New York Times, October 15, 1998

From The Elvis Costello Wiki
Revision as of 02:32, 24 November 2019 by Zmuda (talk | contribs) (+image links)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigationJump to search
... Bibliography ...
727677787980818283
848586878889909192
939495969798990001
020304050607080910
111213141516171819
202122232425 26 27 28


New York Times

New York publications

Newspapers

University publications

Magazines and alt. weeklies


US publications by state
  • ALAKARAZCA
  • COCTDCDEFL
  • GAHI   IA      ID      IL
  • IN   KSKYLA   MA
  • MDME   MIMNMO
  • MSMTNC  ND  NE
  • NHNJNMNVNY
  • OHOKORPARI
  • SCSDTNTXUT
  • VAVTWAWIWY

-

From roots of lilt and punk


Jon Pareles

If clothes made the man, Elvis Costello's tuxedo would have turned him into a suavely heartsick pop balladeer when he and Burt Bacharach started their tour together at Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday night. A small orchestra accompanied them as they performed the new songs they wrote together for the album Painted From Memory (Mercury) along with medleys of Mr. Bacharach's hits and new orchestral arrangements of Costello songs like "Accidents Will Happen" and "Alison."

Twenty years ago it might have been been hard to imagine Mr. Costello alongside Mr. Bacharach, a Hollywood hit-maker who placed lilting songs on the pop charts throughout the rock revolutions of the 1960's. Yet while Mr. Costello emerged during the late-1970's heyday of punk, he soon proved to be a pop scholar, delving into genres from pop to country to soul, savoring craftsmanship no matter how the music was packaged.

Mr. Costello is a longtime Bacharach fan. He acknowledged his debts by performing a song he wrote in 1978, "Just a Memory," a virtual hommage to the songs Mr. Bacharach wrote with the lyricist Hal David. The new songs, with lyrics by Mr. Costello and music by both Mr. Costello and Mr. Bacharach, show what Mr. Costello prized most. He ignored the cheerful or uplifting Bacharach who wrote songs like "What the World Needs Now" and "What's New, Pussycat?" and zeroed in on Mr. David's most desolate lyrics and Mr. Bacharach's most oblique melodies. "This House Is Empty Now," one of the best Costello-Bacharach collaborations, can't help alluding to the Bacharach-David song "A House Is Not a Home."

Concealed in the gentle catchiness of Mr. Bacharach's songs are strange melodic leaps and shifty, asymmetrical phrasing out of jazz and early 20th-century classical music. Phrases start out at one speed and suddenly skip through a flurry of syllables or jump nearly an octave. Dionne Warwick, Bacharach's finest interpreter, managed to make the tunes seem nonchalant, but that was a deception made possible by superb technique. Mr. Costello, whose baritone is capable of a husky croon, had to strain to make it through some of the cantilevered melodies of the new songs, and his concentration on hitting the notes made it hard for him to convey feeling as well.

Another problem was the perennial shortcoming of Mr. Bacharach's music: its easy-listening arrangements. With ticking drums and glassy-eyed phrases from saxophone or fluegelhorn, Mr. Bacharach's orchestrations muffle emotion like a layer of shag carpeting. Unlike, for instance, the lush, pristine orchestrations Gordon Jenkins wrote for Frank Sinatra, Mr. Bacharach's arrangements seem oblivious to the singer's pain; they offer Valium instead of a shoulder to cry on. Johnny Mandel's more yielding arrangement of "Painted From Memory" had the breathing room that Mr. Bacharach's arrangements lacked.

In a concert meant to show off new songs, the most moving performance was of an old one: Mr. Costello's "Almost Blue," played as a simple duet with Steve Naive on piano. Yet the Costello-Bacharach songs are smart and intricate and deserve some patience. At Radio City, Mr. Costello was sometimes able to move from studied recitations to touching ones, as he did in "What's Her Name Today?" (an accusation aimed at a lady-killer) and "I Still Have That Other Girl," about a lover on the rebound. They're not easy songs, technically or emotionally, and as the tour continues, Mr. Costello may grow into more of them.

-
<< >>

New York Times, October 15, 1998


Jon Pareles reviews Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach and Steve Nieve, Tuesday, October 13, 1998, Radio City Music Hall, New York.

Images

1998-10-15 New York Times page E5 clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.


Photo by James Estrin.
1998-10-15 New York Times photo 01 je.jpg


Page scan.
1998-10-15 New York Times page E5.jpg


-



Back to top

External links