[Dixielandjazz] Aaron Weinstein at the Metropolitan Room

[Stephen G Barbone]

For those who don't know about him, Aaron Weinstein will soon be 26  
years old. Nice to see the American Songbook being played by the young  
and appreciated by an upscale audience.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


Making Standards Swing, With a Wink for Jack Benny

NY TIMES - April 24, 2011 - By STEPHEN HOLDEN


The up-and-coming jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein has two secret  
weapons. One is a mandolin that he brings out in the middle of a set  
to change the mood and on which he plays meticulously sculptured  
arrangements with a sweet plinkety-plink verve. The other is a deadpan  
sense of humor that he sneaks into his patter. At the Metropolitan  
Room on Wednesday evening Mr. Weinstein introduced his show, “Have  
Strings, Will Swing,” by describing the intimidating piece he wasn’t  
going to perform: a six-movement, 52-minute work inspired by James  
Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

Instead Mr. Weinstein, joined by the pianist Tedd Firth and the  
bassist Tom Hubbard, played a medley of three Irving Berlin tunes:  
“Cheek to Cheek,” “Slumming on Park Avenue” and “Russian Lullaby.”

Other pieces in the set, devoted entirely to standards, included  
medleys by Frank Loesser (“If I Were a Bell,” “Moments Like This”) and  
George Gershwin (“Someone to Watch Over Me,” “They All Laughed,”  
“Somebody Loves Me”). “Love in Bloom” was offered as a witty parody of  
the Jack Benny theme song that Benny (whose name he didn’t mention)  
comically flubbed.

To introduce “A Sleepin’ Bee,” the Harold Arlen song with lyrics by  
Truman Capote, Mr. Weinstein read a description of a character in  
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” as someone who was as “out of place as a  
violinist in a jazz band.”

“If Truman were around today,” Mr. Weinstein remarked dryly, “we’d  
have a talk.”

Mr. Weinstein’s playing asserts a sharp division between classical and  
jazz violin. Instead of hitting notes, he dances around them in a  
continuous, lightly dissonant musical shadow play that teases you with  
the possibility of a resolution after all the ducking and feinting.  
The object of the dance is to maintain a swinging perpetual motion in  
which the music is paradoxically off center and tightly disciplined.  
The lines between a vibrato and a trill are often blurred.

The coordination between Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Firth was so smooth  
that the violin and piano exchanged long, skipping melodic lines that  
suggested two musicians in a side-by-side sprint. The concert allowed  
Mr. Firth, the cabaret accompanist du jour, to cut loose and make a  
dash for it.

Having displayed his technical bravura in the first two-thirds of the  
show, Mr. Weinstein retreated with the Gershwin songs into a simpler,  
more emotionally expressive mode. He is not really a descendant of  
Jack Benny, but of Woody Allen, with serious musical talent.

Aaron Weinstein performs on Tuesday and on May 11 and 23 at the  
Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Manhattan; (212) 206-0440,  
metropolitanroom.com