Claire Wellin knew that her show must go on. A loss of electricity to her microphone during the middle of her performance as Youth in a Roman Field at The Jazz Estate Monday night didn’t impede her from enchanting the audience with her idiosyncratically accessible artistry.
Considering the technological gaffe, it was fortuitous that she played solo this evening. The New York musician performed with her Youth in a Roman Field project as a trio at the same venue last October, and it can be as big as a septet in studio iterations. Having only to contend with herself, however, allowed Wellin to improvise a strategy to soldier on without thought to negotiating how other players and singers would interact and be heard.
But grace under duress isn’t the only impressive facet of Youth in a Roman Field. A stylistic intersectionality incorporating folk, jazz and classical influences informs Wellin’s take on singer-songwriter vulnerability with a type of understated theatricality that makes Youth in a Roman Field an original presence loaded with potential. With a second album, Storm Conductor, due this spring, the time bodes well for Youth in a Roman Field’s creative and commercial fecundity.
The initial attraction for some to Wellin’s work may be some vocal resemblance to Norah Jones. It doesn’t take very long of a listen, however, to hear that Wellin is given to an arguably greater elasticity of phrasing and peppers interpretations of her own songwriting with hums and nonsense syllables Jones isn’t wont to broach. As she sings of subjects ranging from lonesome late night walks, breaking off a relationship without regret, newspaper delivery men and offering faithfulness to a paramour given to doing her wrong, her eyes rarely remain open, and a sense of self-possession residing on the border of the serene appears to grip her. As her second Jazz Estate date progressed, it wasn't difficult to imagine Kate Bush, Billie Holiday, Björk and other singular performers with magnetic, overpowering personalities lending whispers to her muse as well. It’s not an unreasonable assumption to believe Wellin could command a full venue of much larger size than the Estate’s relatively cozy confines.
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Though her vocals may suffice to mesmerize, they’re not her only audible talent. Wellin’s playing of an electric guitar with the barest shade of feedback serves her songwriting well enough, but her violin receives her greater attention when it comes to invention. As she both bowed and plucked its strings, the latter technique making for a sound somewhere between ukulele and sitar, she often looped the sounds she was making with effects gadgetry that recorded her playing. Layers of samples created backdrops approaching the symphonic. Impressive as all that is, it nevertheless creates an appetite to hear what Youth in a Roman Field can accomplish with more members sharing a stage.
If Wellin’s professional trajectory continues on the ascent it appears to be taking, she may have no choice but to bring accompanists to satisfy audience demands to hear Youth in a Roman Field’s full recorded sound for her next tour. It should make Monday night’s performance all the more one to remember as an “I knew them when...” moment—mic trouble and all.
