(© Autumn de Wilde)
Pink Martini has packed venues in the US, Canada, France, and Japan with its clever cocktail of styles and cultures in no fewer than 15 languages. The nattily dressed combo is led by Thomas Lauderdale, who runs a tight ship; its musicians switch effortlessly from bossa nova to Turkish folk music. We went to Paris to take a look.
All 2,800 seats were sold out at the Grand Rex, two days in a row. The French just love the extrovert musical mosaic of this Portland, Oregon, ensemble. They appreciate the showmanship of its musicians, who treat the audience to infectious rhythms and catchy tunes, cleverly chosen from the heritage – both Western and exotic – of classical, jazz, and pop. Years of performing experience has taught them that an occasionally coquettish approach has more going for it than art for art’s sake. They invite a succession of Japanese and Turkish concert-goers to join them onstage for a traditional number familiar to people from those cultures. The guests feel honoured, while the rest of the audience enjoys itself immensely. And the spectacle of a jovial Turk eager to bump bottoms with the sultry-eyed singer China Forbes was quite hilarious. It didn’t matter that the rest of the audience didn’t know the song. They might well know the next one, after all.
The art deco palace in the heart of the Parisian theatre district was, moreover, a perfect venue for all this coquetry, with its sculptures of Greek gods and its artificial starry sky. The standing ovation at the end was heartfelt – as we could see from the happy faces all around us. We thought we had come to understand it all a bit better, but after songs in a variety of languages and a musical world tour of bossa nova beaches and cafés chantants, we still hadn’t really figured it out. “Don’t worry about that,” says Brian Lavern Davis, who has spent the evening playing the congas, kettledrums, and other percussion instruments. “Even for me, after all these years, it is still a mystery. A mystery and a delight. Why exactly we broke through – so that, a good twenty years after the band was founded, I’m sitting here talking to you about its success – is a riddle to me too.”
Pink Martini: shaken & stirred
Or maybe it’s not a complete mystery. The band, which has now sold over 2.5 million albums worldwide and has shared stages over the last two decades with, among others, Jimmy Scott, Rufus Wainwright, Henri Salvador, Georges Moustaki, and the cast of Sesame Street, is professional and disciplined. While we chat, the other band members are still working away: signing autographs and posing for photographs with fans. Davis is excused and is sitting drinking a glass of wine alongside us. Strikingly, there are no cocktails for the band members, just Stella, Heineken, wine, and soft drinks. “We have just come from Nashville, where our tour was sold out, and we are soon going to play three days in a row at the Hollywood Bowl in LA. I can’t figure it out, but it’s fascinating. We can’t afford to let ourselves go.”
An evening’s fun
Apart from the professionalism of a team of musicians and a singer with years of service, it is, above all, the pianist and bandleader who attracts attention, Davis emphasises. “A few weeks after he set up Pink Martini, he rang me to ask whether I would like to play in his band. I didn’t know him yet back then, but now can I can definitely say that he is one of the cleverest people I have ever met. He didn’t just come up with the crazy idea of combining quality with an evening-long programme of music with a high fun content: he put it into practice too.”
“Thomas absorbs influences from all the musicians,” explains Davis. “Everyone has an input, but he decides. But we can all play. Our other percussionist, Timothy (Nishimoto), can do funk, swing, and jazz like nobody else. Our bass-player, Phil (Baker), toured with Diana Ross for nine years and can play literally anything; the same goes for Dan (Faehnle) on guitar. My other half is Brazilian and with my fondness for samba I am at home in exotic, Latin American rhythms. But if Thomas suggests doing a flamenco number, then we are all up for it.”
A nose for business
In Paris Pink Martini performed a few numbers with a Japanese guest singer, Saori Yuki, with whom the band recently recorded an album, 1969. The “Japanese Barbra Streisand” won’t be in Brussels, but Lauderdale’s decision to work with her perfectly illustrates the Pink Martini philosophy. By collaborating with one of Japan’s most celebrated artists, he assured himself a market and an audience that is delighted to see its musical heritage recognised and, as a consequence, is that bit more open to the other music the ensemble brings with it from other continents.
“We played in Japan throughout the whole month of October and soon we will be at the Tokyo Jazz Festival for two nights,” Davis tells us, promptly confirming his bandleader’s eye for a business opportunity. “But we always make sure that people who are not familiar with a particular repertoire will still recognise something in it. Saori won’t be with us in Brussels, but by, for example, incorporating a familiar bossa nova rhythm in her numbers, we will ensure that they still have an appeal. For me that’s what’s really delightful about this band: one moment we are playing a cha-cha; the next, a swing tune or a Japanese ballad. I never get bored.”
An evening’s fun
Apart from the professionalism of a team of musicians and a singer with years of service, it is, above all, the pianist and bandleader who attracts attention, Davis emphasises. “A few weeks after he set up Pink Martini, he rang me to ask whether I would like to play in his band. I didn’t know him yet back then, but now can I can definitely say that he is one of the cleverest people I have ever met. He didn’t just come up with the crazy idea of combining quality with an evening-long programme of music with a high fun content: he put it into practice too.”
“Thomas absorbs influences from all the musicians,” explains Davis. “Everyone has an input, but he decides. But we can all play. Our other percussionist, Timothy (Nishimoto), can do funk, swing, and jazz like nobody else. Our bass-player, Phil (Baker), toured with Diana Ross for nine years and can play literally anything; the same goes for Dan (Faehnle) on guitar. My other half is Brazilian and with my fondness for samba I am at home in exotic, Latin American rhythms. But if Thomas suggests doing a flamenco number, then we are all up for it.”
A nose for business
In Paris Pink Martini performed a few numbers with a Japanese guest singer, Saori Yuki, with whom the band recently recorded an album, 1969. The “Japanese Barbra Streisand” won’t be in Brussels, but Lauderdale’s decision to work with her perfectly illustrates the Pink Martini philosophy. By collaborating with one of Japan’s most celebrated artists, he assured himself a market and an audience that is delighted to see its musical heritage recognised and, as a consequence, is that bit more open to the other music the ensemble brings with it from other continents.
“We played in Japan throughout the whole month of October and soon we will be at the Tokyo Jazz Festival for two nights,” Davis tells us, promptly confirming his bandleader’s eye for a business opportunity. “But we always make sure that people who are not familiar with a particular repertoire will still recognise something in it. Saori won’t be with us in Brussels, but by, for example, incorporating a familiar bossa nova rhythm in her numbers, we will ensure that they still have an appeal. For me that’s what’s really delightful about this band: one moment we are playing a cha-cha; the next, a swing tune or a Japanese ballad. I never get bored.”
Fifteen languages
One direct consequence of that broad range of styles is that the singer China Forbes – who was a fellow student of Lauderdale’s at Harvard and was the first musician he approached in 1994 when he wanted to set up “a little band” – now sings in fifteen languages. The band’s flexibility was really put to the test when she lost her voice in 2011 and had to have a number of operations on her vocal cords. But Pink Martini turned that setback to its advantage. “Yes, these days we alternate our singers,” says Davis with a laugh. “Forbes does the European tour, the ‘substitute’ Storm Lange does the US one and the two are now good friends.”
“Sympathique”, the hit with which Pink Martini conquered the French-speaking world, is still, with its infectious, cheerful credo “Je ne veux pas travailler” (“I don’t want to work”), very popular at demonstrations by French strikers, but the slogan has had little effect on the band itself. “But that track was our admission ticket for Europe. Admittedly, we were pretty lucky with the timing. And if people thought we were French-speakers, that was fine by us: they still kept on coming to our concerts, after all.” The little band that once set itself the goal of raising the quality of boring interval music now has two new albums in the pipeline: a studio recording (“with, among other things, Romanian, Turkish, and Japanese tracks and a Bollywood-Batucada-style track!”) and a collaborative project with the Trapp Family – yep, the great-grandchildren of Maria and Georg.
Pink Martini • 10/5, 20.00, €25/35/40/45, Bozar, rue Ravensteinstraat 23, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-507.82.00, www.bozar.be
One direct consequence of that broad range of styles is that the singer China Forbes – who was a fellow student of Lauderdale’s at Harvard and was the first musician he approached in 1994 when he wanted to set up “a little band” – now sings in fifteen languages. The band’s flexibility was really put to the test when she lost her voice in 2011 and had to have a number of operations on her vocal cords. But Pink Martini turned that setback to its advantage. “Yes, these days we alternate our singers,” says Davis with a laugh. “Forbes does the European tour, the ‘substitute’ Storm Lange does the US one and the two are now good friends.”
“Sympathique”, the hit with which Pink Martini conquered the French-speaking world, is still, with its infectious, cheerful credo “Je ne veux pas travailler” (“I don’t want to work”), very popular at demonstrations by French strikers, but the slogan has had little effect on the band itself. “But that track was our admission ticket for Europe. Admittedly, we were pretty lucky with the timing. And if people thought we were French-speakers, that was fine by us: they still kept on coming to our concerts, after all.” The little band that once set itself the goal of raising the quality of boring interval music now has two new albums in the pipeline: a studio recording (“with, among other things, Romanian, Turkish, and Japanese tracks and a Bollywood-Batucada-style track!”) and a collaborative project with the Trapp Family – yep, the great-grandchildren of Maria and Georg.
Pink Martini • 10/5, 20.00, €25/35/40/45, Bozar, rue Ravensteinstraat 23, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-507.82.00, www.bozar.be
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