Review: With CHRISTMAS WITH CHAMPIAN Jazz Great Champian Fulton Jazzes Up The Holiday Season at Birdland

It may be beginning to look a lot like Christmas but it isn't sounding like Christmas at Birdland, even though that is what is being sold in the show title CHRISTMAS WITH CHAMPIAN. Yes. Champian Fulton's current show does have some holiday music in it, but not the way a person might think. Everybody who has had their fill of candy canes and eggnog, of sugary Christmas music and preachy religious compositions can revel in the fact that Ms. Fulton's jazz trio is presenting music you could listen to every day of the year... even if the lyrics occasionally do feature Yuletide verbiage. It doesn't matter what Champian Fulton is singing, honestly; she could be performing "Michael Row The Boat Ashore," "Gregorian Chant" or her "ABC's" and she would still sound like she was singing the most intricate improvisations ever to be heard on the stage of a jazz club or any other stage anyone would care to nominate. When you have a voice like Champian Fulton's you kind of have to sing jazz. It's a rule. It's the eleventh commandment. This is a woman and an artist who was destined to sing jazz, which is exactly what she is doing at Birdland this Christmas, and which is why there are people in a nightclub at Christmastime.

Working alongside her dope drummer Fukushi Tainaka and boss bassist Hide Tanaka, Ms. Fulton is presenting some seventy minutes of casual conversation and sophisticated swing. Oh, it isn't swing in the sense of a "Swing Band" but this band really does swing, and it is a genuine joy to sit in a room and watch them play because it's like watching youngsters on a playground, having fun. That is because Fulton and co. really are having fun. Without benefit of any charts, the jazz trio plays off of one another, enjoying each other's company and artistry, even taking out opportunities to stop and watch each other, sometimes laughing out loud as they marvel at the skills on display by their colleagues. At times laid back and cool, others boisterous and exciting, Champian rides a slow boat back and forth between her jazz-infused holiday classics like "The Christmas Waltz" and a significantly wonderful "Winter Wonderland" and classic standards like "I Cried For You" and evening highlight "The Very Thought of You." A bona fide jazz set, there is no script, no trajectory, no story being told, though Fulton is a very good storyteller, as evidenced by the odd recounting of a backstory here or the off-handed remark about Willie Nelson there, and with each new comment revealing a little more of a who she is and what amuses her, there is a tangible tug of a heartstring or two that informs a growing tendency toward being besotted by the charming Champian.

It is difficult for a stage manager or club owner to pick just the right placement for a piano because, no matter where a member of the audience sits, they will be missing some visual that feels important. If the pianist is singing (as Ms. Fulton is) there is a desire to see their face; if the pianist is exciting (as Ms. Fulton is) there is a need to see their fingers. The Birdland team (or perhaps Champian herself) has done a pretty good job at staging the piano in just the right place, but Fulton herself is constantly aware of the audience and makes sure that the crowd gets a look at her face enough times to appreciate her beauty. More important, though, than the face is the hands. There is a kind of eloquence to the way Ms. Fulton's hands move over the keys - it's not as showy as some of the other pianists we've seen at Birdland, but there is a definite purpose to the movement, giving the audience chances to see a more relaxed fluidity at times, and then some very pronounced key strikes at others, even times when one hand rises into the air and pauses, waiting for le moment juste to come down onto the keys. It is a rather emotional experience, as is the journey of observation to be taken with Misters Tainaka and Tanaka, both of whom play their instruments with a candor and humor that constantly reminds one that they are up there to play, that the audience is the happy beneficiaries of their playtime, not unlike the lives of athletes. These three people are just athletes with music - and it's such immaculate music that this writer had one of those rare moments when the concept of music, the thought that somebody along these centuries had the idea to create music, became clearly appreciable. While listening to all of the layers, the colors, the nuances of the Champian Fulton Trio play this show, I actually wrote in my notebook: "There are times when the miracle of music rings true to you." It was during the performance of "Gracias a Dios" that the notation occurred, just below a scribble that says, "It's like watching a sporting event" that was made during a performance of Oscar Peterson's "Blues Agent" that stood out as the triumph of an evening filled with noteworthy musical moments, particularly a "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" that will redefine the way a person considers the famous holiday composition.

Redefining the holidays - a lot of people could use a little of that right now. It's not that easy these days to get into a Christmas mood, and there are many who don't even celebrate Christmas. But the thing that we can all celebrate every day of the year is music that will make us feel, help us to feel better, remind us of all that's great and good in the world. This is that music.

CHRISTMAS WITH CHAMPIAN has performances December 24th and 25th at 8:30 and 10:30 pm. For reservations visit the Birdland website HERE.

HERE is Champian Fulton's website.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

To post a comment, you must register and login.