[Dixielandjazz] Michael Buble

[Steve barbone]

A new American Songbook interpreter? He seems to have a pretty neat audience
per the first paragraph; He "drew the kind of sexy, upscale audience most
rock stars only dream about: "hordes of beautiful, adoring, expensively
accessorized young women and their dates."

Yeah, now isn't that what music is all about?. No? Hmmm, maybe we aren't
doing it right. :-) VBG

Perhaps the key is the opening sentence of paragraph 4 stating; "What Mr.
Bublé does with complete assurance is swing." (in the broad sense, no doubt)

Cheers,
Steve


A Singer With Plenty of Swing and No Shortage of Cheek

NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - March 6, 2006

A swinging clown who playfully sabotages the conventional image of a lounge
singer as a graceful, silver-tongued smoothie, Michael Bublé brought his
affectionate subversion of the Sinatra archetype to Radio City Music Hall on
Saturday evening. The 30-year-old Canadian singer drew the kind of sexy,
upscale audience most rock stars only dream about: hordes of beautiful,
adoring, expensively accessorized young women and their dates. The singer
went out of his way to thank the men for showing up and promised obliquely
but with a leer that he would put air in their tires so they could "go home
and ride those bikes."

Only three years ago, Mr. Bublé made his New York debut at the Blue Note,
where he revealed himself as an entertainer completely at home on the stage.
If his subsequent success has changed him, it has only made him cheekier and
funnier. Referring to a newspaper review in which the critic praised him for
singing like a bird, he remarked that it made him afraid Dick Cheney might
mistake him for one. In "Zoolander" fashion, he parodied a model, sucking in
his cheeks and slouching down an imaginary runway to a disco beat. Later on
he boogied with a group of Rockettes.

If Mr. Bublé roughly follows the Sinatra archetype, that primary influence
is less pronounced than the influences of those of two chips off the old
block, Bobby Darin and Harry Connick Jr. For Mr. Bublé never dives into the
noirish depths Sinatra plumbed with such profound intensity. Like Darin and
Mr. Connick, he ventures to the brink and wets his toes, but refuses to take
the plunge. 

What Mr. Bublé does with complete assurance is swing. His voice is strong,
flexible and raw (with a hint of a singing Vin Diesel in its texture), and
his rhythmic drive ferocious. The harder and wilder his band of eight horns
with keyboard and rhythm section plays, the more he becomes carried away by
the momentum, never losing his footing.

The rock-style amplification on Saturday blurred the distinctions between
swing, rock and soul to demonstrate the role technology plays in musical
categorization. If it's loud enough, whatever it is, it becomes rock.

That breaking down of distinctions is what Mr. Bublé also did in his choice
of songs, popularized by Dean Martin ("Sway"), Otis Redding ("Try a Little
Tenderness), Nat (King) Cole ("Smile"), Frank Sinatra ("Come Fly With Me,"
"I've Got You Under My Skin"), Ray Charles ("You Don't Know Me"), Johnny
Cash ("Ring of Fire"), Van Morrison ("Moondance") and Leon Russell ("A Song
for You"). 

Were any of his interpretations definitive? No. But all were carried off
with a forceful, charismatic confidence. Although the temptation may have
been great, Mr. Bublé never tried to imitate anyone else. He remained his
own man, laying down his revised modern version of the great American
songbook.