Joe Henry and Brad Mehldau
(Wigmore Hall, 2nd December 2011. Review by Sebastian Scotney)
This concert brought to a close Brad Mehldau's curatorship - what an odd word that is when used in live music - of the Wigmore Hall's Jazz Series, which has run since the 2009/10 season. The Joshua Redman/ Brad Mehldau duo at the end of 2009 (reviewed here) was certainly a highlight, but the series has brought in other interesting concerts such as Mehldau/ Thile (reviewed here )the less well-attended Klaus Gesing/ Gwilym Simcock duo this summer (reviewed here). But Mehldau is indisputably a box office draw and there had been no such difficulty for this concert. With ticket prices of up to £30, tickets for this concert had been snapped up eighteen months ago.
Mehldau clearly revels in the acoustic of the Wigmore Hall and in the quality of the Wigmore's Steinway. He took a solo spot in Cole Porter's From This Moment On, giving the tune a thorough harmonic working over, head bowed down Bill Evans-style, lovingly exploring every contour of it. Melodic ideas were emerging in the left hand in the tenor register, then some fiercely technical studies in contrary motion (blame Ferruccio Busoni, who scowls forbiddingly on the wall of the Green Room) then a hand-crossing extravaganza. This demonstration of a great pianist taking his time to commune with the tone of the piano and the unique resonance of the Wigmore Hall was sheer joy.
The invitation by Brad Mehldau to Joe Henry to perform in the Wigmore Hall has a certain irresistible incongruousness about it. The Wigmore Hall is known as the Temple of Song. In some quarters of fogeydom they still nod sagely about Lotte Lehmann masterclasses in 1957. But Joe Henry may be the first artist to appear at the hall billed as just "SINGER."
Henry, as is well-known, is much more than a singer. He's a highly skilled lyricist in the lineage of Tom Waits or Paul Simon who has just produced - I calculate - a fourteenth album of songs in his own name. He's an in-demand producer, he has composed film scores, and is also - we're testing the boundaries of relevance here - Madonna's brother-in-law.
He made a statement with his first appearance, standing with guitar to sing a solo, unamplified song about a wayfarer, letting his slightly rasping voice find its way into the far corners of the hall. As a duo with Mehldau he performed several of his own thoughtful, individual songs. There is no hiding away in intellectual shallows with Henry. Dark Tears, for example, was prefaced by an explanation plunging straight into the deeply philosophical world of T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton: "When you take a picture", said Henry "two things happen: you project into the future, and the present is relegated to the past." Our Country from 2007 about the shame felt by many Americans in the latter stages of the George W. Bush presidency is a bitterly reflective unforgettably dark song:
This was our country
This was our song
Somewhere in the middle there
Though it started badly and it's ending wrong
This was our country
This frightful and this angry land
But it's my right if the worst of it might
Still somehow make me a better man
Henry also sang standards - "I don't get to do this very often", he said - starting with Mercer/Van Heusen's I Thought About You. This was a reminder of what a compelling straightahead player Mehldau can be, perhaps best demonstrated on record in Don't Explain, the duo album he recorded with erstwhile, teenage sparring partner saxophonist Joel Frahm. What Henry does with standards is to home attention in on the words. By leaving (long) pauses between words, by kicking the important words up a third to make them stand out, perhaps nowhere more effectively than in Cole Porter's I've Got You Under My Skin, performed as the single encore after the duo's single 90-minute set. So effective those gaps: "I've got you [.....] Under my skin" , or "Why not use your [......] Mentality.
The last gesture, of this song, of this concert, of this three-year curatorship was one careful sounding of the tonic, marcato, with the little finger of Mehldau's left hand, deep in the bass. That was finality, expressed perfectly in a single note. But there's more than a rumour he'll be back....
Wigmore Hall/ Produced by Serious.
