Polygon Portal - Review

Polygon Portal, London

Recently opened in the heart of Soho sits a stunning musical experience. Polygon Portal is not just a music room, but rather one that has been fitted out with a 360° spatial audio sound system that has to be heard to be believed.

Simply put, this is listening to music via a sound system that most of us can only dream of possessing.

Having negotiated rights with a number of record labels to commercially play albums that have been drawn from a wide range of artistes, the venue invites their guests into the room to experience the recording in acoustically exquisite surroundings. Several tiers of comfortable seating (choose the Togo loungers if available) allow one to relax, unwind, and, in the soft dimmed light, become immersed in the music. The experience is the antithesis of the AirPod generation, where music is piped into our skulls via miniscule speakers. The system at Polygon Portal is formed around 100(!) speakers, each delivering the recorded music from 47 points around the room.

On the night of this review the selected artist was Billy Joel, with two of Joel's albums from the 1980s (Glass Houses followed by An Innocent Man) played back to back. The choice of music is, of course, entirely subjective and a matter of taste. At Polygon Portal, even when knowing an album “inside out”, the joy comes from hearing it played back at such a phenomenal level of fidelity. Equally, should one wish to explore an unfamiliar artist or album, then the venue offers a fabulous envireonment in which to make that discovery.

I rarely take an alcoholic beverage with me into a performance. This was different. Unwinding on a Togo, a single-malt (double-measure) close at hand and listening to a handful of my favourite tunes, the evening was simply blissful.

https://polygon-productions.live/portal/

Billy Joel at Wembley Stadium - Review

*****

Billy Joel at Wembley Stadium 

Billy Joel opened his Wembley Stadium concert at the weekend, announcing to what was indeed a pretty good crowd for a Saturday, that "there's no new stuff here, it's just the old shit". And of course the crowd that had shuffled in wanted no more than just that – for Joel, the ultimate Piano Man, to play them a memory. 

In what his now his fifth decade on the road, Joel ever the consummate entertainer, duly delivered dipping into his remarkable catalogue for a non-stop set that lasted two and a half hours. He may be a white-haired 67 but that voice is timeless. Close your eyes and he could oh so easily have been wearing a younger man's clothes.

The last two years have seen Joel take up the first residency at New York's legendary Madison Square Garden and this brief trip across the Atlantic (he was in London for one night only) is an extension of that season. And there is something so incredibly appropriate about a man so infused with the spirit of New York, making “The Garden” his performing home. Joel hasn't sold out long term with a ticket to the West Coast or Vegas - what you see (and hear!) with him is what you get. 

A singer songwriter and as much musician as vocalist, Joel's keyboard skills are unsurpassed in the rock world. Opening the set with Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway) the crowd were fired up for Prelude / Angry Young Man which remains breathtaking in its audacious piano intro. Video montages of upright piano keyboards offered an alternative interpretation of a skyscraper skyline.

Billy Joel at Wembley Stadium 

The classics were (mostly) all there, Joel occasionally offering the crowd a Fielder's Choice of two songs, allowing them to roar their desire for the song they wanted to hear the most. All the choices were gems, though greedy fans could not help but feel wistful for treats such as Summer, Highland Falls that failed to make the cut - though in that particular instance Vienna, the chosen song, was of course exquisite. 

Inevitably, the evening was more than just a whirl through Joel's hits. A passing gravelly voiced snatch of A Little Help From My Friends made for a brief tribute to Joe Cocker, whilst with the gig falling on the same evening as the Last Night Of The Proms, Joel couldn't resist a little post-Brexit fun, leading the audience into a rousing Rule Britannia - though staying neutral, he next rattled off the EU anthem aka Beethoven's Ode To Joy.

Joel's hallmark is commenting on the human condition, be it global or individual, consistently setting his perceptive wit to sensational melodies. The lyrical vista that is the anti-love song canvas of Scenes From An Italian Restaurant (accompanied by an exquisite video projection of hand sketched views of Manhattan's Empire State Building as seen from the island's Little Italy) offered, as always, the most honestly painful dissection of a relationship. Elsewhere, We Didn't Start The Fire (again, with sensational graphics referencing each of the song's lyric) nailed post War global history: political, social and musical, in under five minutes

And when, as a Fielder's Choice, Joel sang Leningrad (a comparatively much more recent song, so not often heard on tour), the personal nuance that he gave to its live performance made the number surely one of the most movingly eloquent commentaries upon the Cold War. Likewise Joel's Allentown, again with a clever video montage, has to rank as a noble elegy to America's Rust Belt, penned with as much love as profound perception, touching on the Pennsylvanian city’s industrial decline, set against the Vietnam War.

Joel took two brief pauses through the evening that not only offered him moments of deserved vocal respite, they also showed the breadth of love for music espoused by his band and crew. First up was Ricky "Chainsaw" Lapointe one of Joel's backstage guitar technicians who simply stormed his way through a sensational take on AC/DC's Highway to Hell. Later on and at the other end of the musical spectrum, Mike DelGuidice who up until then had supplied backing vocals and guitar, stepped up to the mike and with Joel accompanying on piano, offered an unexpectedly spine-tingling Nessun Dorma.

Mike DelGuidice at Wembley Stadium

To be fair, all of Joel's band were at the top of their game with memorable soloists including the multi-talented Crystal Taliefero, who with Mark Rivera wowed on saxophone. Carl Fischer blazed on brass alongside Tommy Byrnes and Andy Cichon on guitar and bass, while Chuck Burgi was a powerhouse on drums and all under Dave Rosenthal's assured musical direction. 

As the show built towards its climax, Joel donned his headset harmonica, signaling Piano Man’s intro, with the audience duly invited to sing along to one of the greatest ballads penned. After the first of his goodbyes, Joel’s return to the stage saw Uptown Girl kicking off an upbeat 4-number encore set of rock n roll “old shit” that had the crowd on their feet throughout. 

As ever – a first class, flawless gig hallmarked by Joel’s unpretentious excellence. 

Come back to London soon Billy and to kinda quote from Only The Good Die Young - Don’t make us wait!

Billy Joel at Wembley Stadium 

All images reproduced with the kind permission of Billy Joel

Michael Armstrong - The Album - Review

****

In a music business that can too often be driven by corporates, manufactured clones or finely choreographed campaigns, it is easy to become disillusioned. But for those living in the hope of finding honest music from real musicians, there is much to be celebrated in Michael Armstrong.

A true music fan, Armstrong devours the work of his idols – Paul McCartney, Steely Dan, Billy Joel and more – living and breathing every note, chord progression and lyric from the greats and it shows. His debut album, two years in the making, has been built upon a gift for storytelling, that works both lyrically and musically.

If nothing else, the names featured on the liner notes speak volumes. Alongside Armstrong, Keith Bessey whose credits include Elton John, 10cc and The Ramones co-produces, whilst guitarist Elliott Randall (Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers) features on three tracks, including the superb The Cola Paranoia. Lead singer of The Hollies, Peter Howarth, lends his vocals to Armstrong’s debut single, The Radio Years – a recording that has deservedly garnered much support from BBC Radio 2 airplay. That the album was recorded in The Beatles' hometown of Liverpool is a source of much spiritual and artistic pride to Armstrong.

Armstrong is a talented writer and musician, displaying both depth and character. Vocally he offers a passing similarity to Jon Bon Jovi and even when he’s not singing, his arrangements are a delight, notably a gloriously slowed down cover of Billy Joel’s Allentown.

While the whole record has clearly been put together in a considered way – the two year process shows and is appreciated – there are particular highlights including Innocence Of Men and a forthcoming single The Contented Man (These Halcyon Days).

Packed with catchy melodies, harmonies and rousing choruses, the album is but built upon stories of substance. One can empathise with the Armstrong's characters whilst his lyrics tell of real and relatable issues. Like the musical greats he has learned from, Michael Armstrong has created a truly memorable album. 

For more information visit http://www.michaelarmstrongmusic.co.uk/ 

The Radio Years is available to download now from iTunes and Amazon. 

Michael Armstrong The Album is due for release on 29 June

Guest reviewer: Bhakti Gajjar

John G Smith Trio - Review

***

John G Smith

The John G Smith Trio are a relatively new addition (albeit comprised of some fabulously experienced talent) to London’s jazz and cabaret circuit and it was a full Crazy Coqs that welcomed their debut late night gig.

With Smith on piano and occasional vocals. James Graydon on guitar and singing too and Zoltan Dekany on acoustic bass, the evening was billed as a humorous rediscovery of songs by Billy Joel, Paul Simon and others. Whilst Joel’s tunes were given a sometimes intelligent re-working, with an opening mash up of And So It Goes with The Longest Time that will have tickled the eardrums of the star’s cognoscenti in the audience, some of the jazz work missed its mark. Joel’s gorgeous number from his Turnstiles collection, New York State Of Mind was not only re-arranged, its tempo was brutally speeded up too. In so doing, much of the song’s delicate beauty  was lost. 

Also, Smith had decided to eschew all of Joel’s lyrics. On reflection this was probably a wise call, given that the words would no longer have scanned to fit the revised beats that Smith had imposed. But even more intriguingly, the pianist had then decided to include the lyrics of a handful of songs that he and Graydon had composed and which were dedicated to / inspired by their respective loving partners. Great idea, but the homegrown words proved as cheesy as they were sincere. If you’re going to strip out Joel’s poetry from your set list, then it’s a tad disingenuous to subject a captive audience to your own scribblings, anodyne in comparison to Joel’s balladeer-ing brilliance. 

That being said – there were moments of genius on the night. All three musicians were a joy to behold, with Dekany’s fabulous fingerwork in Horace Silver’s Sister Sadie defining the purest of talents. When they were joined, sadly for one number only, by jazz violinist Michael Keelan who had hot-footed it over from the Drury Lane orchestra pit, the passionate Chick Corea inspired collaboration set the room alight. 

The two-act set makes for some charming entertainment – but it needs work. The Billy Joel compositions deserve more than the current re-engineering into muzak and if the band are going to hint at humour on the flyer, then they need to deliver on the night. Though, with a musical craftsmanship (and pedigree) that cannot be faulted, The John G Smith Trio have every chance of developing into a vibrant feature of the capital’s jazz scene.

The Last Five Years - 2013 Off Broadway Cast Recording

*****

Earlier this year, Jason Robert Brown directed an off-Broadway production of his partly autobiographical The Last Five Years. An essentially modern musical, it tells of a doomed love between an increasingly successful young writer Jamie and his actress girlfriend Cathy. They fall in love, marry and separate, with the show’s gimmick being to tell Jamie’s tale chronologically, whilst Cathy’s tale plays out in reverse. An unconventional show, we meet Cathy post- separation, “Still Weeping”, whilst in the sharpest of paradoxes Brown introduces us to Jamie in Shiksa Goddess a comic tale of his characters back-story, acknowledging the guilt of his Jewish identity as he finds himself irresistibly drawn to Cathy. 

The songs are perceptive and honest. Brown lays the moral responsibility for the marriage break-up squarely at the feet of Jamie who finds himself tempted by other women as soon as he is married. Though as Jamie’s writing star ascends Cathy struggles as an actor, cleverly sketched in When You Come Home To Me and the disparate nature of their experiences of success and Cathy’s inability to support her husband, is hinted at as her failing by her errant spouse.

Adam Kantor brings a youthfully loving but ultimately profoundly selfish style to Jamie. His hollow words of desire to a young lover as his marriage to Cathy is ending in Nobody Needs To Know, are as tender as they are cruelly ironic. We have heard his lies before and they make the song even more poignant. Kantor is flawess in his delivery and one senses that Brown has carefully polished every word that is sung in the show. 

Much like Kantor, Betsy Wolfe simply brings excellence to Cathy. Her carefully weighted words in See I’m Smiling, a song beautifully crafted but painful to consider as we hear her try to retrieve their marriage from the ashes of Jamie’s infidelity, are heartbreaking and through her performance and Brown’s direction, her character’s grief is tangible.

It was an unexpected treat that a recent visit to New York City should coincide with a live bookstore promo of the CD, performed by Kantor and Wolfe with Brown on piano. Having missed the show’s run, the three songs performed at the launch gave a tantalising peek at just how fine the staging must have been and whetted the appetite for a more leisurely appreciation of the recording. The Last 5 Years is a frequently performed piece of musical theatre. It's minimal cast (of two) ensures that a production budget can often be minimised, however with the show being so affordable to stage, it can often be the case that mediocrity creeps in however well-intentioned a production’s actors and creative folk may be. To thus glimpse (albeit literally) the show in a form that is entirely of its writer's creation is a rare moment of privilege.

We catch a hint of Cathy’s back-story in I Can Do Better Than That, a mini-biopic of a song that hints at Billy Joel’s Scenes From An Italian Restaurant in its tale of young folk growing up. Brown has updated his lyrics from the original and a fleeting reference to Tom Cruise has now been airbrushed from the page, replaced by the far more tacky, though nonetheless rhyming, “tattoos”. (Though quite why the nod to Duran Duran has been retained is a wonder.) And when it comes to a song’s middle eight, even prosciutto wrapped, no one writes them better than Brown. 

The CD has an air of "this is how the show should be". First produced some twelve years ago, it is clear that the writer has allowed the complex components of The Last Five Years to settle over time, before returning to personally define how his story should be told. It’s a classy move by Brown and those writers and emerging writers who still possess the faculties and abilities to direct, may do well to follow his example. This recording makes for inspirational musical theatre.

The album can be purchased and downloaded here 

25 Year Songbook - Review

The Pheasantry, Londom

***

Music by Matthew Strachan

Lyrics by Matthew Strachan and Bernie Gaughan

The Pheasantry on Chelsea’s Kings Road was a sell-out for this lookback by Matthew Strachan on a selection of his compositions from the last quarter century.

The evening’s 25 song set set drew not only from the Strachan’s stage musicals, but also bore heavy reference to his early composing years, some of which had been spent in Nashville. The USA has clearly providing a significant influence on much of his creativity. His opening two numbers were Tennessee inspired , The Valley, followed by Better Than Him, both painting perceptive pictures of characters from contemporary America, whilst the truly modern song, Hands Up Who’s Looking At Me provided a clever comment on the ubiquitous presence of social networking media. The one performance of the night that jarred was Smells Like Teenage Suicide, a song inspired by aspects of the media response to the Columbine massacre. However noble Strachan’s intentions may have been in writing this song, the irony of his lyrics was stretched too thin, leaving his composition with the potential to deeply upset and offend.

As a writer of witty words, as well as a pianist, Strachan’s talents are immense. At times his performance bore more than a nod to Billy Joel with a liberal twist of Tom Lehrer thrown in, mixing humour and wry political comment, with outstanding keyboard skills. His fingers coaxed the Pheasantry’s grand piano across a range of genres and styles, from blues to ballad to honky-tonk in seamless segues.

Accompanying the man on the night were four accomplished stars of musical theatre, Kim Ismay, Steven Carlile, Riona O Connor and Louise Gold, all of whom were outstanding. With neither props nor costumes, each singer offered a master-class in musical theatre story telling simply through use of voice, face and stage presence. Their vibrancy and talent however offered stark contrast to the fact that Strachan’s vocal strength did not match theirs. If he had given more of the show to the actors, rather than the miserly allocation of one song apiece, the evening would have been considerably closer to a 5 star event.

Strachan is clearly an accomplished musician. As well as his songwriting perhaps his most lucrative creative work to date has been that of writing the music for the TV gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Those catchy TV tunelets clearly demonstrate that Strachan has an ability to recognize what the public wants to hear. Outside the world of theatre and the music business however, his is a comparatively low profile. It will be interesting to see his work developed to be able to sustain larger mainstream audiences with shows that demand financial success. The quality of his writing suggests he truly has the potential to fill a West End venue.



@jaybeegee63


This review was first published in The Public Reviews

Michael Armstrong - EP Review

****

The three songs on Michael Armstrong’s debut EP provide an exciting glimpse into this newly discovered performer’s refreshing sound and creativity.

A builder who can sing, it was an act of remarkable good fortune that after stumbling into and winning the early rounds of American Idol, ( visa technicalities preventing his further progress ) Armstrong was working on the Surrey home of producer and promoter Lisa Davies. She listened to his work, recognized the potential and this last year has seen him start to explore and exploit his musical talent.

Paler Shade of Blue is a wry look at the emotional debris that follows the ending of a relationship. Sung with a strong rhythm , the song is anything but a wallow in self pity. Rather, it is a well crafted ballad, that will have you ( maybe a little incongruously )  tapping your feet to the beat  as the singer pours out his melancholy. This is the song of a man who recognizes his sadness but will not be brought down by it.

Regalia is a song that hints at monarchy and dominance in its lyrics. At times the words echo a watered down version of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire, with a modest listing of various historical events and themes. Overall the song lacks credibility and at times sounds as if the writer is trying just a little too hard to be a philosopher,  I would suggest that Armstrong narrows the scope of his early writings to a more compact canvas. He can document the feelings of the heart with perception and should stay with building a catalog of songs that reflect the human condition. It will be interesting to hear him return to capturing broader issues on song once his early career is more established.

Living What You’re Breathing is a well crafted reflection , looking back on life. Well written, and cleverly arranged, it shows the singer at his best.

The EP indicates that Armstrong has landed on his feet in finding Lisa Davies as his manager. All the tracks have been recorded with a commitment to excellent production values and Davies’ ear for detail has ensured that the sound of each song including backing instruments and vocals is outstanding .

This recording is a great taste of Armstrong’s potential. His debut album is eagerly awaited.

@jaybeegee63