Local Secrets - Cambridge - January 2004 - preview

How long has it been since you've listened, drink in hand, to original folk, blues or jazz performed by a musician song writer whose words were audible and face clearly visible from where you sat? In an age where music has been endlessly packed and processed, The Cambridge Folk Club at the Unicorn pub in Trumpington offers music with sounds that waken the senses with originality, compositions written with soul and the sort of intimate cabaret atmosphere that they only pretend to create at most theatres and clubs.

In a room for just about 70 people at the back of a listed, beamy pub, a few dedicated music lovers regularly present top talent in 'acoustic music' - something leading spirit Anne Ryan describes as 'unplugged' performances -- guitar, double base, harp, piano played by people who mostly write their own music and words.

Take Jim Moray who comes on stage Friday 9 January. He creates English traditional song for the 21st century. 'I feel I am coming from a tradition of innovation ' he says. 'What I do is just folk music from the point of view of someone who has heard hip-hop and the Smiths and Ligetti and Joseph Taylor and Radiohead and S-Club, and doesn't differentiate past whether it's good or not.' You have to hear him to get a feel for sounds like these.

Ryan is forever trying to explain people like Jim to the public. 'It grows out of folk he heard his parents play in the sixties but he creates a new style.'

Often talent is local. On 23 January, Jazz Ambience -- a four piece instrumental jazz band mixes stride, swing, Latin, blues and modern styles with experimental soundscapes and musical journeys that lead where they will. The club brings in up and coming names like Kirsty McGee, called 'distinctive and idiosyncratic' in a 2001 Big Issue review, she is winning accolades though only in her early 20s. McGee comes on stage 6 February.

See them, hear them, feel them close up in a place for everyone - even kids (over 8 years) can come along, and if they (or you) want a break, you can listen in an adjacent room where the music is piped in and you can talk and eat. Cambridge's own cabaret awaits your discovery.