Sara Tavares, Jazz Cafe

Portuguese singer-songwriter Sara Tavares trades in understatement. She strokes rather than strums guitar chords, her two percussionists are more likely to brush a drum than whack it hard, and her soft close-to-the-mike voice specialises in gentle yearning rather than soul-girl histrionics. So the intimate space of the Jazz Café seems much better suited to her than, say, the Barbican where she had the unenviable task earlier this year of being a viable support act to the larger-than-life Malian diva, Oumou Sangare. As it turned out, Sara did a perfectly good job of warming up Oumou’s crowd, but she was definitely much more at home last night in front of an audience who were there only for her.

Portuguese singer-songwriter Sara Tavares trades in understatement. She strokes rather than strums guitar chords, her two percussionists are more likely to brush a drum than whack it hard, and her soft close-to-the-mike voice specialises in gentle yearning rather than soul-girl histrionics. So the intimate space of the Jazz Café seems much better suited to her than, say, the Barbican where she had the unenviable task earlier this year of being a viable support act to the larger-than-life Malian diva, Oumou Sangare. As it turned out, Sara did a perfectly good job of warming up Oumou’s crowd, but she was definitely much more at home last night in front of an audience who were there only for her.