Preview of concert at San Diego on 1999-05-30
Union-Tribune, San Diego, 1999-05-27
- George Varga
George Varga
POP MUSIC CRITIC
27-May-1999 Thursday
Elvis Costello has a better chance of being remembered by future
generations than many present day musicians, thanks to the remarkable
diversity of his work, his slew of classic songs and his refusal to rest on
his laurels.
But transcending his time means less than zero for this constantly evolving
singer-songwriter. What makes him happy is creating music that challenges
and rewards him and his listeners, not worrying about his legacy.
"I already wrote a song called `I Want to Vanish,' and that's fine by me,"
said Costello, 44, who performs Sunday night at Copley Symphony Hall with
Steve Nieve, his keyboardist for most of the past 22 years.
"I don't have any yearning for a big place in posterity. What do I care?
I'm going to be dead, so I don't give a (expletive). I do what I do in the
moment. But it's all just stuff. There are people in China, who have never
heard of The Beatles, or me, or Eminem, and they never will. And they don't
care.
"When you think of things like that -- like, when you're a kid, and you
ask: `What's behind the sky? Does it go on forever?' -- what does it
matter? It doesn't. And that's that."
Costello's comments might lead some to conclude that this once
quintessentially angry young man of rock has grown diffident with middle
age, but nothing could be further from the truth.
His enthusiasm for his work is greater than ever. So is his desire to
explore new vistas, no matter where they might take him. And during the
past decade alone, Costello has visited more musical destinations than most
pop artists can dream of.
He wrote and recorded an album of art songs with England's leading
cutting-edge string quartet, the Brodsky Quartet, duetted with crooner
Tony Bennett and, in 1994, reunited with the Attractions, the mighty rock
band he led from 1977 to 1987.
The tireless music maverick also teamed up with a dizzying array of other
collaborators -- from Little Richard, Brian Eno and Ricky Skaggs to Ruben
Blades, Chuck Berry and Paul McCartney, who favorably compared the
experience to his Beatles-era work with John Lennon.
In addition, Costello has performed with everyone from Bob Dylan,
avant-jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and top Irish traditional music group
the Chieftains to New Orleans' Dirty Dozen Brass Band, gospel vocal
stalwarts the Mayfield Four and pioneering pop songwriter Burt Bacharach,
with whom Costello won a Grammy Award earlier this year.
And he contributed to tribute albums honoring Van Morrison, Arthur
Alexander and the Grateful Dead, as well as performing with such disparate
artists as the Jazz Passengers, bassist Rob Wasserman and contemporary
classical composer John Harle.
One from the heart
"It is a very rare position I'm in," Costello acknowledged from the south
of France, where he was shooting a film appearance as himself. ("I drive
into a gas station and scare the hell out of the attendant," he said,
explaining his brief role.)
"A couple of friends of mine have said that, one of these days, I should
write a musical memoir. Because I have worked with an extraordinary range
of people. And some have been little `working holidays,' like doing the
Charles Anzavour song, `She,' for the (new Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant) film,
`Notting Hill.'
"I probably got that offer because of my album with Burt (Bacharach) --
people can suddenly see me as a romantic vocalist. It doesn't mean I'll
make a career in that music, but I enjoyed it."
Has Costello ever been intimidated by some of the music legends with whom
he has worked?
"I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't up to it," he said. "But, sometimes,
you go in over your head, like when I was appearing with Tony Bennett and
the Count Basie Orchestra in New York in 1982, and I lost my voice. To be
on stage with the orchestra and the Count, -- if I had been in the best
voice, I would have been seriously out of my depth. With no voice, it was a
nightmare!
"But I had a loaded crowd, full of fans rooting for me. I didn't get
tomatoes thrown at me and I have a funny tale to tell. Those `working
holiday' things are the rewards you get for showing your affection for
music."
Costello's abiding affection for music of all kinds is perhaps his most
endearing quality, at least for forward-looking fans who want to grow with
him, not live in the past.
One of those fans is Pretenders' leader Chrissie Hynde, a longtime pal.
Hynde, Costello and Van Morrison will co-headline the 10th annual Fleadh
festival, which takes place July 10 in London.
"The thing I love about Elvis is his enthusiasm, and his total love for
music and devotion to it," Hynde said from her London home. "He's such a
committed artist, and he's so passionate about it. You never feel for a
moment that he doubts the music or that he would grow tired of it. He's
always there, and he always give it his all.
"I just spoke to him yesterday, and it's his sheer enthusiasm that I find
so inspiring. He's a great songwriter and singer and craftsman. But what
makes him special is the joy that he seems to get out of it, and that
unabashed pleasure he finds in music."
Two for the road
In recent years, Costello has found that pleasure working in a duo setting
with erstwhile Attractions pianist Nieve.
Their first U.S. tour in 1996 yielded an often splendid concert recording,
the "extremely limited edition" five-EP set, "Costello & Nieve."
It
featured refreshing new versions of such early Costello gems as "Alison,"
weathered torch ballads like "My Funny Valentine" and a heartfelt cover of
the Grateful Dead's "Ship of Fools."
Costello and Nieve, who kicked off a European tour in April, have a rare
musical empathy and a shared appetite for aural adventure and spontaneity.
Rather than feeling confined in a duo setting, Costello finds it liberating
to work without a full band.
"When you get back to songs you've played lots of times before, with a
band, there is a danger of falling into a pattern," Costello said.
"This way, with just the two of us, we shake them back to life. You have to
play them in the moment. Also, I get to play a few songs that were
overlooked, either because they didn't work in a band context or didn't get
attention on the album."
This approach allows Costello and Nieve to throw in unexpected songs on a
moment's notice, much to their mutual delight.
"We opened our recent show in Milan with `Little Triggers' from (1978's)
`This Year's Model,' " Costello said. "I was taken by the mood to sing it,
and Steve and I worked it up that afternoon. With two of us, we can do
that, because he's a very resourceful pianist. And I have a go on guitar,
and know what I want to hear when I sing it.
"On a few occasions, I've gone into songs I know we know, without any
rehearsal or warning, and see what happens. And sometimes that results in a
really great new arrangement, one you can't repeat. One night, in
Australia, I went into `High Fidelity' from (1980's) `Get Happy,' which you
wouldn't expect from the two of us, because it's a thumping thing. But we
took it a little slower. And Steve had worked out some very unusual ways to
play things. It's constantly changing, so we change the show radically
every night."
Costello is an avid fan of jazz artists as varied as Duke Ellington and
Henry Threadgill, with whom he recorded on the 1992 Charles Mingus tribute
album, "Weird Nightmare." Does working now in a duo setting enable him to
engage in a greater degree of improvisation?
"In our own way, we're trying to be true to that spirit," Costello said.
"I
wouldn't say we indulge in it, but we take part in it and enjoy it. It's a
jazz ideal and dynamic. We play much more quietly than we do with a rhythm
section, but that's not to say we don't play some up-tempo songs.
"In rock shows, you only stop to breathe for a ballad. I've done all that,
and it's great and exciting, and -- no doubt -- I'll do it again. But now
it's in a different shape. And some songs, like `The Angels Want to Wear My
Red Shoes,' have a poignant feeling, because I'm now exactly twice the age
as when I wrote it.
"Back then, it was a song about a young man looking with trepidation to the
compromises that come with age. And, now, I am that age that I feared then.
So it wouldn't be honest to sing it with the same inflections, without
denying anything about the song, which on another level is a broken-heart
love song."
And what would Costello say to those diehard fans who come to see him
perform now, but want him to return to his angry-young-man days of the
late-1970s?
"Why would you waste your money, if that's the way you felt?" he mused.
"I don't think it has anything to do with age. I think there's an edge to
playing like this, that a band covers up. A band can bluster through
things. This doesn't feel like something that is easy, like when you get
older and can't cut rock 'n' roll. Quite the opposite -- people at 50
trying to jump around like they're 22 is hard. But this is much harder."
DATEBOOK
Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve
8 p.m. Sunday. Copley Symphony Hall, 701 B St., downtown. $22-$42 (plus
service charge); (619) 220-TIXS.
Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.