Joe Jackson live at the Supper Club
New York City, 11 Nov 1997

by Andrew Hamm

His brow furrowed, Joe Jackson appeared confused as he started his set, seated alone in front of a digital piano at the Supper Club in midtown Manhattan. The music was "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" but he looked like he couldn't remember the words, or maybe it was the melody that eluded him. Eventually, after vamping for a few seconds, he opened his mouth and launched into...

...the wrong song.

He was singing "It's Different For Girls" to the piano accompaniment of "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" And when the first verse ended, the songs switched places; now he was singing the words and melody of the latter to the piano part of the former.

Never one to regurgitate old hits like so many other aging pop stars, Jackson had set the tone for the whole evening. It's difficult to call Joe Jackson "aging," when you see him perform; gesticulating and swaying, eyes squeezed shut as if to keep the music from bursting out of his head prematurely. At times he looks like he's fighting back spontaneous combustion.

Even at 43, Jackson still holds onto the cynical-optimistic angry-young-man lover-fighter he was in the seventies when these opening two songs were written. But in the process of maturing from New Wave wunderkind to Latin-Jazz experimentalist to disillusioned pop tunesmith to classical composer, "It's strange how songs will get mixed up in your mind," he confided.

Backed only by a talented and beautiful pair of women, Valerie Vigoda (from groovelily on keyboards, vocals, and violin) and Elise Morris (on keyboards, vocals, and xylophone), Joe Jackson began the evening with what he called a "musical time machine" traveling chronologically through the first fifteen years of his recording career. Constrained and liberated by the composition of his tiny ensemble, the songs took on the new life one expects from a live Jackson show.

Some were fairly by-the-book, such as "Real Men" and "Be My Number Two." "The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy," was preceded by a long dissertation on the brilliant structure of the song it is based on, "Danny Boy;" a speech heavy in music theory but also with genuine affection and envy of the song's anonymous composer. "This is a rather long introduction to a rather short song," he apologized, but his audience didn't mind a bit.

A couple were just stripped-down versions of the originals, and these songs, "Nineteen Forever" and "The Other Me," were a touch less successful than the rest of the show.

Where Jackson truly excelled were the songs he went out on a limb with, changing the whole character of the piece. "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)" was presented as a mournful air for violin and synthesized strings, segueing unexpectedly but delightfully into the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." And what began as an idle flipping through stations on a small hand-held radio, finally resting on a classical station playing Pachelbel's Canon, was suddenly transformed into "Home Town" as Jackson began singing his melody over the famous string piece. The song concluded with Jackson alone at the piano in perhaps the most stirring performance of the evening. The audience's attention was focused on nuances of melody that had been previously obscured by the arrangements on the albums, with profound results.

When the band began the epic pieces comprising Heaven And Hell, it became clear that most of the audience was unfamiliar with the piece; several left for the bathroom or the bar during the instrumental "Prelude," perhaps thinking this was intermission. As with the performance on PBS's Sessions At West 54th, most of the instruments were pre- recorded; a necessary evil for a composition as technology- and arrangement-dependent as Heaven And Hell, and the character of the evening was completely changed as a result.

Gone was the sense of freedom and looseness from the first half of the show, to be replaced by complex and strict performances, with uncertainty as to which parts were recorded and which were being played live.

Despite the change in tone, the audience responded well to the new material, moved alternately from tears to laughter to nausea to even a little fear and then back again.

Miss Vigoda played the furious "demonic" violin parts excellently, then shocked the audience with the soaring beauty of her voice as she sang the operatic sections of "Angel" and "Tuzla." On the other side of the stage, Miss Morris' sultry "whore" vocal from "Angel" contrasted her heart-wrenching interpretation of "The Bridge."

Reprising their roles on the album, Joy Askew came onstage for a passionate and unsettling turn at "Tuzla," followed by Brad Roberts' (Crash Test Dummies) lugubrious and funny take on sloth in "Passacaglia / A Bud And A Slice." The latter piece was also highlighted by Jackson and Vigoda's replacement of the album's bassoon duet with violin and accordion. "I'm not a very good accordionist," the composer apologized as he struggled to adjust the straps on the ungainly instrument. "Not that that's anything to be especially proud of..."

But Jackson was not overshadowed by the talents of his guest artists, injecting vile gluttony into "Fugue 1 / More Is More" (complete with a bottle broken over his head) and inducing laughter as he struggled to control his anger in "Right." His heartfelt piano work during "The Bridge" was the best of the night, and the crowd cringed away from him as he spiraled into egomaniacal almost-flight, alone on stage for "Fugue 2 / Song Of Daedalus."

After a long, loud ovation following the completion of Heaven And Hell, the little ensemble returned for a pair of encores, reprising the familiar, fun tone of the first half of the show. First came a hilarious lounge version of "Steppin' Out," complete with cheesy drum machine, cheesy Rhodes piano, cheesy vocals, cheesy xylophone by Miss Morris, and the Supper Club's own cheesy mirrored disco-ball reflecting blue spots of light everywhere and setting Jackson amd the crowd to laughing. "What do you care?" he shouted when he blanked on the lyrics to the third verse. "You know the fucking thing!"

Finally came the expected epilogue: "A Slow Song," as powerful and honest as ever, suffering very little for being scaled-down. The cast of three took their bows, and Jackson left the stage, thanking his audience. "Thank you, Joe!" a rowdy fan shouted back at him from standing room.