Paul Zetter – From Broadway to Hanoi via Franck

Our jazz reviewer learns never to take good music for granted at the recent Franck Amsallem concert at L’Espace.

The so called Great American Songbook, a body of work composed for mainly Broadway shows from the 1920s to ‘40s by songwriters such as Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Rogers and Hart is one of the United States’ greatest cultural assets. It defined popular music as we know it and has since undergone many reinterpretations as well as being updated for new audiences. More recently though it has become something of a cash cow for artists in their twilight years whose rough edges have smoothed over – think Rod Stewart, Paul Anka and even Paul McCartney on his latest CD, Kisses on the Bottom. Over the years these seemingly constant, mainly commercial, rehashes have made these ‘Standards’ become, well, err, standard.

But for Franck Amsallem, the hugely underrated jazz pianist performing at L’Espace on Thursday, these songs still retain their naivety, elegance and romance. So much so that when he sings them, his lips caressing each syllable as if it were made of gold leaf, they become something transcendent and the craft with which the songs were originally written, shines through. He’s not a great singer in the traditional sense of a Sinatra or Bennett – he’s more like an Astaire or Chet Baker bringing a more heightened rhythmic sense to the lyric that leads to another depth feeling. This is perhaps because singing is the third string to his bow. Amsallem, now on his 8th CD release, is first and second-most a pianist and composer in the classic contemporary jazz vein.

Opening with a triple threat of Thelonious Monk compositions, you felt as if Franck has studied the greats of jazz inside out, his versions being part celebration, part re-interpretation of their style. His beautifully balanced and assured technique allied to a respect for the form makes his music emotionally taut and direct, with no notes waisted on artifice or inconsequential embellishment. As he said, his aim when studying jazz in the US was; “to learn the art form of jazz like the greatest have done before you. To confront my skills with the best musicians of their time.”

After this jazz instrumental introduction, Amsallem started on his interpretations of the Great American Song Book that feature on his new CD Franck Amsallem Sings (see links below). Beginning with Irving Berlin’s How Deep Is The Ocean, you could immediately see how the merging of his piano and voice is an inspired choice. Yes, it would be ‘standard’ to add a bass and drums to the line-up and perhaps a saxophone or guitar but there’s something about the space and the moments of tension and release he achieves that make this pairing so elegantly delicate and special. His extended piano solos between the sung verses were as fresh and exciting as any I’ve heard in this style – he’s a thoughtful and swinging improviser whose right-hand runs pop out like the colors in a Matisse.

Following with The Second Time Around, Just One Of Those Things and then an exquisitely rendered, My Romance, I realized that I too had begun to take these Standards for granted because of the often cynical, unrelenting re-versioning of the oeuvre. I began to listen to the songs as played by Amsallem as if for the first time and connected anew with their deep romanticism and lyricism.

As the evening progressed the feeling of one man and a piano entertaining us with a personal and highly intimate take on an overused form took hold. We began to get Franck’s gentle but fascinating stories sung with grace. So when he announced his final song it was as if we too had taken him for granted as piece after piece was rendered so beautifully. It felt like there was an urgency not to let the evening end that took over the audience which proceeded to bring him back for two encores. Not flag wavers, but Jobim’s classic Dindi and an overlooked ‘English’ standard, Where Is Love?

Suddenly a sense of sadness came over me. I too had been complacent and now wanted the evening to last forever to experience a return to the kind of innocence these songs portray. Never take an artist with great craft interpreting classic but overplayed songs for granted – played and sung the way Franck Amsallem does they can sound fresh and find new avenues to the soul……if you just take time to listen.

Words and photographs by Paul Zetter

If you purchase anything via the links below, Amazon will pay a small commission to Hanoi Grapevine – a great way to support Grapevine while doing your shopping!

For standards try Amsallem Sings:

on CD:

or as an MP3 download:

For a great piano trio release try Summer Times:

on CD: