London
17 November 2018
My, what a strange day. Going to an afternoon concert is a rare enough event these days anyway, but when the bill of fare involves a jazz ensemble led by a bona fide Hollywood film star, who then proceeds to spend at least half the show doing trivia quizzes, it really is quite something to behold.
From the off it’s apparent that this isn’t going to just be a “film star plays serious concert with band” event, as one has perhaps been primed to expect from Woody Allen’s somewhat po-faced international performances with his New Orleans Jazz Band. Nor indeed is it going to be a faux-riotous “film star rocks out” affair, as per Johnny Depp and his Hollywood Vampires or Keanu Reeves’s outfit Dogstar.
Oh, no, no, no, for it is obvious from the get-go that Jeff Goldblum in real life is, well, exactly like Jeff Goldblum on screen: mercurial, charismatic, hilarious and utterly uncontrollable. The nearest parallel, perhaps, is Mel Brooks, whose madcap uncontainable energy and lively underlying Jewish humour cannot, will not, be boundaried.In a complete reversal of the usual entry protocol – in which band members take the stage before, and only before, the big reveal, wherein occurs the moment of maximum libidinal energy as the singer / star enters (which was very much the order of the day on seeing Psychic TV four day earlier) – Goldblum simply wanders on by himself just to say hello and finish his menthol sweet. Long-limbed and elegant in a new banana motif short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and black pork pie hat, he has the entire hall eating out of the palm of his hand within a millisecond. By virtue of nothing more (but what a rare nothing more) than a natural ability to talk to the audience like an old friend, indeed like an entire hall of old friends. He just chats. He’s funny, genuinely warm, engaging, off the wall. One struggles for an appropriate comparison. Jonathan Richman, perhaps? Someone beloved by his audience, who reflects that love back with gratitude and humour and humility, thereby only amplifying it further in a positive feedback loop of appreciation.
Goldblum chats about roast chicken, Hall’s throat lozenges, Jurassic World and towels. He zig-zags around the stage asking questions of the people in the front row, hanging out and generally trampling all over the usually-accepted niceties of such an occasion. The entire audience is rapt, chatting along to him and making jokes, and if the next two hours consisted of this alone, one has the feeling that everyone would still go home entirely satisfied by the show.After only a couple of minutes, though, a loud automated voice punctures the atmosphere and announces the urgent need to evacuate the building. No-one is quite sure whether this is a genuine safety alert or merely part of Goldblum’s rather unconventional approach to concert performance. It turns out that is indeed a genuine emergency, or at least a genuine announcement of one, and Goldblum promises us that he will help us all to safety and that, as “the captain of today’s ship, I will be the last to leave”. Thankfully, house security soon has the situation under control, and the need for an unwelcome emergency evacuation is cancelled. Barely five minutes have elapsed and not a note of music has been played, yet when Goldblum says “Wow, already this is a magical and unforgettable show. One of the most exciting days of our lives. We’ve really bonded today,” everyone nods in earnest agreement.
Immediately, he goes straight back to regaling us with stories about headaches and birds, seemingly completely oblivious of the imperative to actually perform a gig. And so, as Goldblum rambles merrily on, the band quietly take the stage behind him and begin a grooving vamp to get things started. The Mildred Snizter Orchestra – John Storie (guitar), Alex Frank (Bass), Kenny Elliott (drums), Joe Bagg (organ) and James King (tenor sax) – are an engaging mixture of staggeringly-proficient old pros and hugely talented young guns, with guitarist Storie taking the roll of leader and Goldblum-wrangler-in-chief. And he must surely be an accomplished hand at this now, reining Goldblum slowly in until he’s behind the ivories at last. With that not unimpressive feat finally in the bag, the band kick into a selection of cuts from their new Capitol Studios Sessions album, beginning with the Charlie Mingus classic “Nostalgia In Times Square”.The Orchestra are, to coin a phrase, as tight as a duck’s arse, swinging in the old style, soloing in turns and generating enough jazz heat to make us party like it’s 1959. Goldblum has been playing jazz clubs since he was fifteen years old, back in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it’s a pleasant experience to observe that his playing is as idiosyncratic as the man himself. His timing is odd, his chord selection wonky, his trills slightly off-kilter, but all in the right way. All in a charming way.
Of particular note is the unusual and inspired inclusion of Marvin Gaye’s “Don’t Mess With Mr T” from the under-appreciated but super-bad Trouble Man soundtrack. Gaye’s smooth soul funk is here transfigured to a cool jazz swing à la Stanley Turrentine, and it sounds delightful. Special guest Irish chanteuse Imelda May makes several appearances during the show, dazzling in red and gamefully up for some inter-song badinage. She delivers “Straighten Up And Fly Right” with a suitable amount of sass, “Come On-a-my House” in a sultry whisper and “This Bitter Earth” as a genuine emotional belter.
At one point, Goldblum glances over his shoulder at the side gallery and asks “What, you think we should play some music? Aren’t you enjoying the quizzes?” He looks genuinely bemused, as though every jazz show is usually in part an episode of Fifteen To One. What seems so utterly beguiling is that Goldblum obviously thinks it is, and would clearly be just as happy to spend the rest of the afternoon asking questions about the song lyrics of My Fair Lady as showing off any of his keyboard chops.
During a twenty-minute break from all this frantic quizzing, Goldblum makes himself available for photos with the audience. This means that the entire stalls duly empty to a man and woman, as two lines, comprising literally hundreds of people, form on each side of the stage in order to get in on the action. I haven’t seen this many people crowding onto the stage since the last time I saw Iggy in action. Goldblum is smiling, hugging people, chatting and asking them about themselves, recording video messages for distant sisters in Venezuela (“Hey, sorry you couldn’t be here for the show Manuela”). And there seems to be absolutely no artifice to it. His aura is one of completely natural ease. Make no mistake, the man is an absolute pro, remembering people’s names and using them, but nevertheless he’s hugging people and giving of himself, genuinely and physically, in a way that it’s hard to image many of his peers doing. When he encounters a woman who also hails from Pennsylvania, he leads her along in a proud rendition of the state song. As could be expected, he runs out of time to see everyone, so instead he jogs down the rest of the queue, shaking hands, being kissed and eventually becomes surrounded so that some mass selfies can be captured before has to return to the piano stool.We swing further in the second set, including a lovely version of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan”, not to mention more quizzing, and by the time the set ends, two hours seems to have passed in the blink of an eye.
So, what to make if all this? It’s easy to forget that Goldblum is now edging towards seventy. He started in the Seventies, with a string of small roles in host of big movies: from his début as a home-invading thug in Michael Winner’s as-celebrated-as-its-reviled urban revenge chiller Death Wish to Robert Altman’s Nashville and Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, to the creepy Donald Sutherland remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. His career stepped up a gear in the early Eighties, The Right Stuff and The Big Chill being two big heavy-hitters, before achieving his breakout and award-winning success as doomed scientist Seth Brundle in David Cronenberg’s queasily visceral remake of The Fly – “Hey kids, wanna see how Brundlefly eats…?” By the Nineties, Goldblum was genuine box office gold, appearing in a string of blockbuster smasheroos such as Independence Day and a brace of Jurassic Parks.With devastating and bitter acuity, legendary Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban once summed up the typical Hollywood career cycle as “Who is Ricardo Montalban? Ah, Ricardo Montalban! Get me Ricardo Montalban! Get me a Ricardo Montalban type! Get me a young Ricardo Montalban! Who is Ricardo Montalban?” That being the case – and given, too, the abysmally low standards of mainstream Hollywood’s contemporary output – it requires no conspiracy theory to imagine that whilst Goldblum is unlikely to disappear from the screen completely, leading man roles may not be coming his way quite as often as they did ten or twenty years ago.
And so, with such a given gift for performance and engagement with an audience, it makes complete sense for him to shift the emphasis somewhat towards his musical talents and nurture those instead. John Carpenter has recently done much the same, very successfully. David Lynch, too, to some extent. And, on today’s showing, if all else fails, Goldblum has a very promising career chairing Eggheads ahead of him.If there’s anything to learn for next time, it would be the need for perhaps an extra hour of show time. There’s no question that it would be nice to have more music, though not at the expense of any of the eccentric and unhurried Goldblum repartee nor any form of triv quiz, natch.
The afternoon as a whole? In a word, “adorbs”.
-David Solmons-
