I have been going to events at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. There seems to be a lot of overlap between the audiences, because I keep seeing the same faces.

It’s interesting to observe the effects that different performers have on the audiences. Some performers banter a lot with the audience, teasing them, telling them jokes and exhorting them to join in with bits of the songs that have ‘call and response’ patterns in them. Some people obviously enjoy that, but as a whole it seems to make the audience feel a bit nervy and unsettled. They’re excited, but not sure what’s going to happen next.

Other performers virtually ignore the audience, or at least make no effort to elicit a particular response from them. Yesterday I went to a ‘Tribute to Oscar Peterson’ jazz quartet concert played by Dave Newton (piano) with Dave Green (bass), Timmy Allen (guitar) and Max Popp (drums). They were all excellent players. After acknowledging the audience with a brief greeting, they bent to their task and immersed themselves in the music. The effect on the audience was immediate. They fell completely silent and remained rapt throughout the performance – except for applauding, obviously. At the end it was clear how much they had appreciated the quality of the playing.

It’s a paradox in some ways – that those musicians who go out of their way to engage the audience and inject a sense of fun into proceedings actually have less impact than those who focus entirely on their playing, and whose concentration draws the audience in. I remember György Sebök saying that ‘There is usually some justice in the audience’s reaction’.

I guess that shows that you can have faith in your music-making and trust the audience to feel secure, even if you do nothing overtly to endear yourself to them.