Jazz breaking news: Beach Boy Brian Wilson Rhapsodises In Blue
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Royal Festival Hall hosts Brian Wilson next month over three nights with the legendary Beach Boys singer and songwriter (left) playing songs from his album Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin.
Over three nights from 16-18 September the RFH is the venue once again for the 69-year-old Californian who made a major impact there performing landmark concert versions of Pet Sounds in 2002 and “lost album” Smile two years later.
In terms of repertoire Gershwin may not be the first composer that springs to mind when Wilson’s name comes up. Indeed the music of Broadway is a world away from that of the Californian surf movement as it also is from most contemporary rock, pop and jazz. Yet one of the appeals of George Gershwin (below, right) and the lyrics of his brother Ira is that in the hands of artists from disparate backgrounds and genres and over many decades the material remains relevant as a classic source when transformed, or even interpreted close to the original intent.
The notion of a jazz standard (in terms of a Broadway music theatre base) would be almost impossible without the music of Gershwin at its core. But also, beyond Broadway for the first MTV generation well over a decade on from ‘Rockit’, just think of their reaction to Herbie Hancock’s late-1990s album Gershwin’s World which came out to mark the centenary of Gershwin’s birth setting Gershwin among contemporaries such as James P Johnson and WC Handy in a modern setting without devaluing the songs and indeed enhancing them. Further back Miles Davis’ album version of Porgy and Bess may be a half way point between the 30s heyday of Broadway and the world of a music video but notwithstanding the Miles album represented a big step on at the time from the theatre world of Gershwin even then with its languid post-Lydian reharmonisation by Gil Evans.
On the Reimagines album ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, ‘I Loves You, Porgy’, ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ and many more are all included which Wilson will draw from at the concerts. It’s a long trip from ‘Good Vibrations’ back to the 1930s world of ‘Summertime’, and ever forward to the London of 2011 but with Wilson, whose concerts have moved so many for so long, he has little to prove to his fans and newcomers alike and for them his take on Gershwin retains a fascinating rhythm.
– Stephen Graham
For tickets go to bit.ly/iU6pV8