Boz Scaggs thrills Opera House crowd with backyard launch of new tour, CD

By L. PIERCE CARSON
Register Staff Writer

Five years ago, blue-eyed soul singer/songwriter Boz Scaggs recorded a collection of standards, demonstrating he’s as comfortable on Tin Pan Alley as he is on Beale Street.

Now, the Napa Valley based recording artist has followed that up with a second volume, a dozen songs that range from great American songbook to a bossa nova treasure associated with Antonio Carlos Jobim.

After he spent the better part of last week at the Napa Valley Opera House rehearsing the new material and new arrangements of his own hits, Scaggs and company launched a coast to coast tour at the Main Street venue Tuesday night. It was also the official release date for the new Decca recording, “Speak Low.”

Although he earned his worldwide reputation blending soul and blues in both slick and funky configurations, Scaggs has found a new niche for his husky tenor/baritone voice — bringing back songs by greats like Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington — reinvigorating treasures like “I’ll Remember April” and “This Time the Dream’s On Me” with delightful new arrangements and signature smoky vocals.

As with the 2003 recording, “But Beautiful,” “Speak Low” is expected to shoot to the top of the jazz charts any minute now.

Ohio-born, Texas-raised Scaggs started out as a guitar-slinging lover of raw blues. His first musical success came as a member of the Flower Power-era Steve Miller Band. But he made his greatest impact as the San Francisco purveyor of slick and elegantly executed white rhythm and blues, reaching his commercial peak with the multi-platinum “Silk Degrees” album of 1976. That recording spawned the disco-era mega-hits “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle.”

Although he tours infrequently and concertizes even less, his appeal hasn’t waned, evidenced by the adoring SRO crowd that gave him a standing ovation Tuesday night before he’d even sung a note.

Scaggs has put together an impressive roster of veteran musicians for a fall tour that takes him to Seattle this week and then across the country to New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.

For example, he discovered his current arranger quite by sheer coincidence one night wandering through New York’s Greenwich Village. “It was raining, cold out,” he told Tuesday’s audience. “I walked by the Blue Note and heard music coming out of the club. It was vibes, string trio, a couple of horns — this was the sound I’d been hearing in my head — exactly. Turned out to be Gil Goldstein Septet. After the set, Gil and I started talking, and it was just a really nice meeting. When we got together around a piano, that was it. We knew.”

Goldstein not only arranged the dozen tunes on the new CD, he’s also come up with fresh approaches to “Lowdown” (adding reeds and a catchy tempo) and “Harbor Lights” (Goldstein plays an accordion intro and then throughout the song, with rapturous reedman Paul McCandless adding a wealth of soaring piccolo runs).

Playing bass on the tour is Steve Rodby, who’s appeared on just about every tour and recording the Pat Metheny Group has made since the early ’80s. Another outstanding reedman, Bob Sheppard, is also featured on both CD and tour, with Jason Lewis rounding out the exceptional  rhythm section.

Last, but certainly not least, is vocalist Monét, who’s appeared with Scaggs for quite a few years, including the last of his three visits to the Robert Mondavi Summer Festival. She and Boz shared a haunting arrangement of “Some Other Time” (written by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green for the WWII-era Broadway show, “On The Town”), which incorporated a brief segment of Scaggs’ hit, “We’re All Alone” — a wonderful effort that this  listener wishes had been included on the new CD.

The exquisite 90 minute show kicked off with the opening two cuts from “Speak Low,” the Bronislaw Kaper theme from the film, “Invitation” (which included lovely vocalese from Monét) and “She Was Too Good to Me.”

It included a song Scaggs termed “obscure but beautiful,” a Mack Gordon/Harry Warren song, “I Wish I Knew,” from a 1945 Betty Grable/Dick Haymes Tinseltown musical called “Diamond Horseshoe;” and a beguiling arrangement of the title track, “Speak Low,” penned by the amazing collaboration of Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash. Of special merit, too, was the headliner’s take on Jobim’s classic,“Dindi.”

Boz Scaggs might be 64 but he sounds as fresh and looks as good as he did when he was attracting crowds (and still does) and turning heads in the days of “Silk Degrees.” Thanks, Boz, for launching your latest effort in your own backyard.

   

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