Lisa Fischer and Grand Baton
\nDunstan Playhouse
\nAdelaide Festival Centre
\nJune 18. <\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
Lisa Fischer has performed on the biggest stages in the world. She played to more than 500,000 people in Rio, and to sold-out stadiums from London to Berlin, the US to Australia. Since 1989 \u2013 along with keyboard player Chuck Leavell and bassist Darryl Jones \u2013 Fischer has been an indispensible part of The Rolling Stones touring band. Stones fans will never forget her show-stopping solo at the Adelaide Oval, reprising Merry Clayton\u2019s legendary vocal riff in Gimme Shelter \u2013 and making it indelibly her own. Fischer was also a long time singer for Luther Vandross and accompanied Tina Turner and Sting.<\/p>\n
We now know much more about Lisa Fischer \u2013 along with Merry Clayton, Darlene Love , Claudia Lennear and other rock vocalists \u2013 from Morgan Neville\u2019s 2014 Oscar\u2013winning documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom, a memorable, and provocative exploration of the role (and plight) of back-up singers who stand near the spotlight but never quite in it. <\/p>\n
Lisa Fischer has always had a solo career \u2013 her first album, So Intense, was released back in 1991 – but it has had its interruptions. Scheduled to play last year\u2019s Cabaret Festival, she then cancelled because of Stones concert commitments. At last, in 2016, Adelaide audiences have the chance to see her –
\ncentre stage in all her brilliance.<\/p>\n
And surely there is no better time. Touring with soul-psychedelic trio, Grand Baton, Fischer is undoubtedly at a career high point, with a cabaret scale show which is breathtaking in its intimacy and technical flair. <\/p>\n
The Saturday night set in the Dunstan Playhouse begins with greetings and introductions. As the stage fills with a purple haze of downspots, Fischer makes immediate connection with the audience and identifies the band \u2013 Aidan Carroll on bass, drummer Thierry Arpino and musical director and multi-instrumentalist J.C. Maillard. Then she begins vocalising \u2013 humming, trilling, entwining her voice with Maillard\u2019s acoustic guitar as they begin a ten minute exploration of Amy Grant\u2019s Breath of Heaven (Mary\u2019s Song). \u201cI have travelled many moonless nights \/ I am waiting in that silent prayer. \u201c It has both a gospel gravity and a spiralling ethereal questioning as Fischer reveals both her strength and fragility.<\/p>\n
Using dual microphones \u2013 one for reverb and echo effects, the other for her soaring multi-octave vocal excursions, – Fischer is a marvel of expression and control. From bell-like soprano to sultry contralto, it is claimed she spans a range from A2 to G6. <\/p>\n
From drummer Arpino\u2019s intro, using timpani mallets, and Carroll\u2019s driving upright bass, Fischer leads into Eric Bibb\u2019s blues classic, Don\u2019t Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down. J-C Maillard takes up his SazBass (an eight stringed electroacoustic instrument based on the Turkish baglama) to add some tasty syncopation as Fischer\u2019s mercurial vocals redefine the blues for the 21st century.<\/p>\n
Several mash-ups follow \u2013 Freedom, and Railroad Earth\u2019s Bird in a House – featuring great drumming and Maillard, fleet-fingered on guitar and Rhodes keyboard. Then, the band goes full throttle into Led Zeppelin\u2019s Rock and Roll. Fischer is in full belter mode and Maillard reaches for his fuzz pedal for some jazzy Hendrixisms – before segue-ing into Fischer\u2019s own Grammy-winning soul ballad, How Can I Ease the Pain. <\/p>\n
With her long association with Jagger and Richards, it is hardly surprising that Lisa Fischer has become an inventive interpreter of their songs. Miss You, Jagger\u2019s pouty lament from Some Girls, is expertly extruded by Fischer into a performance that begins with a catchy groove from the band, bass and drum rippling, guitar riffing, and Maillard adding some Daft Punk beatboxing. Fischer\u2019s majestic voice then soars once again, as the four musicians carry us through eleven minutes of jazz-rock virtuosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in a crossfire hurricane\u201d drawls Fischer as the band sashay into Jumping Jack Flash, Thierry Arpino\u2019s crisp drumming etching the beat with Carroll\u2019s rich bass and Maillard playing his SazBass like an electric oud and adding multilayered dervish Qawwali vocals, as Jack becomes a very different kind of gas, gas, gas. Fischer glides and twirls as a song, thumped out on concert stages for forty years, transforms into a modal earth dance, an ecstatic celebration with a high priestess of song officiating.<\/p>\n
The set closes with : \u201cThe lights are on\/you\u2019re not home\u201d. You might as well face it \u2013 it\u2019s Robert Palmer\u2019s Addicted to Love. From a sweet, insinuating intro Fischer\u2019s powerful vocal climbs again \u2013 stronger than Tina, more majestic than Adele. The trio -Maillard in full Fender whine, the rhythm section rock solid and increasingly urgent – carries her through surge after surge, wave after wave of rock and roll electricity.<\/p>\n
And for an encore \u2013 beginning with Fischer\u2019s sweet crooning over a trickling acoustic guitar : \u201cChildhood living is easy to do \/ The things you wanted I bought them for you \/ Graceless lady you know who I am \/ You know I can\u2019t let you slip through my hands \u201c Wild Horses. This time without Mick\u2019s faux twang and nasal whine, but deconstructed and reassembled as a soul aria that envelopes us in sound and feeling; too lucid to be called bewitching, too open-hearted to be mesmerising.<\/p>\n
Lisa Fischer is a superb artist and Grand Baton are perfect collaborators. The audience was on its feet for the final curtain . We all knew we had seen and heard something exceptional – and splendid. Wild horses couldn\u2019t drag us away.<\/p>\n
The Barefoot Review, June 20, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lisa Fischer and Grand Baton Dunstan Playhouse Adelaide Festival Centre June 18. Murray Bramwell Lisa Fischer has performed on the biggest stages in the world. She played to more than 500,000 people in Rio, and to sold-out stadiums from London to Berlin, the US to Australia. Since 1989 \u2013 along with keyboard player Chuck Leavell and bassist Darryl Jones \u2013 Fischer has been an indispensible part of The Rolling Stones touring band. Stones fans will never forget her show-stopping solo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,5,9,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-36","category-archive","category-cabaret","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2709,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2708\/revisions\/2709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}