Jackie Bristow Live at Piano Bar, Los Angeles Reviewed by C von Hassett
Look out Lucinda. The heir to blistering Americana is honing her craft and unleashing some heat on LA’s pulsing musical fringe, known otherwise as its de facto center. New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based Jackie Bristow sculpts out some distinctive terrain with the formative blade of her exemplary band and the clement heart of her winsome songcraft.
Bristow on record is rather in the tradition of the lovestruck or lonely, a sultry, mid-tempo sound that has as its subject a woman vulnerable yet invincibly strong, a woman to worship were it not for ill-fatings or a misalignment in the stars. Unsurprisingly on stage her presence is one of tenderness and backcountry charm, her voice both sweetly raw and refreshingly unrefined.
Her band, however, at least the one in current support, is an urban fur that wraps her and warms her to those more in want of a good sonic mauling. They, this connective quartet, are muscular and fierce and sculpt out a body of sound rooted deeply in country, blues, rock and roll, and perhaps something more distinctively Los Angeles, that of great session players coming together for an evening on stage or, that rarer wed, a lasting incarnation that not only translates but transforms one artist’s vision into a leaner, dare I say meaner, more enduring sound.