Review: DIANNE REEVES: LOVESTRUCK Is Spreading Love at Jazz At Lincoln Center

If you go out to attend a live music show in mid February, you’re likely to run into the 87-year-old song “My Funny Valentine.”  So I wasn’t surprised this week when Dianne Reeves included it in her Lovestruck; the timing of the booking coinciding with the holiday of hearts is an annual tradition for the singer at Jazz at Lincoln Center. She’d recorded the aforementioned Rodgers & Hart classic on her very first solo album, Welcome to My Love, back in 1982.  All these years (and five Grammy Awards) later, she still sounds great: her voice is robust and resonant, and she dives into her material with command, the musical equivalent of an Olympic athlete. Navigating melodies tricky or tender, handling the lyrics as written or embellishing them – or scat-singing up a storm — the lady makes music into magic, like a jazz genie Earth Mother.  Greeting the fans in the house like old friends, she sings “What’s New?” and adds to the old lyric: “How sweet of you to be here…I’m so glad to be with you tonight…” and soon she’s telling us about her travels, the Taj Mahal, Herbie Hancock, and observing monkeys.  

The radiant Reeves seemed to be having a great and grateful time, appreciative of her audience and delighting in the dazzle of her musicians, fully attentive and rocking to their hard-driving instrumental breaks.  If you especially like longish, powerhouse, heart-racing solos featuring drums (Terreon Gully) and percussion (Munyungo Jackson), this is your lucky night.  For a contrast to the intense-sound arrangements, the aforementioned pair, along with bassist Reuben Rogers and pianist/keyboardist John Beasley, left the stage for an interlude with just the deft guitar accompaniment of Romero Lubambo so that the two mood wizards could cast a more low-key golden spell.  When fondly introducing the musicians and addressing the audience, devoted Dianne often sang her comments to liven things up.  This got an appreciative reaction from the crowd, as did remarks about spreading love, respect, and peace.  

A lovely version of Horace Silver’s “Peace” was included (“There's a place that I know/ Where the sycamores grow/ And daffodils have their fun/ Where the cares of the day/ Seem to slowly fade away/ In the glow of the evening sun/ Peace when the day is done”). And the Gershwins’ yearning for “Someone to Watch Over Me” further showed the sensitive side of the seeming tower of strength as Dianne Reeves wrapped her golden tones around the ballad.  Employing considerable artistic license, the old song “I Wish You Love” was shorn of its introductory verse and some other lines that normally make it undisputably a break-up song of farewell. Reeves replaces “My breaking heart and I agree that you and I could never be” with “All of my friends and I agree…” going on to “wish” us peace and grace — and lower grocery prices” and it becomes her wish and blessing addressed to the hundreds of us in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater.   

After rapturous applause for the approximately 90-minute extravaganza, there was an encore that was the ideal choice to keep the audience rapt: “Lazy Afternoon,” the epitome of languid enchantment, trusting the material to intoxicate with its celebration of  gloriously sensuous calm. After an often high-energy and kinetic evening, time stood still.  

Find more information about Dianne Reeves on her website.

Visit Jazz at Lincoln center here for more upcoming shows.