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The Inevitable Pink Martini: The first reaction one may have upon listening to Sympathique is, "Hey, that's not the quirky lounge music I danced to last time I saw Pink Martini!" That's because pianist Thomas Lauderdale and his dozen-or-so comrades-in-kitsch went into the recording studio with a decidedly different mission than the one from which they began. Yep, the band that once giddily plowed through "Hernando's Hideaway" in the waning days of the cocktail-culture revival has released a debut album of brooding reworkings of jazz and classical standards, obscure covers and originals adorned in French and Spanish lyrics. Lauderdale is unrepentant. "The first couple of years, it was a flamboyant thing," says Lauderdale, curled up on a couch in an unheated downtown loft on a recent chilly afternoon. "I was wearing dresses and we were basking in the lounge culture. A year ago, when we started recording, I realized that this had a lot of limitations that I couldn't live with. I wanted to create an atmosphere and a music that was more challenging to me and all the players in the band." The 27-year-old pianist and Harvard graduate refers to Sympathique as "more down and quieter, more appropriate for repeated listenings." This may be true, but because the self-released album isn't the collection of party songs one might have expected, it could have trouble finding an audience. One of the more intense compositions, "Song of the Black Lizard," is a cover of a tune that originally appeared in a 1968 Japanese film, and features lyrics that translate to "No one can ever enter this precious cold diamond heart of mine." "Qué Sera Sera," a hopeful-sounding song as sung by Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, becomes a bleak parable in the hands of Pink Martini's China Forbes. From there, Lauderdale, vocalists Forbes and Pepe Raphael--who generally sings on the more upbeat tracks--guitarist Dan Faehnle and a team of seasoned percussion, string and horn players gallantly stride through multiple genres and styles. "I'm thinking of this band as an amalgamation of the traditions of classical, jazz and Latin," Lauderdale says. Against all odds, the evolution from Pink Martini's campy origin to its more serious-minded stance was largely successful. Still, Sympathique isn't a perfect album. Familiar compositions like "Bolero" and "Never on Sunday" suggest that these musicians can tastefully arrange and execute classic songs better than your average rock or jazz band. But if Pink Martini is attempting to do something other than tweak an existing formula, like Everclear and the Dandy Warhols did with modern rock and pop, it'll take something more to establish it as a truly remarkable act on an international level. At the moment, the only bands on modern music's radar to stay afloat in such uncharted waters may be North Carolina's Squirrel Nut Zippers, who update American ragtime, and England's Stereolab, which has reinvented '60s-style French pop. With Sympathique, Pink Martini hopes to join these artists in putting overlooked styles of the past to good use in creating innovative new music. Lauderdale, who worked on all aspects of the album, from recording to mixing to mastering to artwork to legally clearing the cover songs, says he's cognizant of the task ahead. "It's all about the second album," he says. "I want to keep developing the themes that came out in the first one and to take the next step--writing more original music." Portland Postscript: The Oak Street Art Center will close its doors Dec. 19 after a short run as one of the city's premier all-ages clubs. The converted warehouse space opened during the summer, hosting film and music events, but noise complaints from neighbors soon led to scrutiny from the city, which discovered that the Oak Street wasn't up to code. A building inspector determined that earthquake renovations are needed if the space is to be a club, and owner Allegra Bonner estimates she would've had to spend $500,000 to meet the requirements. "Our only choice is to stop and look for a new place," says Bonner. "Our drive hasn't stopped at all. We're still excited, but they put a stop to it [for] now." She plans to partition the Oak Street and rent out practice spaces for musicians, and she vows to open another arts-oriented all-ages club soon. |
