As is often said, variety is the spice of life and for me music is one of my key “spices,” and last week proved exceptional. On Sunday 8/29/10 we went out to Tanglewood to hear our friend John Relyea sing the bass/baritone lead in the BSO’s annual Tanglewood closing performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
The 9th symphony, so familiar and the subject of much parody (The Beatles "Help") with its famous “Ode to Joy” chorus has the singular ability to blow past all that familiarity and strike the listener deep in the heart. It is at once huge and epic and yet utterly human, melodic and accessible. It is “King Lear,” it is “Lord of the Rings,” or “Mozart’s Requiem” – epic yet intimate, and ultimately a very moving work of art. Beethoven’s ability to write such a powerful “Ode of Joy” at such a (seemingly) low point in his life reminds us that Joy is a choice we make in our life and not a natural feeling that springs forth as a result of some outside force, event, emotion or person.
I cannot really pretend to critique the performance that day under the baton of the aging maestro Kurt Masur as I am not familiar enough with classical music, but the very sold out audience on the beautiful, sunny and warm afternoon were apparently as overwhelmed by what they had heard as I had been and the performers were called back for 3 curtain calls. It was the type of performance one felt very privileged to attend, deeply life affirming and dare I say it, joyous.
On Tuesday we found ourselves and the House of Blues in Boston to see Iggy and the Stooges. This show was blisteringly loud, ferocious and amazing and to quote my learned friend Mark Poulin who attended the show with me pithily observed “as advertised.”
The Stooges were a band who existed for a few incendiary years in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and recorded 3 legendary albums, including an all-time classic “Raw Power.” The band we saw that night was essentially the “Raw Power” band with the great James Williamson on guitar, and the set list was all Stooges material. This was about as far as you could get from a bland retread of past glories. This group of AARP members (all over 60) was up to playing these proto-punk masterpieces with an energy level that equaled the “Raw Power” of the old days. Iggy Pop was amazing; shirtless, bruised and broken but still possessing a remarkable life force (and voice) that connected is a very direct way with the largely younger audience (James Williamson describes Iggy as an “in your face” front man). He still stage dives (!?!) and works as hard as any performer I have ever seen to connect in a really personal, physical way with his audience. He is rewarded with for all his life-long hard work with what can only be described as a quasi-violent, semi-controlled love fest with Iggy as a sort of benevolent, grand old wizard at the helm, and thoroughly enjoying every minute of the mosh pit madness taking place around him.
On Saturday we ventured back out to Tanglewood for its jazz festival. In the afternoon we attended the second annual live taping of the “Radio Deluxe” show with John Pizzarelli, his wife Jessica Molasky and his great quartet. John Pizzarelli is one of my favorite performers, a fine jazz guitarist and an excellent singer dedicated to the ongoing health of the American songbook. In a funny way he always makes me think of Bruce Springsteen. John has a similar quality as a performer in that he clearly loves being on stage and always appears to always be having the time of his life. Being in the audience I am always thoroughly convinced that there is simply no other place John would rather be then on that stage at that moment in time, and that is a quality I have only witnessed consistently in one other performer, Mr. Springsteen (must be something in that New Jersey water!).
As I said, the concert was a live taping of John Pizzarelli’s ”Radio Deluxe” radio show that is heard coast to coast (locally on WNBP in Newburyport, MA) and of course streaming on www.johnpizzarelli.com. The show is done in an urbane style of the classic, live radio; with stories, conversation, humor, special guests and music. Its core value is a celebration of the American Songbook but it also consistently pushes the listener to new music and performers. Ms. Molasky is a well-known Broadway singer and actress and seems to have a bit more expansive tastes then her husband and often adds a more contemporary flavor to the show.
The show opened with John and the quartet and included a couple of wonderful performances with Ms. Molasky including an inventive “mash up” of “While me Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Killing me Softly with His Song” with John doing the George Harrison tune and Jessica doing the song made famous by Roberta Flack.
The special guest this year was singer Jane Monheit who sounded and looked spectacular, as she and John did an exquisite duet of “Tonight you Belong to Me” and Jane closed her short set with a smokin’ version of Annie Ross’s “Twisted.”
I was VERY heartened to see John’s dad Bucky Pizzarelli’s Benedetto 7 string guitar on stage when we arrived knowing that we were going to get to see him. At almost 85 years young Bucky is a jazz & jazz guitar national treasure and one of the most joyous (there’s that word again!) performers I have ever seen. He sits on stage, laughs and simply beams with happiness. His playing is still flawless and it is always an honor to see and hear him. He and John did a short interview segment and then played a gorgeous duet on Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages.”
That night we heard Kurt Elling and his trio. If you have not heard Kurt sing, it is a really a singular experience. He is somewhat of an acquired taste, heavily mannered and improvisational in his interpretation of songs but also very artful and deeply felt in his delivery. In this he always makes me think of my friend, the late great Betty Carter who had a similar approach to jazz singing (I suspect Kurt recognizes this as well, he recorded Betty’s song “Tight” on a recent CD).
The evenings opening set was Elling’s backing group, the Lawrence Hobgood trio. If you have not heard Mr. Elling you might not know that he has one of music’s greatest accompanist/arrangers/collaborators in Mr. Hobgood, and their opening set was simply gorgeous. Some of the set was drawn from Mr. Hobgood’s highly recommended CD “When the Heart Dances.” Hobgood told me after the show that it was the Tanglewood Jazz Fest staff who suggested he do the opening set for Mr. Elling – Bravo!
Kurt Elling, suave and handsome, has the really cool hipster persona that amazingly does not come off as fake or overly ironic. Like Ella Fitzgerald he is very much part of the band and interacts directly with the group as he sings and the interplay is fantastic. He treated us with such ballads as “Stairway to the Stars” and “Dedicated to You,” and a genre bending, inventive arrangement of the Beatles “Norwegian Wood” with guest guitarist John McLean. His intonation is perfect and his range is stunning and for us he capped off a really amazing week of music. For this listener we really dug the way he closed out our summer is a really cool style.
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