Collins introducing his big band
By Paul Robicheau, Boston Globe Correspondent, 06/28/98
It shouldn't come as a big surprise that pop superstar Phil Collins thought up the idea of leading a 20-piece big band, as he does at Harborlights tonight to close the Boston Globe Jazz & Blues Festival.
"I'm a drummer, remember," Collins says on the phone from California, the first stop on a 14-date tour with his big band. "I'm not a singer who plays a bit of drums. I'm a drummer that sings a bit. I've been wanting to do this since 1966, since I heard the 'Swingin' New Big Band' album by Buddy Rich.
"I was a Beatles fan and a Motown fan and an Atlantic/Stax fan," he says. "But I was buying Elvin Jones, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Tony Williams, and Buddy Rich albums back then, and it was influencing the
Collins introducing his big band |
In 1970, however, Collins joined not a jazz band, but English art-rock pioneers Genesis, securing fame as a drummer and then as a singer before leaving that supergroup three years ago. He didn't have only his solo career in mind. "You just get to the point where you think, if there are other things I want to do, I've got to get off this bus and get on another," says Collins, 47. "I've always wanted to have a big band."
Not the kind of big band he has used on past tours, but a jazz big band, with Collins strictly playing the drums. "If the audience listens to what we're doing for a couple of hours, I come back and sing a couple of songs as encores," he says. "That's the carrot. If they're good to me, I'll be good to them."
Kansas City-bred soul singer Oleta Adams will be the band vocalist. "She comes out and does quite a few Sarah Vaughan tunes, and one of her own," Collins says of Adams's mid-set turn. "She's always wanted to sing with a big band, so she's taking advantage of this, too." Saxophonist Gerald Albright, another solo artist in his own right, will play some of his tunes.
Songs from Genesis
The bulk of the show, however, will be instrumental versions of songs from
Collins's career, both as a solo artist and with Genesis. "Some of them felt a
little obvious, and some of them surprised me," he says. "I'm trying to play
the jazz charts rather than rock charts. But 'Sussudio' worked great for
obvious reasons, and 'Los Endos," the old Genesis show closer, that's
pretty much a tour de force."
The songs were arranged for the tour by John Clayton Jr., who works with Quincy Jones and Count Basie veteran Sammy Nestico. "He took 'Invisible Touch' and you'd think it was the Basie band playing it," Collins says of that Genesis favorite.
His big band features longtime Genesis-Collins guitarist Daryl Stuermer, ace percussionist Luis Conte, and a 14-piece horn section including Harry Kim (the Korean trumpeter who has worked with Collins and Earth Wind & Fire) and Ron Modell's Alumni All-Stars from the Northern Illinois University Jazz Ensemble.
"To me, I've died and gone to heaven," says Collins, whose other recent project has been composing for "Tarzan," a Disney animated film slated for 1999 release. "You're working on a Disney movie, something that's gonna last forever and ever, and as a songwriter, that's a wonderful opportunity. Doing that, and finally coming back to just sitting down at the drum kit are two of the most exciting things I can think of - apart from sex."
Collins first assembled his big band in 1966, touring Europe with Tony Bennett and conductor Quincy Jones. "We recorded those shows and we're going to record the European tour with this band and bring an album out," he says, placing the band alongside his pop solo career and movie scoring as priorities. "This is something I'm going to be doing till I drop now."
Collins also appears as a drummer on "Genesis Archive 1967-75," a new four-CD set from the years when Peter Gabriel was the lead singer. Two discs dynamically capture an entire 1975 concert performance of the theatrical fantasy "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," Gabriel's swan song with Genesis.
"It was all material from before I started singing," Collins says of that first volume in a boxed-set series, though he does sing lead on "More Fool Me" from a 1973 show, and some harmonies. "I've always been a bit hot and cold about some of our older stuff, but the live 'Lamb' is very good."
Their finest hour
"It's now viewed to be one of our finest hours, but at the time, it certainly
wasn't viewed to be that," he says. "Everyone thought it was a pretentious
sort of mini-opera.
"In retrospect, it's looked upon as the finest hour because obviously Peter left, and I took over and ruined it all," the wisecracking Collins adds. "It makes you think, when you listen to stuff like that, what has happened in the meantime? Just generally speaking, musically, I don't think you'd get stuff like that - people writing that stuff - anymore. And if they did, it wouldn't be played on the radio."
Genesis with Collins became increasingly radio-friendly, but that popularity has waned as well since he left the band. A CD and tour with new singer Ray Wilson joining keyboardist Tony Banks and guitarist-bassist Mike Rutherford received little support in America. "I feel a bit resentful on their behalf," Collins says. "Tony and Michael, on their own, write material that is more like the origial Genesis than even what we did as the three of us. And I thought, where are all those people now? I can't believe there's no interest in going to see a Genesis show where they're going to play all the old songs as well."
There's a possibility that the next Genesis lineup to tour could even be a reunion with Collins, Gabriel, and guitarist Steve Hackett, who left in 1977. Those three recently met up with Banks, Rutherford, original guitarist Anthony Phillips, and pre-Collins drummer John Silver for a record-label photo shoot. The last stage reunion of the '70s group was a 1982 concert.
"We all get on fantastically well, and we're going to have another reunion dinner in London in July," Collins says. "We just couldn't stop laughing 'cause we all enjoy each other's company. And I said, we should probably form a group 'cause we get on so well. ... If anybody asks me to go back and play drums for a short tour, I'd say yes. I mentioned this to the guys, and I'm sure it will come up at the dinner we're gonna have."
Meanwhile, Collins's main course is his big band. "I'm very happy," he says. "The band I have now is fantastic."
This story ran on page N03 of the Boston Globe on 06/28/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
MUSIC REVIEW
By Paul Robicheau, Globe Correspondent, 06/29/98
"Believe me, you'll be enjoying this a lot more than I am," Phil Collins told a soldout Harborlights crowd last night before singing a couple tunes on the encore as he had promised at the start.
Indeed, his popularity as a singer was not what last night's concert by the Phil Collins Big Band was all about. Collins was a drummer - and a very good one - long before he took over the vocal mike with Genesis and as a solo artist. And what better place than the closing slot of the 1998 Boston Globe Jazz & Blues Festival for Collins to indulge his dream of leading a jazz big band.
Even when he sang at the end of last night's two-hour-plus show, Collins tossed curves. He sang the Tony Bennett favorite "The Way You Look Tonight" with a pleading sensitivity that made one understand his vocal appeal, before a jauntier stab at Duke Ellington standard "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me."
Looking trim and wearing glasses, Collins was content to fade into the background of his 20-piece big band on a drum kit whose dabbled silver finish also adorned the monogrammed music stands of the horn section. However, if he was trying to emulate the style of idol Buddy Rich's Big Band, Collins fell short with a polite precision, swinging impressively on his ride cymbal and splashing the right accents, but never really driving the band.
It didn't help that the majority of last night's repertoire was from Collins's career with Genesis and as a solo artist. Early tunes "Two Hearts" and "Invisible Touch" were one step better than jazzy elevator music. Unlike great jazz pop tunes of the mid-century, the melodies were too meager to hang a big band on.
"That's All" fared better with a round of horn solos, and new tune "Rad Dudeski" suggested it was prepared with the big band in mind, from its trombone-eased melody to chunks of jazzy guitar from longtime Genesis sideman Daryl Stuermer.
The band also shined in a more creative arrangement of "I Don't Care Anymore," evoking the Pink Panther in Collins's tiptoeing hi-hat pulse, with bongo fills from percussionist Luis Conte. Collins gave "In The Air Tonight" an almost danceable undercurrent with mallets before it grew surprisingly bombastic and busy in comparison to the original's minimalist power. Stuermer's loud whines on that song also contrasted sharply with Harry Kim's dusky, fluid fluegelhorn on previous tune "Hold On My Heart."
Guest saxophonist Gerald Albright pleased the crowd with his burnished alto flights on "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)", though he missed the emotion of Collins's original vocal. But Albright put substantial bite into his own "Chips 'n' Salsa," and sent up "Georgia On My Mind" with cock-armed cues that prompted a grinning Collins to bite his tongue while pounding accents.
Thankfully, while Collins held his tongue when it came to singing, there was a welcome change of pace from Oleta Adams, who sang for half an hour at midset. The soulful Kansas City singer, wearing a lavender dress-suit, got better as she went, even playing off a bandana-sporting fan waving a towel during standard "I Could Write a Book." She seemed most comfortable when she took to the piano for a personal take on Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" and soared on "Watch What Happens."
Then it was back to the Collins Big Band, which put passable punch into Miles Davis's "Milestones," but made "Los Endos" the highlight. That Genesis show closer soared from an opening Collins/Conte duel to a gorgeous melodic treatment from the horns, and even a Latin flavored midsection before guitar and flutes climbed to the final crescendo. Like the best parts of the night, it was an intriguing change of pace.
This story ran on page C06 of the Boston Globe on 06/29/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
