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LENOX, Mass. — You might think that an 88-year-old jazz pianist and a 52-year-old rocker might have little in common. But if you were at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival on Saturday afternoon for the live concert taping of Marian McPartland's long-running Piano Jazz radio show with guest Elvis Costello, then you already know how wrong you would have been.
Costello is pop's greatest musical chameleon, having collaborated with opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, pop maestro Burt Bacharach, country music great George Jones, the Brodsky String Quartet, the Beatles' Paul McCartney and New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint, to name just a few.
He previously performed on National Public Radio's Piano Jazz in 2003, and in the short three years since then, he's recorded no fewer than five albums — a song cycle of ballads (North), a ballet score (Il Sogno), rock 'n' roll (The Delivery Man), orchestral jazz (My Flame Burns Blue) and rhythm 'n' blues (The River in Reverse).
So no one really knew just which Elvis Costello would show up at Tanglewood's Seiji Ozawa Hall on Saturday. As it turned out, it was Elvis Costello, torch singer of intimate jazz standards.
"The last time I was on your show, I made a rather rash promise that I'd return and sing only songs that I'd never performed onstage before," he confided to McPartland, and he came pretty close to keeping that promise.
With McPartland quite ably accompanying him on the Steinway grand piano, Costello crooned his way through the Vernon Duke-Ira Gershwin unrequited love ballad "I Can't Get Started" to open the show. In a warm, surprisingly supple voice, he served up an engaging collection of vintage ballads, both well known ("Blame It on My Youth" and the aching "My Funny Valentine") and more obscure (Cy Coleman's darkly humorous "Why Try to Change Me Now?" and Rodgers and Hart's "Dancing On the Ceiling" with a bluesy bent).
On a few songs it seemed as though Costello wanted to push the tempo a bit faster, but the only time the duo broke out of the languid was with a semi-jaunty rendition of Neal Hefti-Jon Hendricks' "Li'l Darlin'," with Costello supplying some finger-snapping
percussion.
Although he was doing fine simply as a singer, Costello did pick up an acoustic guitar for one offbeat tune — a solo version of the old Rudy Vallee novelty song, "Let's Put Out the Lights and Go to Sleep."
Costello the songwriter made only a brief appearance — only as a lyricist — adding words to Billy Strayhorn's melancholy "Blood Count," which Costello re-named "My Flame Burns Blue." He also premiered a beautiful new piece, in which he wrote wistfully nostalgic lyrics for one of McPartland's signature compositions, "Threnody." In her solo spot, McPartland returned the favor, offering up a rich, nimble, improvisational "musical portrait" of her musical partner of the day. "That's Elvis as I know him," she said afterward.
Costello had one more surprise up his sleeve, however, turning the stage over to his wife, jazz singer Diana Krall, for a pair of songs with McPartland — the yearning "If I Had You" and a jazz-blues take on the classic "Body and Soul." "I can't cross my legs anymore," the very pregnant Krall bemoaned as she sat on the stool. But she sure can sing.
The hoped-for Krall and Costello duet never materialized, but Costello wrapped up the afternoon with a final croon through "At Last" — leaning much more toward the Glenn Miller version than the later hit rendition by Etta James — staring into Krall's eyes as she sat in the stage right box seats.
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