If Buddy Charles is the grand extrovert among Chicago`s piano-bar virtuosos, if Audrey Morris is his silken-voiced opposite, then Dave Green stands as the wry, sly comic jester of them all.
Newly ensconced at Christopher`s On Halsted, Green is delivering his message with beguiling understatement. Pay little attention and his gentle vocals and long-lined piano playing will seem to slip quietly into the background. Listen closely, however, and you will hear a deliciously witty and literate brand of singing, backed by the subtlest forms of jazz pianism.
Playing Thursdays through Saturdays at Christopher`s, Green thrives on the standards of the American song repertoire. A typical Green set, if there is such a thing for a performer with so large a songbook, will include theater tunes by Porter and Gershwin, movie hits by Michel Legrand and a touch of the softest pop-rock.
Green leaves his mark on all of this music, reworking and reshaping it with a vocal style deeply reminiscent of Nat Cole`s. Like that great musician, Green makes everything seem light as air and effortless to sing.
Yet all the while, he is toying with rhythms, stretching phrases a shade past expectations and bending pitches ever so slightly. Every tune, it seems, provides Green with opportunities to indulge his appealing little musical quirks.
Pianistically, Green also fiddles with the written score, though that`s not the most striking aspect of his playing. Rather, it`s the very lushness of his sound and the velvet in his touch that capture the ear. To hear Green floridly embellish a tune on keyboard, meanwhile offering a vocal line that gently rides the accompaniment, is to discover what soft-spoken virtuosity is all about.
The meticulousness of that approach made an old standard such as ”On Green Dolphin Street” seem almost reinvented during a recent set. And even in an ordinary tune such as ”The Glory of Love,” Green`s tendency to rewrite-and expand upon-a song`s rhythms elevated the piece.
Tony Bennett may virtually own Legrand`s ”What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” (with its sublime lyrics by the great Alan and Marilyn Bergman), but that didn`t stop Green from putting his distinct spin on it. If Bennett`s version is wide-open and epic, Green`s sounded driven and jazzy, particularly with his all-over-the-keyboard, Art Tatum-like piano accompaniment.
Elsewhere in the set, Green graced ”For Once in My Life” with a lovely, easygoing sense of swing, and he gave Duke Ellington`s ”Don`t Get Around Much Anymore” a bawdy, lowdown feeling through barrelhouse octaves in the left hand and fierce syncopations in the right.
If there`s a flaw in Green`s work, it rests firmly with the absurd electronic sound machine he occasionally uses to suggest a backup rhythm section. The tacky, tick-tock sound effect does not befit a player of his sophistication.
That said, however, Green remains one of the most appealing musical performers in the city.
DAVE GREEN
At Christopher`s On Halsted, 1633 N. Halsted St., with performances from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Thursdays, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays; phone 312-642-8484.
