Lights, Camera, Projections

In 2010 Elton John and Leon Russell put out an album rated in the top 5 releases of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. The Union is both the title of the CD and this 2012 documentary by Cameron Crowe.

The documentary which currently airs on demand on HBO is a both powerful and a mess.

Time has not been kind to Leon Russell. If you haven’t seen him lately, and most people who even know of him haven’t, it is shocking to see how Ambien has addled his sensorium. He is shown here playing the piano with so little force, one wonders how his hands even made it to the keyboard.

We see 2 aging rockers. One is still in relatively good form and the other, we assume, is happy just to be here. Crowe reminds us what a glorious mess rock and roll collaborations can serve up. The story line involves Elton John wishing to acknowledge his biggest influence as a piano player while doing him a solid at the same time. Who better than Elton John, having long stayed under the top rather going over, to evince pathos and to generate an outpouring to the once great Leon Russell now embedded in his twilight.

These are two artists who traveled similar paths 40 years ago before going their separate ways. But this is no nostalgic trip of reminiscences. There is no “re” in this union. It is definitely about the present with Leon Russell’s delicate state of health the unspoken stalking monster.

The downside of the documentary is whenever Cameron Crowe develops sudden ADD or amnesia and wanders off topic. The director is in bad need of an editor. He seems to have decided there were no bad moments in what he had digitally captured especially when it comes to the weird detour regarding Brian Wilson, who shows up to add a few bars of  wooo wooo wooo background singing and suddenly becomes the center of attention for what seems like 5 minutes. Wilson endearing in his in his Aspergers-like way. But he is on the far side of the ego driven who can’t exist without the camera. Crowe is a huge Beach Boy fan, but everyone knows Brian could easily command a half dozen documentaries given the viscissitudes of his life. This is just a terrible editing choice.

I would also have spent more time establishing Leon Russell’s bona fides at the beginning of the documentary. Viewers who never heard his songs outside the Carpenter’s versions of “Superstar”, “A Song for You”, or” This Masquerade” might need to understand why Elton went out of his way to help Leon’s retirement fund.

Leon played a big part in Joe Cocker’s early career. He wrote “Delta Lady.” He also played on one of my favorite albums of all time Alone Together by Dave Mason, including on the songs “Sad and Deep as You” and “Look at You, Look at Me.”

I also made a connection watching this documentary that had never occurred to me before re the striking thematic and musical similarities between Elton’s Your Song and Leon’s A Song for You.

Russell’s song is a response to Elton in much the same way that Paul McCartney has acknowledged the “Here, There, and Everywhere” was the Beatle’s reply to Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows.”

I am still reeling from the shock of seeing Leon having lost almost all his chops. My favorite point in the documentary comes when Leon has rallied the first tiny bit after brain surgery (a factor scaresly referenced or explained adequately). Crowe need not be faulted for protecting Leon’s dignity by not overdramatizing the event. However to virtually avoid the impact as Crowe did, is to curiously deny a natural story line. Especially since the surgery takes place during the filming, is too much to ask not to leave us hanging?

When Russell is first shown singing and playing “I Was in the Hands of Angels,” Elton is so overcome with emotion that he walks out of the control room, the camera following him. Tears are on his cheeks as he swipes his paw into a bowl and stuffs some bonbons into his mouth…..my favorite moment of the show.

Besides Elton’s act of generosity doing this album, there are several things I liked about him. He comments about feeling a desire to give back by helping  young artists. In a off handed remark he allows, “If I met the young me, I’d probably would help him too.”

Some other interesting factoids. Like Glen Campbell, another rapidly fading star, Leon Russell played on a numerous records as a session man. Russell performed on “This Diamond Ring” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys,” The Elusive Butterfly of Love” by Bobby Lind and for many of producer Phil Spector’s records sessions.  Leon also played on Glen Campbell’s first album “Gentle on my Mind.”. You could say he was the session man session’s man.

One of the advantages of not getting paid to critique professionally is that I can opine about whatever I wish, even subjects I know little about. (BTW SNL did a skit with Daniel Radcliffe last night spoofing this very phenomenon i.e. that anyone who attempts any endeavor can claim expertise!)  So the reader goes forewarned and forearmed as I describe seeing Susan Graham, the acclaimed mezzo-soprano of opera and the recital world.

Having starred opposite Placido Domingo, created leading roles in two world premieres at the Metropolitan Opera, won a Grammy and even had her home town of Midland, Texas declare September 5th as “Susan Graham Day” in perpetuity, it is no stretch to say I am territory far from the center of my bell curve regarding musical stylings.

Nevertheless I venture forward. The audience at the Zellerbach made me feel as if I was in the movie Cocoon after taking a dip in the pool. The joint was filled with aged emeritus professors types and their spouses. However the only person I saw nodding off probably forgot to turn on his hearing aid.

The concert was divided into thirds. The first being taken up prominently from the lieder of the Schubert, Schumann, Hugo Wolf, et al delving into Goethe’s Wilheim Meister. The Liszt piece stood out to me most for its compositional qualities, as the singing throughout the evening was sublime.

After the intermission Ms. Graham focused mostly on Poulenc’s Fiancailles pour rire demonstrating her affinity for the French composer for which she is justly famous. Her cavalier countenance provided a thought provoking counterpoint to the frequently morbid text on unrequited love, the search for eternal truths, and the fleeting nature of life. I didn’t really get it.

During the encore suite she took her material in populist direction including an amusing Cole Porter tune about a woman who falls in love with a doctor who finds her esophagus and other sundry body parts more appealing than her personality. And there was hilarious gender-twisting take off on the Girl from you-know-where. In this case the protagonist falls for a Spanish guy from a village with 12 hyphenated names who by the song’s end seems to be not only gay but moves near Llanfair­pwllgwyn­gyllgo­gerychwyrn­drobwll­llanty­silio­gogogoch, the Welsh train station renowned for being the longest word in the English language.

It’s a definite commentary on the age we live in when top artists in Classical, Opera and Jazz music, who have trained for years and possess talent that we can only imagine what it must be like, need $25 internet specials to fill a concert hall 2/3 full.

The long wait is over for the fans of Downton Abbey. Season 2 has arrived and it is being billed as the savior of PBS. Downton has been described as “HBO-like” in terms of the quality of the writing and acting. However its popularity is where the conversation ends regarding comparison to any any of the sex, drug, or violence oriented show on the extra pay cable networks.

In fact part of Downton’s charm is how classically Masterpiece Theater it is. 99% of its content could have aired as is at anytime during the last 80 years. There is nothing gratuitous on display.

Ironically as the action intensifies in response to the Great War,  I found the private passions of the upper and lower house characters from Season 1 less beguiling. To be sure relationships are formed, tested, and transformed. But there is a loss of intimacy that is perhaps an unfortunate byproduct of the feeling of War being in the air. And maybe that is the point, however I do regret the intrusion. I long to be swept away to a world at once more distant, unfamiliar, and curiously nostalgic.

From a sociological perspective we are reminded that war is the great equalizer of class distinctions. The socioeconomic differences rendered obsolete in a fox hole will have repercussions for generations.

Robert Crawley, aka Lord Grantham, is emblematic in his struggles to feel relevant in a world rolling into turmoil. Too old and ill prepared to be of value on the battlefield, he is coming quickly to realize that aristocracy is being placed by meritocracy.

His mother played pitch perfectly by Maggie Smith is the one who by breeding, attitude, and seniority will fall the farthest. And yet she has a most progressive attitude toward her granddaughter, Lady Sybil, joining the nursing corps for maimed soldiers returning from battle.

Sybil is joined by her sisters Mary and Edith in confronting the assumptions of the life to which they were born i.e. that their primary mission in life is to marry well. Lady Mary has the biggest comeuppance in episode 1. In Season 1 she had the most responsibility of the siblings. She was to “take one for the team” by marrying Matthew Crawley, her distant cousin and heir to the Downton estate and title. She ultimately broke Matthew’s heart. In Season 2 she now appears due for some serious soul searching to see if she can woo that who she spurned, even as Matthew is now betrothed to Lavinia and fighting in France.

From the perspective of the audience the servants have the most to gain by getting free of their almost feudal position. However no one has come out better than the cook Mrs Patmore. All but blind by the end of Season 1, her eyesight has been miraculously restored. I await an accounting on that one.

Mr Carson (has he no first name?) the CEO and Chief Petty Officer of the Downton staff is taking all the changes to heart almost literally. Episode 1 finds him stressing to the breaking point as most of the experienced male staff have left their Downton employment to enlist in the war effort.

So far most of the characters remain true to Season 1 form. Bates remains hallowed, sacrificing his own job rather than be blackmailed by his estranged wife who has big time dirt on Lady Mary. Thomas is still a despicable weasel. We only wish he had presented more than his hand as a target to an enemy sharpshooter in his successful effort to exit the battlefield via injury.

Perhaps Sarah O’Brien, Lady Grantham’s attendant, will be the surprise winner of the-least-likely-to-become-a sympathetic-character award. Mrs. O’Brien is unintentionally revealed as a pitiable figure by Ethel, a new character who works in the kitchen. Too green to realize she is being set up for humiliation several times by Mrs O’Brien, Ethel clearly views being at Downton a way station and not her life’s destination. Not being a lifer gives Ethel power to render Mrs O’Brien impotent, even tragic, which is enough to satisfy this reviewer’s need for schadenfreude.

Downton Abbey season 2 may well settle down into the soap opera most successful shows become. They have the characters, plot devices, and shticks down pat. I may have been  bored at times during Episode 1 of Season 2, but I am betting in the end Downton will deliver.

Reader alert: The following comments address the movie The Ides of March. Familiarity with the plot is assumed as I will not provide a summation.

Sometimes how a movie ends tips the balance as to whether time was spent well in the theater. In the days since seeing the George Clooney written and directed film The Ides of March, I realize that I fell initially for the 3 big “S’s”– dished here in plentiful supply– ie Style, Stars, and a certain amount of Storytelling craft. These factors delayed my recognition that I had been duped. They merely disguised a lack of substance.

The hook and the conceit of the movie is to depict a drama designed to make one feel, “Oh, this must be what really happens in a political campaign.”

In this case we follow the turn from idealistic activist and key campaign operative Stephen Meyers played by Ryan Gosling into a hardcore cynic. Meyers is not just driven by idealism to his political cause. Meyers has supreme ambition to match his passions, otherwise he would not be a major player in running the campaign of Governor Mike Morris to be the Democratic Party candidate for president.

However, this is a film where all the major characters reveal that they have a price for selling out their idealistic motivations. Such a situation became so monomaniacal that I ultimately realized whatever character complexity gets revealed, it is all of one hue.

The final fade out of the movie makes Clooney’s message clear. The camera lingers on the face of Stephen Meyers. In his eyes we now see how events have transformed him in a matter of days from fully committed fighter for his causes (and someone who attempts to influence Governor Morris to his views whenever possible) to a person who now and forever will only look out for #1.

Clooney ladles the message without a wit of subtlety. Stephen Meyers is now one of THEM. The system inevitably corrupts all who enter it. I, at least, was rooting that Gosling might wake up to find a pod next to him borrowed from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

If Clooney is going to conk his audience on the head with a mallet, why not elevate the message to a dimension that has some meat on it. Go Apocalypse Now. Make it a true horror. But you can’t turn something into what it can’t be. It turns out we were never in very deep to begin with.

I have seen Jeff Beck, not for the umpteenth time, but often enough. Especially lately. Seeing 3 shows in the last couple of years gives me confidence to judge his energy and desire. When you can see the artist’s face live, you can tell whether he is performing for the joy of it or whether he is just phoning it in.

And make no mistake that was an Ax in Jeff’s hand and not an Android.

Napa is king when it comes to grapes but Podunk when it comes to pilgrimages a guitar god must make at some point in his career. So seeing JB and the band’s energy level kicking into full gear any time they wished was cool. I happened to score some amazing seats 5th row center. Thanks to some persistent internet research, I discovered “yardbirds” was the password needed to access the ‘prior to the public sale’ that is the Holy Grail for devotees seeking a seat scalpers would kill for.

On display tonight was the full range of his eclectic taste. Nothing better demonstrates his variety more than the 4 songs that comprised his encore. First there was Les Paul’s “How High The Moon,” an echo from his tribute tour with Imelda May of 7 months ago.(See my review of this show: “Review: Jeff Beck live at the Fillmore with the Imelda May Band April 9th 2011″ in the April entries of this blog.)

Next came Sly Stone’s “I Want To Take You Higher.” I wonder if Jeff realized he was playing 10 miles from Vallejo, Ca where Sly hails. Joining him in wicked solo tradeoffs was opening act guitarist Tyler Bryant. Just the fact the Jeff would bring the kid up on stage shows class. What a thrill for Tyler.

The 3rd encore song was Bad Romance. Believe it! I’m sure not even Lady Gaga realizes she has written a hard rock classic which is what it becomes in the hands of JB. And topping off the evening was Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, both soaring and stirring……..and maybe cliched or not quite the best fit.  This isn’t The Who doing Tommy.

Prior to the encore dessert of the evening the band delivered a thundering concert interspersed with softer numbers now ensconsed in the play list such as Jeff Buckley’s arrangement of Corpus Christi and crowd favorite Somewhere Over The Rainbow. But for most of the night if Narada Michael Waldron hit the drums any harder, it might not be legal.

Given the physical presence of Waldron and the felt presence of Jan Hammer via the inclusion of Hammerhead (with keyboardist Jason Rebello fully channeling Hammer), half the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s position players were accounted for. So it didn’t come as a surprise to feel a touch of John McLaughlin’s influence sprinkled in the evening.

Beck set up the audience midway through the set announcing the band had done well in the day’s rehearsal on a rarely played song,  they would attempt it tonight. Out came a choppy deconstucted version of Freeway Jam which sounded like they could have used some more practice. Jeff has only played it a million times. I’m guessing he has to do something to keep from getting bored.

I felt he also was a little sloppy on Brush With The Blues, again a song that makes frequent appearances in his shows. I prefer the more “classical” live recording on Who Else.

Hendrix’s Little Wing was given the kind of treatment that shows why so many bad ass guitarists include it in their repertoire. It is recognized as one of the finest compositions in the rock canon. Jeff’s version pays loving homage and he wisely does not go overboard trying to make it his own.

Rhonda Smith must be mentioned for her thumping slap bass style which propelled the music. Her singing on Rolling and Tumbling however made me yearn for Imogen Heap’s memorable warbling on the same.

Some what can I say? There is no objectivity from me when it comes to Jeff Beck. Jeff Beck is the Man!

Daniel Radcliffe is now well into his run on Broadway playing J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He appears none the worse for wear. Not an overly talented song and dance man, Radcliffe would be a great catch for any decent college production of this show. What he does bring to the role is the shear pleasure of getting up in front of an audience and letting it all out.

Many people would do the role better, but many people are not Harry Potter. Or as the 17 year old who accompanied me to the performance put it: Daniel Radcliffe is merely an imposter playing Harry Potter. Harry Potter, you see, is real, she reminded me with a sly grin. Nevertheless these factors did not stop her from sporting an ear to ear grin when Radcliffe makes his entrance being lowered on a rope from the ceiling of the stage, a fitting entrance for his character who begins the show as a window washer.

And to further emphasize the nature of star power, my young cohort didn’t noticed me as I checked several times to see if the grin was leaving her face. It remained in place, even after the show was over.

I don’t begrudge Daniel taking a role from a promising unknown Broadway up and comer. I’m sure the members of the cast don’t either as he has kept their pay check steady. What I do admire is that for someone who does not need the pay check, Radcliffe is making a statement about the tradition and value of live theater.

Catch Daniel Radcliffe until the end of December should you be in New York. Darrin Criss from Glee is the January replacement before Nick Jonas takes over at the end of the month.

Nick Jonas should be an able replacement, at least in the song department, if not in the same league as an actor. I have to be one of the few adults in the Universe ever to see a live performance of The Jonas Brothers while not in the company of a young fan. If you must know, I was attending a performance of an ice show starring Christie Yamaguchi. There were several numbers where the Jonas Brothers band accompanied the performers with live music.

The screams from the young girls in attendance were absolutely deafening. It must be akin to what a dog would feel if an arena of people were suddenly to blow on many silent dog whistles simultaneously. My reaction to the high pitched screeching at Nick and his siblings is definitely similar to what 50 and 60 Somethings must have felt as audience members when the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan’s TV show. WTF!!!

Oh, and I also got to see Demi Lovato at the same ice show. Not all of us are so blessed.

If you haven’t seen Pat for awhile, you don’t know what your missing. Younger readers are going Pat Who? Some readers may recognize him for his one hit with David Bowie, This is Not America from the movie The Falcon and the Snowman. Otherwise he is graying jazz guitarist still sporting his trademark mop of a hairdo.

The concert started slow. Pat joined only be bassist Larry Grenadier played 5 songs ranging from a Jerome Kern standard to several from his own early albums. Competently played. Sure. Typical warm sound from his guitar almost sounding like a horn. Check. Great bass soloing. Yep. 45 minutes more of this. NOOOOoo.

Then he gave a warm welcome to the crowd, saying he wished NYC had one venue as nice as the not-a-bad-seat-in-the-house completely refurbished Uptown Theater. Switching to acoustic guitar his soloing took on even more melodic range and intensity. The interplay with Larry picked up as well.

Following several well received songs. He switched to a guitar-like instrument having 3 necks that I had never seen but instantly recognized as the source of what must have created the luminous, sublime, and other worldly merry-go-round of a solo on the title song of his album, “As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls,” still one of my favorite albums of all time. The 3 neck monster is called a Pikasso and has strings located on the instrument’s body in almost any direction he choses to swipe.

His Pikasso composition sounded so much like his playing on the Wichita piece as to lead me to believe that for all the crazy inventiveness of the apparatus, sometimes when you start with a sitar, it is just always going to sound like a sitar. I loved this interlude which was just warming the audience up for the piece de resistance.

Starting off like an atonal conceptual piece of Stockhausen, an accordian like instument appeared weirdly on a pole 12 feet off the ground sticking up above a curtain that served as a backdrop for the players. Gradually adding layers of instrumentation, Pat and Larry worked on building the sound but not necessarily by playing many notes.  Soon two stage hands were pulling the curtain back by hand in full view of the audience. This maneuver has to qualify as one of the biggest displays of low tech in all of Professional Entertainment.

Never mind the cheesy theatrics, what emerged was as Rube Goldberg looking a contraption as one could imagine, something that could have been created on the set of the French movie Micmacs or or perhaps discovered in R2D2′s shed. Automatized cymbals and bass drum seemingly were triggered by the notes Pat played. Glass tubes appeared that looked liked old fashioned glass milk bottles and sounding when struck like a glockenspiel. A visually impressive mixing and matching of common objects taking on unfamiliar roles. As the orchestration became symphonic, Pat soared over the din by zinging fusion-inspired transcendent notes. The audience, which started out imitating statues early in the show, was now bobbing and weaving in a blissful groove.

The conglomerate is called an Orchestrion (which is also the title of recent Metheny album featuring this device. In case 569 words don’t do justice conjuring up an image, just take a gander:

The second encore song was a lovely solo rendition of Lennon and McCartney’s, “And I Love Her,” which was a nice touch to go out on.

5 days ago I won  tickets from a local radio station to see Herbie Hancock at the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa.  I had just turned on the station  long enough to hear something about a ticket giveaway.

After two attempts to get through and a 15 minutes wait before going live, I heard the announcer thanking 9 other caller on hold who would get their shot at tickets only if I failed to answer the contest question correctly.

This is how I discovered I had to produce some piece of knowledge and had not just lucked into a ‘free lunch’ as I had thought. Fortunately I knew the answer (Name the fusion group Herbie Hancock played with in the 70′s….easy….”The Headhunter’s,”). The talk show hosts grumbled. They anticipated the question would stumped at least a few. But for me it was as if I had been being asked to name who conceived of the Id, Ego, and Superego on Final Jeopardy. Yes, 60′s and 70′s artists is the sweet spot of my halcyon days as a jazz aficionado. (BTW did you know that the original meaning of ‘halcyon’ is as a term for the 7 days in winter that it never storms?)

However I approached this concert with trepidation. After all the last time I saw HH was a few years earlier at a festival called Jazz Plus in Sonoma. It was less than stellar. He had decided he needed mass appeal and so presented a review of different singers and musical stylists from so many other genres that the show might as well have been named Minus Jazz. It was close to a travesty.

My anxiety was quickly squelched when his quartet opened before he made his entrance. His drummer laid out a syncopated funky beat. The bass player’s fingers flew all over his guitar’s neck. The guitarist revealed himself as a very intelligent master minimalist. Then the realization kicked in that this was no ordinary the group. Indeed the drummer is none other than Vinnie Colaiuta, the most sought after session drummer and member for my favorite configuration of all Jeff Beck’s different bands of this Century.

Herbie’s playing was fluid and inventive. He played a long solo piece in the middle that transcended jazz. It is a gift to be in the presence of someone who can play just what he feels. No urge to top himself. In this case his playing was light and impressionistic, like a young Debussy.

He teased and flirted with old standbys Watermelon Man and Cantaloupe Island. The former was wedge into a piece called “17″, written by his guitarist Lionel Loueke. As Herbie joked the song was not written about a single teenager or “7 teens”, but refers to its having 17 beats to a measure.  By comparison Dave Brubek’s “Take 5″ lives up to it’s title with  5 beats, while Pink Floyd’s “Money” is written  7/4 as is Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill ie both have 7 beats per measure. The vast majority of rock, pop and many jazz compositions have just 4 beats per measure.

Anyone not sure that Herbie Hancock’s appeal can span generation only need listen to the 1993 jazz-rap group “us3′s” ode to Cantaloupe Island called Cantaloop:

That is such a fun song!

The concert became progressively funkier ending with the audience giving only a one and off encore. I was glad I could see a 71 year old looking and playing with such youthful joy. And Herbie, not that you owed me anything, but you definitely atoned for the last time I saw you. I say to everyone, “Catch him while he is still in his prime.”