The recent re-emergence of HotHouse, Marguerite Horberg’s club in the South Loop, has enriched the texture of musical life in Chicago.
Without it, performances such as Tuesday night’s local premiere of saxophonist Steve Lacy’s song cycle “The Cry” surely would not have taken place.
That said, however, Lacy’s two-hour opus proved disappointing, despite some brilliant instrumental solos played by the composer as well as ensemble passages of considerable timbral beauty.
Though Lacy has used several short poems by self-exiled Bengladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin as his text, his extended vocal-instrumental work is inspired at least in part by the Brecht-Weill musical-theater idiom of the 1920s. The expressionistic character of the vocal lines, the cabaret-tinged nature of the instrumentation (with horns, accordion and percussion) and much of the harmonic vocabulary of “The Cry” draw deeply on such Weill milestones as “The Threepenny Opera” and “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.”
Other portions of Lacy’s new piece suggest the influence of the Austrian composer Alban Berg, especially in the work’s more grandiose vocal writing.
Considering the melodramatic nature of the text for “The Cry,” which chronicles the psychological descent of an oppressed woman, it’s not surprising that Lacy turned for inspiration to music of Weill and Berg. Unfortunately, Lacy’s score never fully escapes the imprint of composers whose techniques he borrows. Nor do Lacy’s clever details of orchestration and exceptional solos on soprano saxophone conceal the derivative quality.
That’s not to say “The Cry” lacks originality. The microtonal pitches the reeds produce in ensemble passages and the evocative blending of particular instrumental colors command attention.
Better still, the instrumental preludes and postludes surrounding the vocal arias often yield creative, jazz-inspired improvisations.
But the familiarity of so much of Lacy’s written score, as well as his lugubrious writing for voice, far outweigh its virtues. Worse, the bland singing of Irene Aebi, Lacy’s wife, made the composer’s vocal writing sound even more ungainly. Through much of this performance, Aebi was incapable of making her voice project above the sound of a comparatively small instrumental ensemble. As for interpretation, hers was a flat, opaque reading that brought little nuance or insight to either the score or the text.
That’s a pity, not only because of Lacy’s gifts as soloist and leader but also because of the searing power of the text Lacy used as the basis for “The Cry.” Had Aebi recited the poems, with Lacy and the instrumentalists improvising an accompaniment, the evening would have carried far more impact.
Instead, “The Cry” ultimately diminished the power of the poetry Lacy hoped to serve.
