Review and pix by Greg Phillips
After witnessing an incredible event with Herbie Hancock and Marcus Miller at the Myer Music Bowl on the weekend, last night Australian Musician was back at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. This time we attended the excellent JazzLab in Brunswick to observe Take Two, a concept in which a famous album is played in full before an artist then responds with their reinterpretation of the recording live on stage. Last night’s Take Two featured Rai Thistlethwayte and band performing Stevie Wonder’s iconic album Innervisions.
Melbourne International Jazz Festival artistic director Michael Tortoni introduced the show by explaining that the concept was originally conceived in Brooklyn, New York in 2018. Tortoni saw one of the Take Two performances and thought that they should present the idea at the Melbourne festival.
“The first set is a deep listening set, which kinda means no talking,” he told the sold out crowd. With that, a stylus was placed on a turntable and the audience sat in silence for the next 44 minutes, 15 seconds, with their eyeline transfixed on an album cover placed strategically next to a spinning turntable on stage.
Regarded as one of Wonder’s greatest works, Innervisions has significantly influenced the sound of commercial soul, earning a place in the GRAMMY Hall of Fame and ranking number 34 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.’
As Rai told Australian Musician back in late September in an Interview about this show “It’s kind of a way to reinvigorate an album that maybe people have not heard or heard for a long time or maybe never heard, that might be an old release and then bring it into a contemporary timing or setting. And just the fact that it’s something that is a recorded format and live format on the same night, one after another… there’s a certain travel that happens between one format and the other. It’s almost like a musical challenge as to how you might do that.”
Rai has become one of the most sought after session musicians in the world. He’s just come off the Best of Both Worlds tour, one of the most anticipated tours in rock history, playing keyboards to the songs of Van Halen with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Jason Bonham. So the musical headspace adjustment from Van Halen to Stevie Wonder improvisation is quite a creative leap.
Rai Thistlethwayte descended the JazzLab stairs from the band room to the stage, together with drummer Felix Bloxsom and keyboard player Brett Williams (who sat in with Marcus Miller for a couple of tunes at the Music Bowl on Saturday night. Brett was a Miller band member for around four years before relocating to Australia). After a few seconds of moog tuning, the band launched into track one Too High, giving the tune a zippy jazz shuffle treatment while retaining those famous rhodes keyboard sounds.
Reaching into a backpack, Rai then pulled out an ‘Ascender’ model electric P90 folding guitar made by Ciara guitars and delivered a beautiful version of Visions, accompanied perfectly by an atmospheric keyboard swell from Brett Williams.
Acclaimed Australian sax player Julien Wilson sauntered onto stage to take lead on track three, a dramatic and inventive rendition of the classic Living for the City. Next up, Rai took the opportunity to break out his vocal chords on a soulful Golden Lady, spotlighting his incredible versatility and ending side one of the album.
Side two began with Rai explaining that track one, Higher Ground had been covered by numerous artists including Red Hot Chill Peppers and Steve Gadd in various styles before picking up the guitar again and delivering a surprisingly chunky, boogie blues version of the song.
Thistlethwayte then announced a Shuggy Otis/Sly and The Family Stone treatment of Jesus Children of America, gorgeously arranged by drummer and sometime producer Felix Bloxsom and featuring some intricate piano and moog work from Rai.
Julien Wilson returned to the stage and summoned all of his lung capacity to supply some stunning sax lines on a haunting All In Love is Fair. Rai suggested that Wilson stick around and blow some more on a staggering ‘triple-feel’ jam performance of Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing, a highlight of the night with all musicians watching each other carefully, listening and responding in a spirit of extraordinary musicianship and joy.
After such an inspiring performance Rai told us that anything that was to follow on the final tune would be merely music to roll the credits over! He’s Misstra Know-It-All was in fact a playful, heartfelt exercise in fun. I’m not sure who got the greatest kick out of the night, the band, who seemed to be having the time of their lives or the lucky audience who experienced this joyous celebration of a music icon’s work by a group of world class musicians.
Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions
Side One
Too High
Visions
Living for the City
Golden Lady
Side Two
Higher Ground
Jesus Children of America
All in Love Is Fair
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing
He’s Misstra Know-It-All
https://www.melbournejazz.com/
Here’s our pre-show chat with Rai about Take Two: Innervisions