong home time’ Emily invited us to ‘Take a Little Time to Smile’, a delightfully uplifting song from the pen of the great Peggy Lee, which just about summed up a joyous evening of jazz at its very best.

But did we want an encore? Of course we did and the quartet duly obliged with a Gershwin number beloved of all jam sessions, ‘Oh, Lady Be Good’.

Emily Masser is a young lady with a great career ahead of her. We wish her every success with the future

We should like to thank Stuart McCubbin and his team of Progress volunteers for looking after our safety and comfort on a very, very, very hot evening and for all the unseen backstage work that goes into the successful presentation of Jazz at Progress

And finally, we should also like to thank Hickies Music Store of Reading & Tiverton for the hire of the piano for this occasion.

Please Note
Emily Masser will be appearing at the Swanage Jazz Festival along with Alex Clarke on Sunday 13 July. She will then be walking to her next gig at the Pizza Express, Dean Street, London on Friday 18 July in support of Nigel Price’s Grassroots Charity – a charity, as it ‘says on the tin’, that supports the grassroots of UK jazz and helps to keep the music alive. 

Get more details and donate here

Review posted here by kind permission of Trevor Bannister
Photo Colin Swain