USA "You are quite a genius you are - you have managed to find a niche in Cabaret I have never seen nor heard before - you are simply brilliant. Hard to categorize - musician/comedian or what - I guess you are anything the audience wants to categorize you as long as they book you. One must see you in person to "get you" - even though your musicianship is fantastic!!! Your guitar and especially piano playing is thrilling in all the genres! One thing I gleaned from your performance is that one must "experience you" - live - "where you live - you need an audience! Those little nuances you have in your "kit" needs people to experience them.."
BUDDY BREGMAN (2008) (Legendary producer/arranger of the Ella Fitzgerald 'Songbook' series, who has worked with just about everybody..from Sammy Davis Jr. to Bing Crosby, etc...)
"To my talented friend, may your great gifts not long escape wider recognition".
BENNY CARTER.
SCOTLAND "Age does not matter for he appeals to all from 17 to senility... master of the art of cabaret."
RUSSELL HUNTER. 'The Scotsman' review at The Edinburgh Festival.
NORTHERN IRELAND "Earl's ability to change the mood without losing the thread of the performance was brilliant. Because they have so many good 'home-made' artistes, if you don't measure up, a Belfast audience will talk right through your set. While Earl was on, you couldn't hear a sound from the crowd and it was no real surprise when one encore wasn't going to be enough. When called back a second time, Earl played a gentle Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn number to close the evening; the perfect end to a perfect performance."
GRAHAME MORRISON. Belfast Herald.
NEW ZEALAND "Okin moves from Blues to Swing to Bossa Nova on Guitar and piano. His version of Ellington's 1928 Black Beauty was brilliant! His encore brought the house down, and the applause was deserved."
PETER KITCHIN. New Zealand Festival of Arts.
HOLLAND "If you ever have an opportunity to organize a musical event, invite Earl Okin - British; a great musician and showman. It had been a long time since I witnessed an artist win a crowd's favours in two minutes. This happened last night at the North Sea International Jazz Festival in The Hague. His music? You have to find this out for yourself. He sings (with a beautiful voice, perfect for the Brazilian/Jobim type of Bossa Nova songs he does). He plays guitar and piano. (He didn't play piano at North Sea, but I have his Pitter Panther Patter and Blood Count on CD. Brilliant. Delivering the message, with good taste and ample technique). A real treat is his 'voice trumpet': he can make those fantastic sounds that helped make the Mills Brothers famous. Earl's inspiration here is clearly the early Duke Ellington horns. He can do an astonishing Whetsol. But he also did a brief Cootie, Brown and Bigard. Earl's instrumental imitations are to my ears art - not just 'funny' or a novelty-type trick. They're too good for that. It's quality, for lack of a better word. How to incorporate Ellington in your music and make it work? Check out Earl. And yes, he does wear spats in public."
LOEK HOPSTAKEN. Review of Earl's first appearance at the North Sea Jazz Festival.
ENGLAND. "How does one categorise Earl Okin? It’s a hard task, perhaps impossible. He is a performer and entertainer, a singer and instrumentalist, a songwriter, a satirist, a philosopher, a political commentator, a comedian, a fount of knowledge,
a raconteur and quipster, a thought-provoker and perhaps the last wearer of spats in the country.
After eighteen months away from the performing platform, because of the ban on live concerts,
Earl Okin returned to the Rye Jazz and Blues Festival last Saturday, August 28 and delighted a packed Brewery Yard Club in Rye with a magical programme of songs linked by a commentary of dead-pan and self-deprecatory brilliance.
He ensured that all of us had, for future use, an appropriate description of the A21 (the ‘Battle of Hastings’)
and remade My Way for all pianists (“I want a Steinway”).
He altered our perceptions of “One for my baby and one more for the road” by singing it from the barman’s point of view and in the barman’s voice and he reminded us of the genius of Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington. Many of Earl Okin’s song performances are greatly enhanced by his skill with accents and especially by his ability to become a jazz trumpet of beguiling charm and sweetness.
As always, an Okin set not only entertains to the full but also informs to the utmost: who knew that Bossa Nova means ‘new twist’ or ‘new way’, or that the expression ‘stride’ piano came from the left hand of such as James P. Johnson ‘striding’ across the keyboard? Was anyone aware of the true subject of The Girl from Ipanema? I didn’t and wasn’t and I guess that, of the enthralled audience, very few were any more informed.
One of the features to me of Earl Okin’s performances is his sincerity; he truly loves the music he plays and thinks of music as one of the real joys of life, even when the music and songs are sad, perhaps especially then.
It’s a hard task, perhaps impossible, to categorise Earl Okin but really there is no need because he is unique."
ALEXANDER STILLER
RYE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL
2nd September 2021
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