chrisjoseph
08-27-2008, 07:19 PM
did anyone post this yet?
Music
Irma Thomas Plus Piano Is 'Simply Grand'
By ROBERT COSTA
August 27, 2008; Page D7
New York
Dotted with faux Corinthian columns and peeling jazz posters, Joe's Pub in the East Village is far from Bourbon Street, but that's where the New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas recently chose to debut the live version of her elegant new album "Simply Grand" (Rounder) in front of two sold-out audiences.
Ms. Thomas, whose alto at age 67 is a steaming gumbo of rhythm and blues, has been a regular for years at Tipitina's in New Orleans' French Quarter -- and she performed at her own Lion's Den nightclub in that city before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Her head-tilting takes on R&B standards since the early 1960s place her in the stylistic neighborhood of Aretha Franklin, with a spark of Southern-fried moxie.
Hurricanes were not the focus for Ms. Thomas at Joe's Pub, but Katrina catharsis is palpable in her new music. Sashaying in a floor-length cobalt and gold gown, Ms. Thomas eschewed vocal theatrics to keep her performance, and band, taut. "Growing up, we were raised to sing our way out of a mood," she told me in an interview last month.
Nodding her head to the bass thumps on the bluesy opener "If I Had Any Sense I'd Go Back Home" and cracking an eyebrow-arching smile, Ms. Thomas leaned on the Baldwin baby grand that pianist David Torkanowsky hunched over about two feet away. On "Simply Grand," her friend and NOLA legend Dr. John was the accompanist on that number, but at Joe's Pub Mr. Torkanowsky ably filled in for him and most of the other piano-players on the collection, his hands prancing between broken chords on the uncluttered ballads that make up much of the new record.
Last year, Ms. Thomas captured her first Grammy Award, winning in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category for her 2006 disc "After the Rain." Whereas that release featured Ms. Thomas accompanied by a variety of instruments, from slide guitar to fiddle, on the earthy "Simply Grand" she showcases her roiling vocals on 14 songs alongside 12 talented pianists: Norah Jones, Randy Newman, John Medeski and nine Crescent City favorites -- not only Dr. John and Mr. Torkanowsky but Tom McDermott (who also sat in at Joe's Pub), Henry Butler, Jon Cleary, David Egan, Marcia Ball, Ellis Marsalis and Davell Crawford.
Ms. Thomas's voice is consistently grand in her new studio work. Mr. Newman's hypnotic notes on "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" are sublime, yet Mr. Medeski clouds Ms. Thomas's arpeggios on "Somebody Told You." Playing in the classic New Orleans piano style of James Booker and Professor Longhair, Mr. Torkanowsky highlights the CD's "What Can I Do," a new Burt Bacharach song, with Ms. Thomas foraying into her lower register.
Ms. Thomas's sturdy pipes roamed the slack structures of the new tracks at Joe's Pub, especially on the salient "Be You" and the swooning blues of "Overrated." "It's Raining," her 1962 hit -- which she performed as an encore to the delight of those who remembered the tune's revival in Jim Jarmusch's 1986 cult-classic film "Down by Law" -- was the evening's gem, blending the pulsing piano spirit of "Simply Grand" with hearty wails right out of 1960s R&B.
With blues standards and tasteful pop covers on "Simply Grand," Ms. Thomas knows she's not exactly staking out new territory. She's after something more elemental. Ms. Thomas says "a lot of music today is not giving the rawness it should. It's losing something with the technicality of it." She also finds the popularity of vocal-enhancement technology abominable, calling it a "gimmick." The singer, who recorded "Simply Grand" earlier this year in New Orleans, Los Angeles and New York, took only one day to lay down each track.
"Songs should make sense and tell a story," she says, and on "Simply Grand" she is at her best as storyteller, evoking broad themes that could fit as New Orleans hurricane elegies or late-night driving anthems.
Those looking for tearjerkers about New Orleans's Ninth Ward should search elsewhere. Her full-throated Gospel side was on display when she closed the Joe's Pub show -- and let loose -- with the John Fogerty tune "River Is Waiting," her irresistible oomph swelling each refrain of "Sail on, sail on."
"It is life," says Ms. Thomas about "Simply Grand." "It is failure, it is success, it is happiness, and it is joy. I'm singing the songs that describe living, under whatever circumstances."
Recording a major album in 14 days with just a few hours for a session with each pianist could have presented challenges to Ms. Thomas, or any artist. But she says that "when you have two professionals in the studio who are both confident that the other will enhance the other, then all you do is run through it, find the key, verses and bridge." Ms. Thomas compares the "Simply Grand" sessions, and her studio practices, with live performing, where she says "when you walk on stage, you don't have time to technically rip a song apart. You just go out there and sing. That's what you want to capture."
When Ms. Thomas speaks of New Orleans, she does so collectively, and less confidently, saying "we are a work in progress." She doesn't "think there will ever be a time where we'll be totally beyond this situation. . . . We'll all be a work in progress till the Lord calls us home. . . . I don't dwell on things lost, but I'm blessed to be making new memories."
Mr. Costa is a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Journal's editorial page.
Music
Irma Thomas Plus Piano Is 'Simply Grand'
By ROBERT COSTA
August 27, 2008; Page D7
New York
Dotted with faux Corinthian columns and peeling jazz posters, Joe's Pub in the East Village is far from Bourbon Street, but that's where the New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas recently chose to debut the live version of her elegant new album "Simply Grand" (Rounder) in front of two sold-out audiences.
Ms. Thomas, whose alto at age 67 is a steaming gumbo of rhythm and blues, has been a regular for years at Tipitina's in New Orleans' French Quarter -- and she performed at her own Lion's Den nightclub in that city before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Her head-tilting takes on R&B standards since the early 1960s place her in the stylistic neighborhood of Aretha Franklin, with a spark of Southern-fried moxie.
Hurricanes were not the focus for Ms. Thomas at Joe's Pub, but Katrina catharsis is palpable in her new music. Sashaying in a floor-length cobalt and gold gown, Ms. Thomas eschewed vocal theatrics to keep her performance, and band, taut. "Growing up, we were raised to sing our way out of a mood," she told me in an interview last month.
Nodding her head to the bass thumps on the bluesy opener "If I Had Any Sense I'd Go Back Home" and cracking an eyebrow-arching smile, Ms. Thomas leaned on the Baldwin baby grand that pianist David Torkanowsky hunched over about two feet away. On "Simply Grand," her friend and NOLA legend Dr. John was the accompanist on that number, but at Joe's Pub Mr. Torkanowsky ably filled in for him and most of the other piano-players on the collection, his hands prancing between broken chords on the uncluttered ballads that make up much of the new record.
Last year, Ms. Thomas captured her first Grammy Award, winning in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category for her 2006 disc "After the Rain." Whereas that release featured Ms. Thomas accompanied by a variety of instruments, from slide guitar to fiddle, on the earthy "Simply Grand" she showcases her roiling vocals on 14 songs alongside 12 talented pianists: Norah Jones, Randy Newman, John Medeski and nine Crescent City favorites -- not only Dr. John and Mr. Torkanowsky but Tom McDermott (who also sat in at Joe's Pub), Henry Butler, Jon Cleary, David Egan, Marcia Ball, Ellis Marsalis and Davell Crawford.
Ms. Thomas's voice is consistently grand in her new studio work. Mr. Newman's hypnotic notes on "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" are sublime, yet Mr. Medeski clouds Ms. Thomas's arpeggios on "Somebody Told You." Playing in the classic New Orleans piano style of James Booker and Professor Longhair, Mr. Torkanowsky highlights the CD's "What Can I Do," a new Burt Bacharach song, with Ms. Thomas foraying into her lower register.
Ms. Thomas's sturdy pipes roamed the slack structures of the new tracks at Joe's Pub, especially on the salient "Be You" and the swooning blues of "Overrated." "It's Raining," her 1962 hit -- which she performed as an encore to the delight of those who remembered the tune's revival in Jim Jarmusch's 1986 cult-classic film "Down by Law" -- was the evening's gem, blending the pulsing piano spirit of "Simply Grand" with hearty wails right out of 1960s R&B.
With blues standards and tasteful pop covers on "Simply Grand," Ms. Thomas knows she's not exactly staking out new territory. She's after something more elemental. Ms. Thomas says "a lot of music today is not giving the rawness it should. It's losing something with the technicality of it." She also finds the popularity of vocal-enhancement technology abominable, calling it a "gimmick." The singer, who recorded "Simply Grand" earlier this year in New Orleans, Los Angeles and New York, took only one day to lay down each track.
"Songs should make sense and tell a story," she says, and on "Simply Grand" she is at her best as storyteller, evoking broad themes that could fit as New Orleans hurricane elegies or late-night driving anthems.
Those looking for tearjerkers about New Orleans's Ninth Ward should search elsewhere. Her full-throated Gospel side was on display when she closed the Joe's Pub show -- and let loose -- with the John Fogerty tune "River Is Waiting," her irresistible oomph swelling each refrain of "Sail on, sail on."
"It is life," says Ms. Thomas about "Simply Grand." "It is failure, it is success, it is happiness, and it is joy. I'm singing the songs that describe living, under whatever circumstances."
Recording a major album in 14 days with just a few hours for a session with each pianist could have presented challenges to Ms. Thomas, or any artist. But she says that "when you have two professionals in the studio who are both confident that the other will enhance the other, then all you do is run through it, find the key, verses and bridge." Ms. Thomas compares the "Simply Grand" sessions, and her studio practices, with live performing, where she says "when you walk on stage, you don't have time to technically rip a song apart. You just go out there and sing. That's what you want to capture."
When Ms. Thomas speaks of New Orleans, she does so collectively, and less confidently, saying "we are a work in progress." She doesn't "think there will ever be a time where we'll be totally beyond this situation. . . . We'll all be a work in progress till the Lord calls us home. . . . I don't dwell on things lost, but I'm blessed to be making new memories."
Mr. Costa is a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Journal's editorial page.