Jazz/pop/hip-hop concert review: “Lush Life” at the Southern

The end of the show: a "Moon River" sing-along.

When: Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010 • Where: Southern Theater • Who (deep breath): Devon Gray (dVRG), piano; Josh Peterson, guitar; Sean McPherson (Twinkie Jiggles), bass; Peter Leggett, drums; Chris Thomson, saxophone/clarinet; Steve Roehm, vibraphone; Adam Levy and DJ Jake Rudh, hosts and vocals; Janey Winterbauer, Mayda, Toki Wright, Bethany Larson, Omaur Bliss, Ashley Still, Carnage the Executioner and Desdamona (Ill Chemistry), vocals

It could have been ironic. It might have been a mess. Instead, it was courageous and entertaining, fresh and sincere.

On Sunday night, some of the Twin Cities’ top pop and hip-hop artists gathered at the Southern Theater to explore the American jazz canon. Specifically, the Great American Songbook, what co-host Adam Levy calls our “free lunch” and our “vast cultural inheritance, shaping not only our notions of American music and the popular song but our very ideas of romance, love and morality."

The sold-out show felt like a gathering of friends, a jam session in someone’s living room, complete with a sing-along at the end. Not every performance was successful, but some were revelatory and all came from the same place of wanting to know more about the music and treat it right.

"My Funny Valentine" has a verse?

There's more than we know to many songs in the Great American Songbook. Specifically, the verse—the part that precedes the chorus ("chorus," aka "refrain," being that part many of us think of as the "verse").

It's kind of the introduction to the song, the stage-setter, the explanation, sung once at the start and (unlike the chorus) never repeated.

I like verses. Some are charmingly old-fashioned. Some reveal "facts" (if there are such things) about a song that give it an entirely different spin and meaning.

For example, the verse to "Tea for Two" (music by Vincent Youmans, lyrics by Irving Caesar):

I'm discontented with homes that I rented
So I have invented my own.
Darling, this place is a lover's oasis
Where life's weary chase is unknown.
Far from the cry of the city,
Where flowers pretty caress the streams,
Cozy to hide in, to live side by side in,

Don't let it abide in my dreams.

(Then the chorus begins:) 

Picture me upon your knee
Just tea for two, and two for tea,
Just me for you, and you for me alone....

What we find out from the verse is the perfect life the singer imagines is all in her head. She's alone, lonely, and bitter.