Ok. I admit it … there were moments I felt like this chick … >>
…and there were moments I didn’t understand what he was singing. But did it matter? No. Here’s a guy, who for over 20 years has crafted a stage personae, a presence, a professionalism that goes way beyond.
A guy who can take, with the smallest of gestures, a seemingly insignificant part of his body, and represent rhythm and pulse and project it to an audience of thousands. With a body that just plain rocks, he uses the smallest of tendons and ripples it to a beat no one would even attempt to physically represent. This, in large part, was the astonishment I felt many times last Monday night.
But, that’s just the beginning.
The voice, although definitely not fully embraced or reproduced well enough by a lacking sound system in the first part of the show, hung on throughout. This is his technical backbone. But for any singer, it has to be that way. Imagine, though … having that voice to ‘fall back on.’
The fact that I didn’t understand a lot of what he was singing (about), clearly it was all in the delivery and how he would make you feel. I remember years and years ago, when I was going through the Conservatory system, studying piano, playing recitals, festivals. Frequently, I would take on contemporary works … music that I know, quite often, people had never heard before. Ok, sure, there was a slight personal thrill in that because I knew I didn’t have to be compared to hundreds of years’ worth of other performances. And by contemporary, I mean that it would be, for lack of a better explanation, ‘classical’ music written in the last 40 or 50 years. Music that to many – some even the trained ear – seemed dissonant with no ‘harmony’, no tonal center, or no conventional structure. At the risk of sounding a little heady here, music that required a different ‘listening’ experience.
Looking back on those experiences now, I know that subconsciously I felt I needed to convey to the listeners a sense of the visual in the hopes of making some kind of emotional connection. Ok, they wouldn’t know what I was playing, but maybe, just maybe, they would interpret the sounds as some kind of visual experience … have them understand the piece by “seeing” it … to not get hung up on “…this doesn’t sound like Bach? … What is she playing?…” To have them listen with their imaginations. If a certain part of the piece sounded like running water, or running through the jungle, or a window view from a plane, or specific emotion or feeling, so be it. That would be fine by me. The challenge would always be for someone to hopefully think at the end, “…gee, I have no idea what that was about, but it was about something…”
Well, the ACC on Monday night was something. In some respects, some of it a little staged perhaps … but always genuine and from the heart. So, for those of you who missed it, here are some mementos ….
