In late August, in the last Wednesday of the summer
programming schedule at Chautauqua Institution, temperatures plunged, making the atmosphere feel more like
mid-autumn than late summer. I hope that had something to do with why so many
seats at the performance by Veronica Swift were open in the Amphitheater in this Victorian-era National Historic
Landmark—and why so many more seats opened up as the show proceeded.
I can’t think of any other reason why so many
wouldn’t have sat—even leaped to their feet to applaud—through the set by Ms.
Swift, one of the most commanding and compelling jazz vocalists of her
generation.
“You’re Gonna Hear From Me,” the title tune of her
upcoming CD, could also represent her promise not just to Chautauquans but also
the wider jazz community. If there could be any reason why her skill did not
leave more listeners that night embracing her enthusiastically, it might have
been because she exudes confidence without inspiring rapture in return.
Almost exactly a year ago, Ms. Swift had scored
something of a triumph on this same stage with a well-received performance with
trumpeter Chris Botti. Accompanied by the Benny Green Trio, Ms. Swift had
additional reason to believe that this August night a year later also belonged
to her. The band’s leader, a veteran pianist, is a family friend who played
with her late father 30 years ago, and has told San Diego Mercury News that she is “the greatest straight-ahead jazz talent I’ve
seen emerge this century.”
Green, drummer Rodney Green and bassist David Wong
demonstrated their decided beebop affinity with a few songs by themselves,
including Hank Jones “Minor Conception.” But when Ms. Swift was onstage, she
seemed to take particular comfort in Wong’s work, stretching and wrapping her
vocals around his chords like a lazy cat.
The morning after the show, a middle-aged North
Carolina woman, a fellow visitor at the inn where I was staying, tried to
express her feelings about the performance: “I thought she was good but not
great. I say this as someone who likes jazz. But there was just something
missing. Not that she wasn’t good, but she didn’t have much stage presence.”
Below-average weather in an outdoor venue can cause
audiences to react without warmth. I’m sure that performers, with their sense
of listeners’ moods, can experience a consequent letdown, too.
If Ms. Swift did, she displayed no visible signs of
it, I thought, even as it became obvious that many audience members were
heading for the exits. She plugged
gamely on through her hour-and-15-minute set.
This was not the first time I had seen Chautauquans
leave the amphitheater early. In fact, I had done so myself five years ago,
when the combination of extra heat and humidity, along with leftover anxiety
from a stressful afternoon incident, led me to step out on the Chautauqua
Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Benjamin Britten’s unrelentingly grim
opera, Peter Grimes. But I had waited
till intermission before I left so as not to disturb the performers. The exits
at the Swift concert were surely visible from the stage.
Well, as far as I was concerned, this was the
listeners’ loss. They missed a singer who, while clearly influenced by jazz
legends, showed her own distinct promise.
When Ms. Swift first walked onto the stage, her
phrasing and delivery smacked of Peggy Lee. But midway through her opening number.,
Cole Porter’s “I Get A Kick Out of You,” her vocalese colorings seemed more
reminiscent of another female aficionado of the Great American Songbook, Ella
Fitzgerald.
She then segued through a song (Mel Torme’s
melancholy “Stranger in Town”) and medley (“I Don’t Want to Cry Anymore,” the
Bobby Timmons-Oscar Brown Jr. chestnut “Dat Dere,” and Jimmy Van Heusen and
Eddie DeLange’s “Darn That Dream”) on the concept of tomorrow.
She then offered a popular tour d’horizon ranging from the Twenties and Thirties (“Pennies
From Heaven”), through beebop, and touching down on the modern Broadway musical
with Thoroughly Modern Milly.
In trying to establish a connection with the cool
audience, Ms. Swift offered, in short between-songs patter, biographical
tidbits about her father, a 1980s jazz pianist; her childhood on a farm in
Charlottesville, Va.; her college days at the University of Miami; and her
current residence in New York.
In the Big Apple, Ms. Swift has become something of
a regular at the legendary club Birdland. She will appear there again Nov.
20-24. I intend to seek her out there, where the audience and intimate ambiance
are likely to be more favorable than they were at Chautauqua.
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