Random Thoughts on “Besame Mucho”…

Sunday morning finds me up early and, at present, listening through versions of Consuelo Velasquez’s “Besame Mucho”, a jazz and pop standard that has retained its full potency in the 73 years since its composition in 1940. I have no idea how many times the song has been performed or recorded in that time–hundreds, easily. I’ve probably heard 100 myself over the last 20 years, including several new ones just a few minutes ago. The universality of the tune makes it readily accessible as the embodiment of  a certain mood, so rooted in that time and place that it, The melody is ubiquitous; it can float in the background like spiderwebs in a breeze, or be battle-axed with bravura bombast. It’s all good, as they say.  Put most simply, “Besame Mucho” is America’s “Dark Eyes”.

Firstly, let’s just get this out of the way right now, since it can’t rightly be ignored, especially with the display of circular breathing at the end. I never expected to ever heard anything by Kenny G I could even stand, let alone really enjoy, but if it happens again, I will consult a priest…

The Johnny Hepbir Trio does a really nice Gypsy Swing rendition…

The late, great pianist Michel Petrucciani (1962-1999)made regular use of the song during his too-short but masterful run in the 1980s and ’90s. My favorite of the bunch comes from his Live Solo album (1999, recorded 1997), which also contains arguably the greatest solo piano version of “Caravan” ever (although Dick Hyman’s version at Maybeck maybe exceeds his, in terms of sheer balls-out virtuosity)…

Petrucciani augmented his piano with the Graffiti String Quartet for this version from 1994. They add the proverbial brooding intensity, which probably matches the artist’s own feelings at that point in his life…

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoXdoV1IER4]

Another great pianist to tackle the tune is Dave Brubeck, who recorded this version (which includes some sweet boo-bamming) in 2000…

The trio led by bassist Avishai Cohen (not to be confused with trumpeter Avishai Cohen) wholly appropriated the tune during their Cully Jazz set in 2011, offering one of the freshest, most forward-thinking renderings ever; note his epic little bass solo to start things out…

I had no idea the Beatles had recorded “Besame Mucho” as well. Apparently they used the tune as part of their infamous failed audition for Decca Records on New Year’s Day, 1962, one of the more fateful fuckups in music history. Decca instead chose a band called Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, which was a pretty good band that had some hits but, by virtue of having not been the Beatles, have been reduced largely to a trivia question, if not a punchline. Meanwhile, the Beatles signed to EMI that May, and Pete Best was fired after their first recording session for the label in August, replaced by Ringo, and it was off to the races…

What got me started browsing “Besame Mucho”s on the YouTube was the desire to hear what’s probably my favorite version ever (though that Cohen has me reconsidering): This 1962 take from a quartet led by vibraphonist Dave Pike, with bassist Herbie Lewis and drummer Walter Perkins, featuring a guest appearance by the great pianist Bill Evans. As the story goes, this rare sideman gig from November 1961 was Evans’ first recording session since the tragic car crash the previous July that killed his friend, the groundbreaking bassist Scott LaFaro, whose work at the Village Vanguard earlier that year remains a signpost of modern music. Evans’ solo is viewed by some (like myself) as a kind of stylistic and emotional encomium for his fallen colleague, whose death at just 25 was a blow to the business similar to Clifford Brown demise five years earlier. Note, also, Perkins’ solo, which adds a sort of martial touch to a track already infused with dramatic tension. Since it was the first version I went for, it makes sense to put it last…

Besame Mucho – Jonny Hepbir Trio

Jax Jazz Fest preview: Madeleine Peyroux

[For the May/June issue of Arbus.]

The Pop-Jazz Prototype:

Madeleine Peyroux: A Musical Change-Agent

 

For years, Madeleine Peyroux (born April 19, 1974) has been a darling of public radio, a perdurable presence in every Starbucks, Borders and Barnes & Noble—a singer-songwriter who anticipated the massive shift in the music industry over the past decade. Her evolution from anonymously busking on Parisian streets to global acclaim is a story she’s told herself, in songs written for five albums on three different labels. The reason it took so long for Peyroux to get over in the business is that it simply was not possible when she started, 20 years ago; there was no market structure to support and sustain her artistry.

In a sense, the story of Madeleine Peyroux can be viewed the story of seismic shifts in the industry itself. Her presence as one of the top acts at this year’s Jacksonville Jazz Festival can be also viewed as a shift in the festival, which is making more of an effort to embrace the traditional jazz artists favored by fans and critics alike. Peyroux has always been one those artists hard-core jazz fans would have loved to see here, but never thought they actually would. When her name popped out from the lineup sheet, it was like a pleasant hallucination.

After three albums for Rounder, Standing On the Rooftop is Peyroux’s first for Decca Records, a legendary British imprint founded in 1929 and now owned by Vivendi/Universal. It holds a special place in the hearts of jazz fans for its early advocacy of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, but it has also been a major contributor to the American vocal tradition, in all its many forms. The Decca catalog is, arguably, the most extensive cross-section of American and British indigenous music ever compiled. (This year’s jazz festival’s headliners, Sonny Rollins and Chick Corea, are also currently signed to Decca.)

Decca has maintained that tradition into the present. Peyroux, an early auteur of the new hybrid style, joins a roster featuring Melody Gardot, Sarah Harmer, Sonya Kitchell, Imeda May, Jane Monheit, Krystina Myles, Hayley Westerna, Laura Wright and Nikki Yanofsky, in addition to a whole crop of up-and-coming crossover classical talents.

These ladies are the latest in a line that has included many of the all-time greatest female singers of jazz, blues, pop, gospel, country and classical music, people like the Andrews Sisters, Tori Amos, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Judy Garland, Connie Boswell, Jenny Lou Carson (first woman to write a #1 hit country song) Patsy Cline, Rosemary Clooney, Kathleen Ferrier, Ella Fitzgerald (youngest woman to lead a big-band), Jane Froman, Marilyn Horne, Kathy Kirby, Brenda Lee, Peggy Lee, Ute Lemper, Annie Lennox, Loretta Lynn, Vera Lynn, Dolly Parton, Leontyne Price, Lita Roza (first British singer to chart #1, with “how Much Is That Doggie In the Window?”), Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Kitty Wells (the first female country star) and Aziza Mustafa Zadeh. Note also that Billie Holiday, to whom Peyroux’s voice has been so frequently compared (although it’s changed so much over the years), recorded one album for Decca, The Lady Sings (1956), at their famous studio at Manhattan’s Pythian Temple.

For this album, Peyroux—who started out singing alone on streetcorners—has assembled a sterling cast of collaborators, including pianist Allen Toussaint, violinist Jenny Scheinman, guitar master Marc Ribot and Meshell Ndegeocello. Listeners will by now have an established idea of Peyroux the singer, but she challenges those perceptions with her most adventurous album yet, taking bold risks with an already-lucrative commercial brand. Producer Craig Street is best-known for his work on Norah Jones’ first album, arguably the most important record of the 21^st century, as well as people like John Legend and Cassandra Wilson. He crafted a great sound, dense and haunting, but clear—a fine sonic foundation for Peyroux’s voice.

Peyroux wrote or co-wrote eight of the album’s 12 songs. Scheinman co-wrote two, as did David Batteau; “The Kind You Can’t Afford” was co-written with Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. The album opens with “Martha My Dear”, a Lennon/McCartney chestnut. “Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love” is a sleek, sophisticated lullaby for grown-ups, written by Ribot and Wyston Hugh Auden. The title-track sounds almost like indie-rock—anthemic affirmations over dissonant chords. When she sings “I have conquered all my fears”, the listener believes her.

For this writer, the album peaks with Peyroux’s lurching, ethereal cover of Robert Johnson’s “Love In Vain”—one of the finest things she has ever recorded. Even experiments like the soft summery funk of “Meet Me In Rio” come off nicely; it’s iPod-ready for beach runs. But through it all, that voice is like the center-line on a road stretching and winding through past eras of music history, on into those unfolding as we speak. With a serious new album on a major jazz label, the years ahead may be her best yet. And even if she never quite eclipses the brilliance of Dreamland, to simply survive, thrive and progress is a victory, in and of itself.

sheltonhull@gmail.com; April 16, 2012