by Janos Gereben
On top of the stairs leading to the stage of Eugene's Silva Concert Hall, a small note reminds musicians of the city's Ordnance No. 9.644: "Sound pressure levels shall not exceed 98 dBA."
No similar warning is posted for the audience and that's a good thing or we'd all be in jail by now. Thomas Quasthoff sang Broadway tunes, spirituals, classy pop songs, a Bobby McFerrin scat number, and "Danny Boy," to one of the most tumultuous ovations in my memory -- every illegal decibel well deserved. Truth to tell, Oregon Bach Festival audiences tend to "err" on the side of generosity, and they leap to their collective feet perhaps more often than justified. What is wrong with that is making the Standing O routine when it should be reserved to a truly extraordinary event such as today's.
Incidentally, the most vigorous applause through the concert came from Quasthoff himself, in sincerely enthusiastic recognition for the rest of the "band," especially conductor/pianist Jeffrey Kahane and hornist/arranger Richard Todd, two great classical musicians who made a seamless, convincing transition to jazz and played incredibly well, completely in service of the singer and of the music. Today's concert should be used as a case study in teaching real ethics, morals and selflessness, not the preachy kind.
The "applause" from Quasthoff, as all who have seen him perform know, is symbolic because malformed arms and hands are part of his severe birth defect. And yet, nothing could be further from somebody we regard as "handicapped" than this vibrant, powerful artist, reigning over an enthralled, loving audience, fully cognizant of being in the presence of greatness.
How can you imagine without being at the concert a combination of Sinatra, Fischer-Dieskau, Satchmo and, yes, Ella?! Add to that warmth, charisma, and the rare ability to make each member of the audience feel as if being alone with the singer, the exclusive focus of his attention (also known as the Flicka Factor).
Others might have been called this, mostly without justification, but Quasthoff truly is the Great Communicator: He happens to use a beautiful and elegantly trained instrument to do it, but his ultimate skill is communication, even more importantly than "just" singing. Today, he gave an unprecedent demonstration of that ability and the audience, becoming a community, felt elevated to his level of perception and communication. And, perhaps even beyond that lofty ideal, the man was having a ball -- something that doesn't happen nearly often enough in the ENTERTAINMENT business. In a striped sports shirt, briefly wearing sunglasses (and doing a Stevie Wonder imitation), ranging over the stage, kibitzing and participating in everything that happened, regardless of his role in it, Quasthoff was having the time of his life... as were we, the lucky audience.
Kahane was in rare form too: he conducted a big, splashy, but disciplined performance of the Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story" and served as the brilliant pianist for Quasthoff for the rest of the concert, cutting riffs short and deferring to the singer again and again. And still, "playing out" the concert with the quiet chords at the conclusion of "Danny Boy" will long stay with the audience. Todd, whose work with the Bach Festival, Kahane's Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and elsewhere has been consistently marvelous, played through the concert at Quasthoff's side, and soloed in his own composition, "Quiet Time."
The singer opened with Gershwin's "They Can't Take That Away from Me" in a section entitled "Tribute to Frank Sinatra," his spookily flawless American diction (while chewing gum at the rehearsal, if -- I think -- not in concert) coming through even clearer than Sinatra's... and in a somewhat greater range...:) He skipped the previously programmed "The Lady Is a Tramp," and sang a scat-filled, free-and-easy "Fascinating Rhythm," closing the first half with a simply overwhelming "Ol' Man River." Instead of making the song "one thing" (singing it "beautifully" or with Robeson's tragic slant), Quasthoff packed a dozen stories, a dozen styles into it, and pulled those threads together in the final phrase that just stunned the audience.
The concert's second half introduced the "TQ and Friends Jazz Quintet" (Kahane, Todd, Forrest Moyer on bass, Alan Tarpinian on drums) starting with Porter's "What is This Thing Called Love," the voice ranging over all creation, making Quasthoff's professed trepidation about "too high notes" in "Rigoletto" suspect as excessive humility or caution... or both.
The Mercer-Arlen "One for My Baby, and One More for the Road," and the Hilliard-Mann "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" combined Cleo Laine's virtuosity with that "Sinatra sound" again, and yet every moment was unmistakably Quasthoff.
The most bizarre and amazing part of the concert was a McFerrin "vocal music" piece, doing full justice to the sound-composer known in Germany as "Stimmwunder" and throwing in some Bantu clicks and prehistoric bird sounds for good measure, while maintaining a rhythm section coming from somewhere under the voice, a place that normally doesn't exist.
An extended, improv-added version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and a quiet, exquisite version of "Danny Boy" closed the concert, much against the wishes of the audience, which simply stayed even after the lights went up.
This "throwaway concert" -- in-between Quasthoff's participation here in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn's "Elijah," Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and a lieder recital -- showed lack of preparation in the singer's virtually unprecedented reliance on the score and occasional errors in the lyrics. And that means just one thing: if there is a similar concert in the future, Quasthoff will be "better." Now there is a strange thought!