Fletch
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,865
- Location
- Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
I was lucky enough to hear Max and the band in Minneapolis in April. He really has what it takes to sell this music - which is a single, compelling, unique personality. A seamless, pleasantly stereotyped character who can embody the era. Someone approachable, yet otherworldly. Because the music of the dance orchestra IS otherworldly today - best presented and understood as theater.Last year we saw an amazing German band Max Raabe & the Palast Orchester. I meant to post a link last year and forgot. Some of you, may have enjoyed one of their concerts, especially New Yorkers, they have played Carnegie Hall no less than four times. You will adore their dress style and you will love that Max not only sings in the same way as stars of the era, he also refrains from using any hand or arm gestures. Instead he sings just like those matinee idols, with his hands by his sides.
The band is incredibly good, and shows enough talent at jazz, novelty acts and group singing to carry a show by itself. But you know what? Without Max there, leaning languidly on the piano Not Conducting between vocals, no one would give a good gosh darn. It's the times we're living in. There's no bringing a band like the Palast-Orchester into today's world. You have to create a space where it makes sense. That is Max's genius.
Max Raabe understands what a lot of my fellow musicians don't - that this music does NOT have a life of its own today. That's a hard thing to deal with for a musician like me, but for an entertainer like Max, that's a space for him to shine in. He is about the music and makes the music about him. And everybody's happy.
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