PERFORMING ARTS

Monday, October 29, 2007

Tori Amos

Tori Amos didn't arrive until about 45 minutes into her Friday-night set at DAR Constitution Hall. Instead, we got Isabel, a striking woman wearing a long, platinum blond wig, who slinked up to the piano smoking a cigarette. Isabel is one of Amos's five personae from her new, high-concept album "American Doll Posse," and she helped transform the evening into a can't-look-away spectacle.

She started out with "Yo George," a short condemnation of President Bush in which she asked, "Is this just the madness of King George?" The recorded version is a mellow, piano-only rumination, but the three-piece band made it furious. After blasting through five songs, Isabel went backstage and transformed back into Tori Amos, who wore a carrot-colored wig and a sequined jumpsuit printed with the American flag. Her first song, "Big Wheel," the highlight of "American Doll Posse," was a fun, stomp-and-clap single that verged on country. The 1994 song "Cornflake Girl" was classic Amos, with its distinctive high chorus and vague lyrics: "Never was a cornflake girl/Thought that was a good solution/Hangin' with the raisin girls."

Amos, 44, didn't need theatrics to please her rabid fans, but it felt refreshing to watch a major-label artist fully commit to a concept as bizarre and schizophrenic as the doll posse thing -- even if it did little to enhance the music. Still, Amos's closing song, "Hey Jupiter," served as a nice reminder of the intense, talented woman at the core of it all.

-- Rachel Beckman

New Pornographers

You can have your sweet vocal harmonies or you can have your hard-charging rock-and-roll, but rarely can you have both at once. Unless we're talking about the New Pornographers, that Canadian orch-pop "supergroup" (the Pornographers have been dubbed such even though none of their component acts, except possibly singer Neko Case, is as celebrated as the collective). They landed at the 9:30 club Saturday night for a dizzying 100-minute celebration of Canuck solidarity with all pop-loving peoples of the globe.

Performing literally and goofily beneath its name in lights, the sprawling ensemble launched first into "All of the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth." It's a driving anthem -- as much an earful as a mouthful -- from the newish "Challengers" album, which along with 2005's "Twin Cinema" jet-fueled most of the set.

After the spastic boogie of "Use It," Dan Bejar, the group's secondary singer-songwriter but primary weirdo, slunk onstage to lend his nasal Fear-Me-I-Am-the-Dungeonmaster vocal to "Myriad Harbour," one the strongest new songs. Bejar would come and go, preferring to remain offstage when he wasn't singing. (Ever cradling a bottle of Stella Artois, he looked as if he might prefer to be offstage when he was singing, too.)

Unsurprisingly, Case was a commanding presence, singing gorgeous leads on "Challengers" and "Go Places" and entwining her wiry vocals with those of bandleader A.C. Newman all night. But in stark contrast to the vibe when Rilo Kiley played the 9:30 last month, fronted by a gold-lam¿-clad Jenny Lewis, Case had nary an ounce of diva-tude about her. Performing in corduroys and a jacket, she was almost too modest, apparently content to be just another member of the band. Although when it's a band this good . . . .

-- Chris Klimek

Fred Hersch

Whether improvising in the jazz mode or writing music for concert performance, pianist Fred Hersch creates expansive melodies that touch the heart yet retain a little beguiling mystery. With the help of pianist Blair McMillen and the Gramercy Trio, Hersch explored both sides of his output Friday night in the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, as part of the library's series presenting American composer-performers.

In the first half of the concert, which featured Hersch's notated music, lovely themes outstayed their welcome in "Lyric Piece for Trio" and "Tango Bittersweet" (played by Hersch and Gramercy violinist Sharan Leventhal), as Hersch didn't do much with the themes besides state and restate them. The piano miniatures "Saloon Songs" and "Little Midnight Nocturne," on the other hand, effectively concentrated his melodic invention. And in his "24 Variations on a Bach Chorale," Hersch contrasted lyrical stretches with pointillistic deconstructions, steely chords delineating the harmonic structure, and ecstatic runs up and down the keyboard, all of which McMillen rendered vividly and grippingly.

When Hersch sat at the piano after intermission to play jazz, he began with striking statements -- showers of pristine high notes in "Endless Stars," a melancholy dance in "Sarabande," the noble ballad of "At the Close of the Day" -- but took them on journeys no one could premeditate, pushing and pulling tempos, breaking down and rebuilding harmonies, even constructing new melodies from shattered materials, all the while making everything seem fresh and inevitable at once. (From its rarefied beginnings, "Endless Stars" eventually became a gentle rag.) His melodic sense shone here as well, but the spontaneity made for a compelling and fascinating counterweight.

-- Andrew Lindemann Malone

Tango Buenos Aires

Tangomania in alive and well in the Washington area -- local aficionados can find tango parties, tango clubs, even go on tango cruises. Little wonder then that the Music Center at Strathmore was packed to the rafters on Friday for Tango Buenos Aires, the hot Argentine export that has been riding the wave of tango popularity since the 1980s. And its recent program, "The Four Seasons," is dazzling: The tango is lean, clean and mean; the dancers boast skill and attitude in equal measure; and the musicians rock.

There is a tradition of big tango shows that stretches back at least a half-century, and it is on this tradition that Tango Buenos Aires draws. Whereas tango shows can sometimes go overboard with heavy story lines, glittering gowns and big sets, this program has kept the dance and music front and center. A hint of the story line was sufficient to move this full evening performance forward and keep it interesting.

The fast-paced program had 23 swift tango numbers and four musical interludes. Lidia Segni's choreography belies her ballet background, for there is elegance in her interpretation of tango. No matter how high the skirts are slit and how low they bend, the women are classy. No matter how cocky they are or how rakishly their hats are set, the men stay cool. It is this very ability to hold back just a little, in fact, that so characterizes this company. Like a lover who allows himself to be chased, the performers enhance their allure by remaining aloof. Dancing with the promise of abandonment, but never its fulfillment, is super-sexy.

The five-piece musical ensemble played with feeling and an ease born of superb technique, moving expertly through tango classics such as Astor Piazzolla's "Michelangelo '70" and Angel Villoldo's "El Choclo."

-- Pamela Squires

NSO Pops

Helped by some visitors from a galaxy far, far away, the National Symphony Orchestra brought film composer John Williams's music to vivid life Friday evening at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The NSO Pops, under guest conductor Erich Kunzel, interspersed humor and reverence in its presentation of classic Williams movie themes. Performing music that was by turns majestic, romantic and dramatic, the orchestra lured "Jaws" up the Potomac River and tempted the Tyrannosaurus rex from "Jurassic Park" to snack on the cello section.

Some of the film-score excerpts -- including "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Superman" -- sounded as if they had been ripped directly from the silver screen, while others were presented in a fresh way. The latter group included a spiced and nuanced rendition of "The Raiders' March" from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and a warmly elegant delivery of the moving main theme from "Schindler's List," featuring associate concertmaster Elisabeth Adkins on the violin solo.

For "Star Wars" fans, the best part of the concert arrived after intermission, when costume-clad members of Masters of the Force reenacted scenes from the films onstage while the NSO and the Woodley Ensemble choristers produced the respective music with operatic power. During "The Imperial March," an impressive entourage of Stormtroopers preceded Darth Vader across the stage; and in "Duel of the Fates" and "Battle of the Heroes," the showdowns between Darth Maul and a Jedi and Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi unfolded with well-choreographed light-saber duels.

-- Grace Jean

Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners

The promoter billed Friday night's show at Chick Hall's Surf Club as the last zydeco gig at this soon-to-be-sold honky-tonk. Although it now looks like this 52-year-old Bladensburg joint might hang on longer (with Leroy Thomas scheduled to return Nov. 9), the impending sale still lent an end-of-an-era tinge to an otherwise joyful event. Not commenting on the state of the club, Thomas and his Zydeco Roadrunners kept couples twirling, smiling and sweating through two sets' worth of traditional Louisiana and Texas Creole sounds -- mostly speedy, distinctively syncopated numbers, but also some waltzes, country and soul.

Thomas, the Louisiana-raised son of zydeco drummer Leo Thomas, has a friendly voice, a non-flashy approach to accordion playing and just enough charisma to get dancers to peek up at him. A cowboy hat-wearing fan of 1950s and early '60s musical Americana, the Houston resident gleefully invoked the past with the lighthearted, adult nursery-rhyme lyrics of "The Monkey and the Baboon" and "Zydeco Cha-cha." He also reached back for the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved?," Hank Williams's "Your Cheatin' Heart" and Ray Charles's "What'd I Say."

Thomas's band helped keep the retro approach from feeling dated. His bassist and drummer frequently kept the notes funky, while his guitarist added catchy lines without utilizing bar band cliches. For this tour, Thomas employed local rub board players, who added unique metal percussion accents. Although such songs as his own "Don't Get Mad at Me" and his take on his father's "Why You Want to Make Me Cry?" might not be breaking new ground, Thomas mixes the old and the new well enough to keep a dance floor lively to the late hours.

-- Steve Kiviat