I have heard Shirley Tetteh on the SEED Ensemble album Driftglass and Camilla George’s 2018 album release The People Could Fly so was looking forward to hearing her own work at Marsden: sadly, my expectations were not met.

There is no doubting the musicianship of the band or of its guitarist leader Shirley Tetteh. However, for me this was not jazz.

The band played for an hour before we heard from Shirley that what we had heard she considered to be a suite of music that did not need to be interrupted.

The gig continued and at one point Shirley also showed that she has a good singing voice as well as being a very good guitarist

Judging by the response of those around me I was probably in the minority of people who did not enjoy this gig. For me it was more akin to prog-rock than jazz music but the couple I met at the festival, who were older than me (if that is even relevant), thoroughly enjoyed it and would happily sit through another set of more of the same.

Jazz music is a very broad church and there will some things that will not sit well with one listener but be lapped up by another and that is what makes the genre so interesting. I wanted to like enjoy this set but on this ocassion it was not to be.