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Live Review
by SaschaS
17-7-2003
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| Boz Scaggs: the singer of any style... |
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Live: Boz Scaggs
Jazz Café, London
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Boz Scaggs: All evergreen models
There is something fundamentally wrong in the showbiz galaxy and it is the extreme case of – ageism. Just about the time when one’s grow-genes completed functioning, an artist is supposed to have reached its consume-by date. Wrong, ‘Pop Cloneria’ slave-drivers; if you look at bluesmen, the older they get the better they are but the ever-renewable public of popular tunes is prevented from such experiences due to the industry’s flooding markets with new faces aimed at the ‘next’ Gen-X. Nu-expolitees are allowed to cover songs and thus translate them for the present shoppers but promoting the original artists is a no-go-area.
That’s been the case of Boz Scaggs, an American singer-songwriter who’s worked within so many genres that amount to more than the age of many a popster. For nearly four decades the Ohio born man’s been on a musical journey that was focused on cultivating a talent and music loving rather than charts. Although he’s not looks-deficient, no image has helped to a materially comfortable career. Still, the love affair continues in spite of, for instance, only having scored two Top 10 hits in the UK (‘What Can I Say’, #10 and ‘Lido Shuffle’, #13) during the punk-designated era of the 1970s …
The 59-year-old sonic journeyman is currently exploring the realm of jazz and his current album, ‘But Beautiful’ is full of gems that makes its subtitle ‘Standards: Volume 1’ purely true. And that’s what they are, class songs from an era where singer were interpreters and composers couldn’t sing for a cuppa. A childhood’s echo? Music attracted William Boyce Scaggs during school days of the 1950’s petering out and, with his classroom pal Steve Miller (with whom he’d reunite for two Steve Miller Band albums in 1967 and ’68) he embarked on a lone voyage. Solo ever since, his greatest US successes were ‘Lowdown’ (single), it reached #3 in June ’76, and ‘Silk Degrees’ (LP) that stalled at a runner-up position three months earlier.
Backed by four instrumentalists – sounding every bit a big band, when needed – and a backing/co-songstress, Scaggs simply glides through the night with ease, grace, mastery and a rich, velvety voice to smooth any problems you may be living. ‘Never Let Me Go’, ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’, (what we all want) ‘Easy Living’ and the perfect description of men’s knowledge of women, ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’. Players drop to subtleness for the moments when drumming brushes are required or minimal accompaniment due; but that saxophone, it weaved its tonal wand until it divined a hole-in-da-soul!
Scaggs is simply perched on a stool, stage-centre, occasionally playing guitar and leading us into a land when men were ‘mensh’, women were simply ‘broads’, and quality songs where the norm in the dives. However, there is no room for nostalgia as this sounds ageless, outta time, this is a model evergreen. Scaggs and co. don’t simply perform the new album but dig deep into his past to spice up the set-list with a choice blues tunes, some white-soul, swing, adult-rocking and songs to move even the chattering and spirit-full supporters.
This is what pop music used to be like: varied, passionate, affecting, played with elegance that’s been outcast for far too many decades. Boz Scaggs’s performance tonight has knocked down even a reformed punker, the mid-‘70s vintage. That good.
SaschaS
17-7-2003
Boz Scaggs’s album ‘But Beautiful’ is available now on Gray Cat
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