Enroute to the Rheinaue for a Jazz evening I squeezed in time to check out the Jazz Tube.

When I arrived, the Tram Station Museumsmeile/Heussallee was hosting a young lady named Maya Fadeeva and her backing duo – collectively the Maya Trio.  Tim Haenelt on guitar kept it simple but excellently effective, with a solid rhythm underpinning  courtesy of Dutchman Roy Louis.  Star of the show was of course Maya herself.  Hailing from St Petersburg before moving to Bonn via time in New York and at the Music Conservatory in Maastricht, this young lady certainly has a lot of star quality.  She cites Diana Krall as an influence, and maybe it was her hairstyle, but I kept seeing and hearing Cleo Lane – which is itself no bad thing.  Her version of Mose Allison’s ‘Nothings gonna be Alright’ seemed well taylored to her young vibrant style, and ‘Georgia On My Mind’ is the sort of classic that can sound dated in the wrong hands – here though again it had an edge of youth keeping it sounding fresh.

A Song & a Smile – Maya Fadeeva

Jazz Tube is a great idea from the Stadtwerke Bonn, but it’s a shame it doesn’t seem to quite have been followed through.  There were plenty of commuters taken by pleasant surprise when they found live music waiting at the bottom of their escalator, but no signs up to say who was playing – or indeed that this was a competition and that they could vote for their favourite musician.  Maybe flyers with the names of the bands performing and boxes to tick for voting would have been a help.  For anyone who does catch the music at various U-Bahn stations around Bonn in the coming weeks, you can vote for the musician that catches your ear HERE