Friday, September 11, 2009

Musical World Travelin' With Folks From Home


I only heard Pink Martini once. It was at one of the last Bumbershoots I attended in the 1990s, one of their early non-political benefit gigs, probably 1997, just before their first album Sympathique was released. As I recall it, I happened by the International Flag Pavilion stage (now defunct) as the band was just beginning their interpretation of Ary Barroso's 1930s samba, Brazil. China Forbes' verse opening of the song stopped me in my tracks. Hers is a big but not overwhelming voice, one equipped for the interpretation of a song that could stand as a kind of definition for the word nostalgia.

Then - tomorrow was another day
The morning found us miles away
With still a million things to say.
And now when twilight dims the skies above
Recalling thrills of our love there's one thing
I'm certain of... Return, I will, to old Brazil.

Pink Martini is decidedly a Portland phenomena that has proven to find its own niche in the world. Portland has been the location to spawn not one, but two, large scale musical projects that are lead by quirky iconoclastic probable genius types. One of these is Colin Meloy's Decemberists. The other is Pink Martini led by a eternally cherubic piano nerd, Thomas Lauderdale.

"Its music of the world without being world music.Records one would hopefully never grow tired of..." is how Lauderdale describes the efforts of Pink Martini. "Records that could be played whether you were sad or gleeful. Cleaning, vacuuming around the house or seducing somebody's grandmother." It is cabaret plus salsa plus samba plus standards that seems to fount from a time when music was on solid 12 inch discs and flying, especially international flight was a luxury.

The group's 2005 New Year's Eve Concert (recorded at Portland's Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, of course) has recently been released as a DVD entitled Discover the World: Live in Concert. The DVD offers the world a pretty good vantage point to see what they can do. I love seeing long time Oregon jazz musicians like bassist Phil Baker and guitarist Dan Faehnle be a part of this group that usually seems to have about a dozen folks onstage.

Several years ago I told my former college roommate who was for a short time the president of Oregon Symphony that it made sense to me to hand over the baton of Norman Leyden, the Oregon Pops director with Glen Miller and many radio TV credits (and collaborator and endorser of Pink Martini) to Lauderdale because he had this ability to attract both younger and hip audiences as well as middle aged and older. The Pres just smiled and said "We have been talking to Thomas."

But after watching Discover the World: Live in Concert it seems to me that Lauderdale's passion would likely not be in producing a yearly Pops series but is rather in continuing the accessible aural pop world bandwidth that is Pink Martini. In the twelve years since the release of Sympathique and its surprise success of nearly a million copies, there have only been two other PM albums and a fourth on the way next month. And when I listen to the first three albums I find several tunes which do not connect with me (even a couple I kind of hate) but one can not deny the care and quality that comes out of a Lauderdale recording session.

They sell out concerts here in PDX but also do quite well in LA with big shows at the Disney Hall and Hollywood Bowl. I'm not sure I'm a fan, but I appreciate this group a lot. I'd like to see or hear their new production updating the Stan Freberg commision for the 1959 Oregon Centenial. Hopefully, it will surface on NPR/OPB's ongoing lovefest for this band. And mostly, I like the fact that Lauderdale with his cigarette holder, puffy blond hair is still downtown coming up with new soundscapes that are substantial but go down real easy.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:31 PM
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