Blasts From the Past
Friendly spirits haunt sixty-four-year-old Paul McCartney as he sings "Dance Tonight" (from his upcoming Memory Almost Full) in this bittersweet video directed by Michael Gondry. Natalie Portman plays a ghost delivered to McCartney in a mandolin box. Consisting mainly of the phrases "everybody's gonna dance tonight, everybody's gonna feel alright tonight" repeated over a jaunty folk riff, "Dance" could easily have been recorded for the former Wings bassist's homemade 1971 solo debut, McCartney. Without alluding to anyone in particular, Gondry's video suggests that McCartney is carrying around a lot of emotional baggage. In other news, for example, he's postponing his world tour until his divorce from Heather Mills is done.
Bassist Jack Bruce will set aside his well-documented differences with drummer Ginger Baker for at least a couple more Cream reunion shows this year. Eric Clapton, meanwhile, reunited with former Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood at the latter's May 19 show at the Countryside Rocks Festival at Highclere Castle near Newbury, England. You can watch them perform "Presence of the Lord," "Can't Find My Way Home," "Crossroads," and "Had to Cry Today" here (Clapton appears about fifteen minutes in). Compare and contrast with how the original superdupergroup looked and sounded in 1971.
Art Garfunkel joined Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo to perform "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" Wednesday in Washington D.C. The occasion was the Library of Congress's presentation of its first Gershwin Award (recognizing a major contribution to the popular song as an art form) to Simon. Seems like only yesterday they were trading quips with David Letterman prior to performing "The Boxer."
Clark Terry, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Mulgrew Miller, Jimmy Heath, and Marian McPartland, are among the cast of dozens who will pay tribute to eighty-one-year-old piano giant Oscar Peterson at Carnegie Hall on July 8. If you won't be in town, check out Swiss Radio Days, Vol. 16, which finds him in excellent company (Barney Kessel! Ray Brown! Lester Young! Gene Krupa!) in Switzerland in 1953.