5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home
5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller
5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever
5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.17.11
'LIKE' The Rogovoy Report on Facebook
Click 'LIKE' to Receive Facebook feeds from The Rogovoy Report
5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21
5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm
5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF
5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend
6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....
5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak
5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
|
[MUSIC REVIEW] Elvis Costello with Marian McPartland at Tanglewood Jazz Festival
9.4.06
TANGLEWOOD JAZZ FESTIVAL
saturday, September 2, 2006
Piano Jazz live recording
Hosted by Marian McPartland with special guest Elvis Costello
review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
(Lenox, Mass., Sept 2, 2006) -- While over the course of its three days the Tanglewood Jazz Festival offered a wealth of traditional, modern, Latin, classical, and pop-influenced styles of jazz, a listener couldn't go wrong confining himself to two performances -- the live recording of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio program with Elvis Costello, and the Saturday night extravaganza featuring the Wynton Marsalis Quintet and Dr. John with a slew of guest vocalists -- as I did (in the interests of conserving energy, something I recommend highly, especially when going to many concerts).
Knowing how Piano Jazz works, especially when McPartland records it at Tanglewood (as she has in past years with the likes of Norah Jones and Madeline Peyroux) I didn't get my hopes up in advance that I was going to hear much or any of Elvis Costello's own music, so I wouldn't be disappointed. And indeed, if you had no idea who Elvis Costello was, you could easily have come away from the 2.5 hour concert dialogue thinking that he was a classic pop singer in the vein of a Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, as Costello (and McPartland) confined himself almost exclusively to works from the pre-rock pop era.
And in this role, Costello acquitted himself superbly. Even moreso than on recordings of this sort of material, Costello evidenced a rich, chocolatey tone and a beautifully controlled vibrato. While many of the numbers he sang by the likes of Rodgers and Hart, Glenn Miller, and Cy Coleman, and songs like "Blame It On My Youth" and "My Funny Valentine" (which he recorded relatively early in his career, hinting at his love of this material all the way back then) stuck to the same medium tempo and rarely ventured into unusual jumps or leaps (like some of the Burt Bacharach stuff Costello's recorded -- hmmm, strange he did none of that material -- or his own songs) -- the emphasis here, artistically speaking, was on Costello as emotional interpreter, he did get to shine as a suave, debonair singer, a charming guest who helped McPartland -- whose days as the host of this show must be numbered, judging on her limited ability to play piano and contribute anecdotally beyond the occasional , "Oh, yes, I saw him at the Hickory House" -- and a terrific vocalist with great taste.
Costello did get a little of his own work in through the side door on the two highlights of the show, his version of a Strayhorn melody he calls "My Flame Burns Blue" and his version of a McPartland composition, "Threnody," for both of which he contributed new lyrics. Both also featured the remarkable chromatic leaps of which we all knew him to be capable, and in spite of what has been written elsewhere (by begrudging types who resent a Costello muscling in on this "sacred" territory), this was Costello not only at his best, but showed him to be the equal or better of many singers who make careers out of this sort of material.
As Costello pointed out (several times, as McPartland seemed pretty clueless as to who he was and what to talk to him about, more than marvelling over and over again that he was familiar with these songs -- the same basic banter we heard her use condescendingly with Norah JOnes and Madeline Peyroux in previous shows), this was music he was raised on (his father was a big-band leader), and it belongs as much to him and his fans as it does to those who stopped listening to anything that came after.
Costello DID pull a few surprises. While he sang most numbers accompanied by McPartland's very workmanlike piano, he pulled out one old-timey number by Rudy Vallee to play accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, and hints of the Elvis Costello we all know and love were most apparent on this tune (the humor, the personality, which he kept relatively in check so as not to blow away McPartland).
And then, near the end, he brought out his very pregnant wife, also known as vocalist Diana Krall, who had been watching adoringly from a seat near the stage door, and turned the stage over to her for two numbers, "Body and Soul" and Nat King Cole's "If I Had You." Although the two didn't duet, Costello brought the curtain down with "You Are Mine At Last," sung entirely gazing into Krall's eyes from afar. It was quite touching.
Hopefully next year the BSO will have the wisdom to bring Costello (who has performed with the Boston Pops) back in a program featuring his jazz big-band and orchestral works (and a few of his rock tunes, perhaps)?
--review by SETH ROGOVOY, critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
|
...sites that work