Kurt Weill remains massively influential on jazz musicians among many others. In relatively recent years for instance the German pianist Julia Hülsmann with Theo Bleckmann, a singer whose style somehow beyond experimentation sits comfortably with this new release, delivered a fantastic treatment of Weill inspired material entitled A Clear Midnight – Kurt Weill and America.
Rufus Wainwright pairs with an empathetic west coast of America jazz orchestra here stocked with live atmosphere. Pop culture icon Wainwright himself influences all sorts of jazzers it’s worth remembering – I loved for instance English jazz singer Claire Martin’s noir laden interpretation of his song ‘The Art Teacher‘ issued last year. Linley Hamilton’s version of ‘Dinner at 8’ from the trumpeter’s In Transition album also worked very well over a decade ago.
German-American composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950), a George Orwell of the theatre perhaps, knew that the personal is political. Some songs like oil protest song ‘Die Muschel von Margate’ remain remarkably topical given all our massive environmental concerns and the rampant vandalism and exploitation of the planet by fossil fuel companies that so enraged dissentient voices at COP 30 just this week.
Wainwright throws himself into Weill’s world completely persuasively. The orchestral accompaniment isn’t over the top – it’s a throwback but doesn’t indulge in jazz age sentimentality at all. I personally get jaded by Great Gatsby type “palm court” albums like Bryan Ferry’s Yellow Cocktail Music although certainly good in parts. Weill is more street and sarcastic. Agreeably so. The satire has a different edge, suspicious of glitz or putting on the Ritz. Wainwright does not take liberties with the spirit of it all. He releases the genie in the bottle.
Wainwright started doing this project live a few years ago at New York’s Café Carlyle.
He is influenced by the soprano Teresa Stratas’ Weill 1980s era album Stratas Sings Weill a singer who herself was influenced by Lotte Lenya, Weill’s great muse and Jenny in the original 1928 Berlin production of The Threepenny Opera.
Jenny and her saga
Prove that you are gaga
If you don’t keep sitting on the fence
Wainwright’s take on ‘The Saga of Jenny’ is one of the tracks I liked most as well as the Margate song plus the perky tango ‘Youkali’ and right at the end the splicing together of ‘My Ship’ and ‘Speak Low.’
I love the live version of ‘It Never Was You,’ a song I know mostly from Norma Winstone‘s Manhattan in the Rain version from the late-1990s that contains an intimate piano accompaniment beautifully played by Steve Gray.
Fear not jazz fan what’s here isn’t brash or ludicrously showbiz. What is and isn’t jazz can keep for another time. And where vocals are concerned and the exponential possibilities of the wrapping in the arranging for them anything, correctly, goes. But to my ears Weill is core to a jazz sensibility and Wainwright fits right in.
Alive with engagement, a love for the songs clearly it’s a Wainwright win. Guests include Viola Odette Harlow who is wonderful on Threepenny Opera tango ballad ‘Zuhälterballade.’
The Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest figure on ‘Lost in the Stars’ covered incidentally very intimately by Kurt Elling and Branford Marsalis pianist Joey Calderazzo on Wild Flowers issued just last year. It’s a body of work that’s the gift that keeps on giving.
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