The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

You can all be very jealous as my wife and I got to sit through the sound check for tonight's performance... Just imagine Burt and the band playing " just for us".... <very wide grin which may never go away>

David

At the concert, waiting for it to start, the house of Blues is an awesome venue: big enough for the band, yet small enough to be intimate

Burt and the band were just awesome. This was the first show I had seen with Bill Cantos ( I hope I spelled his name right) and he seems to have the same "joie de vivre" as the rest of the band. Bill gave a cracking rendition of "My Little Red Book". The singers were all on the top of their form. The crowd really warmed to Burt , which was just as well since Dallas was cold. One of the ladies of the audience invited him to throw a piece of his clothing into the audience ( his scarf) but Burt politely declined. Audience was fully engaged and I heard nothing but praise and laughter and a general positive vibe from the good folks of "Big D".

David,
Thank you for the report! : )

someonenamedavid,

During the sound check, could you see any evidence of the perfectionism that Burt is well known for? Did you gain any other insights?

Bonjour Someonenamedavid;

Glad that you had a wonderful time @ the sound check and the concert! The photos from the concert look truly great!

I am sure that you were glad to see Ms. Eliza James too!

By the way, did Donna Taylor sing, "Waiting For Charlie To Come Home?" If so, how did the audience respond?

Take care mon ami.

Vincent

Yes Donna sang "waiting for Charlie ..." I prefer her version over Trinitje's, maybe because Ms Oosterhuis has "European Consonants" and this is a most American song. Between the passion of that song and the soul-wrenching of Josie James on "Anyone Who Had a Heart" , the night could have been thoroughly exhausting. There is no songwriter. No composer, anywhere, ever, not Leonard Cohen, not Paul Simon, not Adele, not the flavor of the month, who has ever topped the immediacy and power of those two songs. I think that had Ravel been a modern composer he would have studied Burt because of the picture in music that Burt paints.

And that is why I believe Burt is part of the greater tradition of composers from Vivaldi through Bach and Handel and Beethoven because they didn't sit around all "hoity-toity" saying "look at me I am An artiste", no they figured out what was in their hearts and poured it out, at immense risk. ( sorry, getting on my soapbox)

David, you`re the only other person I know to have intuited a lineage running from the great Baroque composers through Burt. No, he doesn`t "sound like" Handel (or Purcell or Telemann or...) and Burt has never singled out that era as being of particular importance to him, but I always felt a deep connection. Thanks for pointing it out.

you're speaking about pics of the concert Vincent Cole....may i have the chance to see it???thanks a lot if you can...cheers to everyone from Italy

Hi David,
You mentioned Maurice Ravel studying Bacharach, well Burt certainly studied Ravel.
Burt has certainly cited (on many occasions) this glorious piece of music as one of his
biggest influences......


"blue"

Well, if you try hard, you can trace a line, historically back from Burt's teacher Darius Milhaud (one of a group of modernistic composers in France called Les Six) through his teachers and so on to Jean-Baptiste Lully who was the composer to the Court of King Louis XIV.

Now if you trace back Eliza James's teachers you can get back to Paganini ( thanks to the late, great teacher Dorothy De Lay: you just aren't in the books unless she taught you)

David

David;

Again thanks for the update on Donna & Josie!

After those 2 ladies sing, "Anyone Who Had A Heart" & "Waiting For Charlie", I feel like a muffler, I am exhausted (lol)!

Gabba, sorry to miss lead you. It was the post from Roberto Pinardi posted I was talking about. Such a beautiful venue!

Take care mon ami's.

Vincent

An Enormous BB Fan wrote:someonenamedavid,

During the sound check, could you see any evidence of the perfectionism that Burt is well known for? Did you gain any other insights?

Now perfectionism is a word that has, sometimes, a negative connotation. It would be hard to say that Burt brings anything negative to the band. He knows what is rIght and is guided by his ear. Most of the band have been with him for several years and understand what is required. It's a bit like a football team coming together to play the big game: fine tuning.

There will be more performances but it's not my place to say when and where. Just be glad.