- guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 10 2000 00.00 BST
Folded into a regal blue armchair, Larry Adler looks as fragile as a leaf, and you begin to wonder if he still has the breath to play the harmonica he cups like a baby in his hands. But he has, making it sound like a golden lacework surrounding the crystalline vocals of Carol Kidd. Their Someone To Watch Over Me was a wondrous moment, with Kidd, a great jazz balladeer, leaning close to the stick-thin Adler to catch every nuance in a unique double-bill that closed the Edinburgh Jazz Festival.
Adler is 86 and has been playing the harmonica like no one else for 70 years. He is the last link with the golden age of American music and tells bright tales of cocktails with Dietrich, spats with Sinatra and tennis with Garbo and Chaplin.
Kidd left the stage and Adler launched into Summertime - that glorious thing he has been playing since he worked with Gershwin. He spun out spiralling improvisations over melody lines that are possibly a little more ragged than before.
Kidd returned for I've Got A Crush On You, adding splashes of tone and colour. If anyone is carrying the Adler torch of the confluence of jazz and ballad, it is Kidd. You'd imagine - listening to her impeccable verve on Blue Skies, and achingly poignant Autumn Leaves - she was raised in New York or New Orleans. But she was born in Glasgow and can come over like a gallus Govan auntie who sings like Peggy Lee, although this doesn't dent her consummate vocal tenderness.
