by Gabriel Furtado
Storm Large with Pink Martini
Portland-based Pink Martini put out a 2010 holiday album that I found at Starbucks, and mistook for another banal lounge album sold at the counter. Luckily, I had a second chance for first impressions last Wednesday night (12/14) at their holiday concert at Town Hall. The affair was so well-crafted that I had to swallow my music snobbery and admit to being a Christmas Grinch.
Apart from the top-notch musicianship of this little orchestra –they have 12 members and tour with a string section– and the affable stage presence of band leader Thomas Lauderdale, the group conveys a certain something I thought to have disappeared with piano bars, cabarets and smoking indoors. Featuring guest vocalist Storm Large at center stage (singer China Forbes is recovering from throat surgery), Pink Martini navigated an immense breadth of repertoire without holiday kitsch: Swing without a whiff of '90s Gap commercials, torch song not in imitation of Judy Garland, devotionals minus the plastic tact of PC, and, of course, their knack for a multilingual set list including Chinese, Ladino, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.
Large and Lauderdale
Large, of whom I had doubts of believability –her previous incarnation was a rocker along the lines of Filter– exceeded expectations as a sultry chanteuse. She did, however, play up the attitude with an open-back dress, displaying two large tattoos, prompting murmurs from more straight-laced patrons. Large only fell short once, during Verdi's "La Vergine degli Angeli," in which her technique could not support her choice of Bel-Canto interpretation.
A long list of guests joined the band including Saori Yuki, Joey Arias, and NPR White House correspondent Ari Shapiro, among others. (Side note: Pink Martini's frequent performances at political events are the only explanation for the amount of NY politicos in the crowd that night. The patron seated to my left, privy to the fact, mistook the smooth-headed percussionist Timothy Nishimoto for James Carville).
The evening's highlight was first song of the encore. Lauderdale played "Claire de Lune," accompanying master puppeteer Basil Twist as he breathed life into his marionette. As the last chord decayed to nothing, the beauty left the hall suspended in momentary silence, only broken as the audience stood up for a whole-hearted ovation.