Subtitled ‘A concert of pop, classical, jazz and romantic delights,’ it was an interesting evening. I have heard Mr. Dely, a jazz trumpeter, before and enjoyed listening to him. That was for one or two numbers at a Holiday Songbook. A full evening was a little hard for me to take. He fronted a small band of piano, drums, guitar, bass, and keyboard, and it was sort of a free flowing kind of performance.
He seemed to be grooving with the band in the opening number before even playing a note. And by grooving, I mean sort of dancing, sort of bopping, and sort of being (or trying to be) cool. A little goes a long way. And we saw a lot of it. All evening long. And I can’t tell you what the first song was since there was no printed program—see free flowing, above.
The second piece had a bluesy solo piano opening, followed by the band joining in, in a more up tempo style. In fact, it was at times almost too frantic for me. Then there was a trumpet and piano section followed by the full band and trumpet all together. A guest cellist came onstage for the next two songs. The first was announced as Gabriel’s Fire (and the cellist did not perform in that one) followed by Cinema Paradiso (in which she did play). Gabriel’s Fire was played with a muted trumpet and electric guitar, eventually joined by piano and electronic keyboard. Cinema Paradiso had an interesting effect where the electric guitar sort of mimicked the trumpet sound. Mr. Dely did tell us the cellist’s name but darned if I could make it out from his announcement. This was a problem throughout the performance—even though he was using a microphone, it was still hard to hear/understand him when he was talking while the band was playing.
In a nod to the hearts and flowers date of the gig, a jazzy rendition of My Foolish Heart followed. A guest vocalist (announced from the stage but once again I couldn’t get it) sang along with Mr. Dely’s jazz version of Pure Imagination. We then went back to romance with My Funny Valentine (played with the mute once again) in which the tune was there but he danced around it quite a bit (a fairly usual jazz tool) and then he unmuted his horn for the second go ’round of the tune.
My Favorite Things was next. I recognized the sort of Northern Africa caravan styling from when I heard him perform this piece a couple of years ago, albeit with only piano and percussion accompaniment. The full band version is a lot of fun. The guest vocalist returned for Love Too Hard (I think, once again it was difficult to hear him announce it over the band). It was definitely not my favorite.
After a very warm round of applause, Mr. Dely came back onstage for an encore. I was already at the back of the house, bundling up, but I stopped to find out what it would be. When I heard that it would be Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, I kept going out the door.
Having heard him before, I made it a point to attend this concert. But it was just too much for me all at once, so I’ll probably give this type of thing a pass in the future. And don’t get me wrong, he and all of the musicians were very talented and seemed to be loving what they were doing. I just wasn’t loving it as much as they were.
ConcertMeister
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