Irish Timeswriters review a selection of events from around the country
James Taylor
The 02, Dublin
SEÁN FLYNN
Four decades after his laid-back folk inhabited every bedsit, James Taylor enjoys an elevated status, revered as one of America’s finest songwriters.
The O2 was close to capacity but Taylor's honeyed voice and easy manner created its own intimacy. Taylor used much of the set to showcase songs from last year's Coversalbum. In truth, some work better than others. Sea Cruisewas lively and good fun. Taylor was comfortable with Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'and, especially, on Wichita Linesman. But there is nothing here to match Glen Campbell's peerless original.
What lifted the whole evening was Taylor’s gift for storytelling. He established a wonderful rapport with his audience – sometimes the introductions were longer than the songs themselves.
The highlights came when he abandoned those covers and returned to his own songbook. He dedicated Carolina in My Mindto his mother, who was in the audience. On Shower the People, Taylor's sweet baritone merged with the gospel sound of long-time collaborator Arnold McCuller to create something magical. There were other highlights: Walking Man, a respectful version of Carole King's You've Got a Friendand a rousing How Sweet It Is.
It all made for an arresting evening in the company of our genial host.
Chanticleer,
St Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway
MICHAEL DUNGAN
This was the Irish debut of Chanticleer, the world-renowned all-male chamber choir formed in San Francisco in 1971.
Their 12 voices include three each of basses, tenors, altos and – almost unheard of here – male sopranos. They perform virtually from memory and without conductor.
The formality of their ties and tails contrasts with the relaxed and individual nature of their very physical responses to the outstanding music. The quality of their voices was immediately evident in the unanimity of tone, vowel-sound and phrasing in their opening piece. It was in unison and sounded like a single line sung by 12 identical copies of the one voice. What then impresses is how that 12-voice unison divides into four, six, eight or more harmonic lines, spreads over four octaves, and yet still maintains that solidarity of colour and quality. The only break came in the occasional use of tremolo in the sopranos which, since it happened in some pieces but not others, was presumably a matter of artistic choice.
Their programme celebrated 250 years of American song.
Within a wide range of styles they switched effortlessly from a nasal, southern delivery in the Independence-era David's Lamentationby William Billings, to razor-edged dissonances and crystal-clear bi-tonality in The Homecoming, a homage to Martin Luther King by David Conte. They used vocal percussion and Mohican text in Night Chantby American Indian composer Brent Michael Davids, and even in the PDQ Bach spoof English madrigal My bonnie lass, she smelleththeir phrasing and Elizabethan style were immaculate.
By concert’s end nearly each of the 12 had given a solo, each time unleashing a top-class individual voice from the collective sound and spectacularly refuting the idiotic educational notion in this country that soloists shouldn’t sing in choirs.
