PREVIEW: FREDDY COLE

National Theater

June 12

A seasoned performer with worldwide appeal.

Jazz singer and pianist Freddy Cole is a proʼs pro, a natural performer who got his start in the business early – very early. As the younger brother of Nat “King” Cole, he grew up in a household where Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Billy Eckstine were regular visitors. He began playing in Chicago clubs as a teenager, then got formal musical training at Juilliard and the New England Conservatory of Music before settling in as a regular on the New York nightclub circuit and launching an international touring career. At 80, Freddy hasnʼt slowed down a bit; he was in Poland last month, will be going to London after his Prague gig, and has other dates scheduled in Germany, Switzerland, Russia and Chile this year. His enduring popularity reflects the wide appeal of his music, a smart, sophisticated treatment of the American songbook presented with style and an engaging stage presence. Prior to coming to Prague, Freddy talked about his work and career in a phone conversation from his home in Atlanta.

In 2010 you released Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B, a tribute to Billy Eckstine. What was your relationship with him?

I sort of grew up with him. He was very good friends with my brothers, so consequently in time he and I became very good friends. I canʼt tell you how many years I knew him, but it was a long time.

What did you learn from him?

Where should I begin? Just watching him, you could pick up different little things – nuances with your hands, how he approached the music. He was a very classy man.

Did the CD accomplish what you had hoped?

Well, you can never do enough with a person like that, he was such a giant in the business. We looked at a lot of his songs, and found that we were just scratching the surface. There is a lot of whatʼs called the American songbook played on the radio now, but you very seldom hear Billy Eckstine. It puzzles me. But when you start to play his music, it brings back memories for so many people.

Youʼve been playing abroad for a long time. Do you find yourself introducing new material to foreign audiences, or are they already familiar with a lot of it?

Itʼs a little of both. Mostly, what I try to do is play something that they know. Thereʼs no sense in me coming over there to play some avant-garde stuff that has people sitting there scratching their heads. I try to play something that they know within the realm of what I do.

You could have retired a long time ago. What keeps you on the road?

The music. The music keeps me going. As long as Iʼve got the strength, and I can do it, Iʼll continue to do so.

After all these years, how do you keep your sound fresh?

Iʼm always listening to music, and Iʼm always adding stuff, doing something different here and there. You never can tell – I might like the chord structure in one song, or the lyrics in another. Thatʼs the beauty of jazz, you donʼt have to play it the same way all the time.

What can we expect to hear at your Prague concert?

Weʼll be doing several things from the newest album, Talk to Me, and some other things – you can never tell. Our repertoire stretches from Broadway to the blues.

Do you work from a set list?

No, I really donʼt, because to me it kind of gets in the way. If the music is not going over, why continue to do the same thing? Switch up and do something else. It keeps people guessing, keeps them on the edge of their seats. You canʼt do that with a set list.

When you played Prague Spring in 2008, you were at Lucerna Music Bar, a rock ʼnʼ roll club. How do you feel about going from there to the most prestigious stage in the country, at the National Theater?

Iʼll be very, very happy to play there, just like I was happy enough to play in the juke joint. You know, Iʼm a saloon singer. As long as Iʼm singing, the world is all right and everything is swinging.

And what do you hope the audience gets from your performance?

Joy and happiness. Keep hope alive, keep jazz alive.

For a video clip and ticket information: http://www.narodni-divadlo.cz/Default.aspx?jz=en&dk=predstaveni.aspx&sb=4&ic=5832&pr=91371

Photo by Clay Walker

ELIAHU INBAL FINALE

Rudolfinum

June 8

Smiles all around after an unforgettable Kaddish.

Eliahu Inbal finished his tenure with the Czech Philharmonic in dramatic fashion on Friday night, conducting a thundering performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish symphony. With a large orchestra, two choirs and a soprano soloist providing explosive accompaniment for a riveting narrative by Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar, it was a night for the ages.

The evening started on a calmer note with a deft rendering of Ravel’s Scheherazade song cycle. Full-bodied yet beautifully transparent, the piece was an engaging showcase for singer Pavla Vykopalová, with Inbal layering subtle shadings and warm tones to complement her dusky soprano. A regular on the National Theater and State opera stages, Vykopalová has a rich, round voice with no sharp edges, even in the upper registers, that drew generous applause from the musicians as well.

Vykopalová was also the beneficiary of a perfect balance that Inbal struck between the singer and the orchestra; not once was her voice overwhelmed by the music. That’s difficult to achieve, and a reminder of Inbal’s high professional standards and skills. Watching him some nights over the past few years has been like attending a clinic in how to conduct a symphony orchestra.

Bernstein’s Kaddish is an overwhelming piece on every level, and deliberately so. Conceived as a traditional Jewish prayer set to “expressionistic and Schoenbergian” music, as Bernstein described it, the work immediately took on profound overtones when it was finished in 1963, in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The narrator not only prays and mourns but inveighs against God, demanding to know how He can allow suffering and persecution in the world. Pisar came to the piece after Bernstein’s death – though with the composer’s encouragement – writing a new, updated “Dialogue with God” that recounts his experiences in Auschwitz in horrifying detail.

The symphony opens with minimalist background music for the narrator, but quickly roars into a full maelstrom during the narrative breaks, with atonal horns and swooning strings underpinned by as many as eight percussionists at a time. A full mixed choir adds searing, apocalyptic vocals that washed down from the empora like acid rain. In the later passages, as the rage and terror die down, a solo soprano and children’s choir provide moments of solace. But the overall effect of the piece is like being slammed by a tidal wave, with the orchestra seemingly on the verge of tearing itself apart at times.

Inbal knit all this together with superb control, punctuating lines like “Never again!” with outbursts of volcanic intensity, then taking the sound down to fine gradations – murmurs from the choir, metronomic tapping from a single percussion instrument. The fireworks were spectacular, the quiet moments somber and contemplative, and the interplay between the narrator and the music finely honed. Inbal never serves up anything less than a sharp performance, but to achieve that with literally hundreds of performers on and offstage (the Kühn Children’s Choir had to sing from a balcony in the audience) was a particularly impressive feat.

One could argue that the Kaddish is not a symphony at all, but a series of sound effects that underscore and amplify a sustained lament, with comparatively little music at the core. And Pisar’s contemporary references to Iran and Islamic jihad were a bit confusing in a 50-year old piece. But there was no denying the power of the work in Inbal’s hands. And the Czech Philharmonic provided him with A-list support in Vykopalová, the Kühn Children’s Choir and the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno.

Like so many concerts in Prague, this one ended with a standing ovation. That particular response has never made sense to this critic – if every concert is superlative, then none is superlative. But in this case, it was well-deserved, not just for Friday’s concert, but for the fine job that Inbal did under often difficult circumstances the past three years. As a satisfying finish to a turbulent time, it was a note-perfect performance.

For more on Eliahu Inbal: http://www.karstenwitt.com/en/artist/eliahu_inbal/biography/

Photo courtesy of the Czech Philharmonic