40 Days & 40 Nights: Joel Dorn Tribute
To commemorate the most beautifullest time of the year for me, summertime in the NYC, I will be posting concert reviews from this Independence Day weekend through Labor Day. I'm calling this endeavor, 40 Days & 40 Nights. I aim to blog that many shows, whether they stir me when the sun bears down brutal or when it has set.
"KEEP A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW: A TRIBUTE TO JOEL DORN," MANHATTAN, 08.13.2008
Last night, if not for my 62 year-old father, visiting from Seattle, I would have been rocking uptown to Slick Rick the Ruler instead of reclining on the Upper West Side in the shadow of handful of old time jazz and soul icons. The British-born, Bronx-bred rapper is hardly my contemporary but I fondly remember the tail end of his career, "Hey Young World" for example, from the early part of my listening life. I have a more tenuous link to the artists featured in Lincoln Center's homage to the late record producer Joel Dorn. Just one of the featured performers, Roberta Flack, did I remember permeating my Seattle townhouse as a child, the rest were just revered names that I'd heard bandied about in my time reading, writing and studying popular music.
I didn't even know who Joel Dorn was when I strode into Upper Manhattan's Damrosch Park, stomach-growling, early yesterday evening and it was strange to hear so many unexpected, intimate and awkward reminiscences of the Philadelphian deejay turned record executive from his gregarious grown sons, his ineloquent but sincere longtime assistant, Yusef Lateef in absentia and Rahsaan Roland Kirk's widow. What kept me in my seat, and I imagine the mostly stalwart boomer crowd, was a chance to here Les McCann of "Compared to What" fame.
Coke introduced me to the song. Mark Anthony Neal fleshed it out and provided some context. It is a great song, bold, idiosyncratic, fun and incisive. Its social commentary doesn't hamper the groove but refract it. McCann, obese, a few years recovered from a stroke but still pretty damn spritely on the piano and spirited in his vocal delivery, closed the 3 hour tribute with the gem.
Roberta Flack, Mose Allison, Dr. John and Hugh Masekela are a few of the legends that preceded McCann. Flack, who I adore and had never previously heard, renovated her sound with saccharine synths and sounded decrepit, Allison and Dr. John sounded sepia vintage and Masekela's trumpeting was so filling I had to cock my head back and stared at the starless sky. It was a pleasant little quantum leap but made me less wish for the revitalization of bygone brilliance that continue to focus my efforts on witnessing my time's geniuses before they rust.
Check my Flickr Slideshow for my photos from the evening.
Tags: 40 Days & 40 Nights, Jazz, Joel Dorn, Soul
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