Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Maxwell at Seattle Paramount 6.23.09


There is anticpation when a great artist goes back to work in the public eye after a long absence. Soul music returned to the scene after a decade of bands with lots of electronic keyboards doing dance charts. Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite arrived in 1993 after being pondered for months by record executives. It is an album to sit on the shelf timeless like That's The Way of the World or Marvin Gaye's best seventies work. There are inevitable comparisons to Prince when one considers Maxwell. But Marvin's albums, with exception of What's Going On can maintain both a long form vision with darn near every piece contributing to a mood, a kind of story without being too literal. Urban Hang is not only an album: it is a great first novel and collection of poetry and an album for all funky seasons.

Great are even good soul singers are a rare rare thing. There are probably fewer great soul singers than Wagner Tenors who are half way decently. It may sound a bit dramatic, but one of the prerequisites is that they have to have the right balance of the sacred and profane to pull it off. A classic illustration of this struggle can be seen the Marvin Gaye cover where he is shown as devil and angel.

So where does Maxwell 2.0 (or if you were to name revs by albums 4.0) fit into this dichotomy? Well, a little differently (and this pertains to all of the Maxwells of the past 14 years or so of his career, no matter how you count them. The difference is that Maxwell is so well connected with his feminine side as well. They don't seem to be in conflict. Sam Cooke was very pretty. Marvin Gaye also let you see his softer side at times. But Maxwell besides his very carnal moments on stage is kind of in a different bag.

Consider the first major ecstatic wave of energy outside of the opening from his Seattle concert that was exuded demonstratively from the primarily 30-50ish crowd with lots of ladies. It greeted the first few bars of Maxwell's cover of Kate Bush's A Woman's Work, which although he has incorporated into his book since he gave it a mass public debut in the MTV Unplugged session, still seems like a very improbable song for an African American soul singer to perform.

But then again, Maxwell in style and often substance resembles Al Green, a soul singer who was also unafraid to show his soft (some would say feminine side) duing his sexy period back in the day of hot grits before Reverend Al won the eternal soul mans struggle, more or less until the bills had to be paid and the secular was revived.

I thought of the famous Al Green album title when he worked up the women, in particular into a kind of frenzy. At the end of a really fine and inventive reworking of his Sumthin' Sumthin' he asked the crowd "How come you still have your clothes on?" My favorite crowd response of the evening came at a dramatic moment when Maxwell was facing his band and a woman near me yelled "Turn Around and Look at ME, Maxwell"

The patter as he wound into the final fifth of the show or so was even more explicit.
"Here's the part of the show where we are going to get a little bit nasty. I'm going to set the brothers up. If you can't get any after the show, come bring it back to me or us because you grame is whack." And then he launches into Al Green's Simply Beautiful in a most impressive way.

The old tunes seem to have a lot more heft to them these days. The base seemed to have a little more power to it and the horns were often featured to bring things home at the end in a big way.


Maxwell's new tunes were well represented. At times it seemed the crowd was singing along with those as well. This show is scaled large and well-executed. They've started on the road six or seven months ago promoting an album, Black Summer Night, which won't be released til next week. Maxwell is working real hard to remind the world of what makes his work special.

His stuff definitely addresses the racy and the world of carnal pleasures to be sure. After all this is the guy who has a song about making love ""...Til the Cops Come Knockin'

Yet probably Maxwell's song is Ascension one of the most extravagent of odes to the energy of affection of their partner. Or is he talking alluding to another order of Ascension as well? The song undeniably has a great chorus, one that sounds best with a couple of thousand people singing along with it at full volume.

So shouldn't I realize
You're the highest of the high
If you don't know, then I'll say it
So don't ever wonder

Here's a clip of Maxwell 1.0 taking Ascension to a highest high indeed.

posted by well-executed buffet at 9:59 AM
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