Madeleine Peyroux Plays Ponte Vedra Concert Hall on May 8th
Madeleine Peyroux’s last performance in Northeast Florida actually never happened. She was scheduled to perform at Hemming Park (now James Weldon Johnson Park) at the jazz festival in 2012, but her Sunday set was canceled, along with all the others that day, after a ferocious freak rainstorm ran through downtown like shoppers on Black Friday. That was our only chance to see, up close and in person, one of the most compelling singers of the last 30 years–at least, that was our only chance, until now.
Peyroux’s Sunday set at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall comes amidst a world tour that was originally scheduled to begin last year, but was postponed due to the pandemic. She had done shows in Orlando and Clearwater earlier this week, but the PVCH show is her last until next week, at which point she’ll spend the summer traversing the country before heading to Europe in September. The tour is designed to promote the reissue of “Careless Love,” her hit album from 2004, which has now been re-released as a deluxe triple-vinyl, two-CD box set.
Born in April 1974, the Athens native made a quick and decisive splash in the industry with her debut album, “Dreamland,” an instant classic that was probably the last truly exceptional jazz album ever released by Atlantic Records. (Digression: Label output in that genre peaked under co-founder Neshui Ertegun in the 1960s, including iconic albums by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Ornette Coleman, Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz Jimmy Giuffre, Ray Charles and the Modern Jazz Quartet. The label later evolved toward rock and pop, a realm in which they remain highly successful.) She was backed by a murderer’s row of sidemen like Cyrus Chesnut, Leon Parker, Marc Ribot, James Carter and Vernon Reid. That sound, at that time, was fresher than glacier water, and it has lost nary an iota of shine in the three decades after its release.
"Dreamland" was indisputably one of the very best jazz vocal albums of the past 25 years, a precursor to the crucial work done by Jolie Holland just a couple of years later. The Billie Holiday comparisons of a quarter century ago are still being made, but now it's clear that Peyroux's voice is singular, and her own creative legacy is clearly distinct.
Peyroux’s early style was thoroughly rooted in the history of American Song, with halting glances toward the future. She was often compared to Billie Holiday, because no other singer in history had a voice that matched Lady Day’s so closely, but her actual work was not entirely based in jazz. Her sound is flavored more by the kind of blues and acoustic folk she learned while busking in Paris and New Orleans as a kid, as well as singer songwriters like the (presumably) late great Connie Converse.
As a young writer in the 1990s, my greatest mentor was an old poet named Alan Justiss (1943-2010). I learned so much from that guy, and I'm glad to say that he eventually learned a few things from me. I made a bootleg copy of "Dreamland" on cassette, from the CD I'd borrowed from the Jacksonville Public Library, and it became one of his favorite albums ever, almost instantly, as it had already become for me, just a few days earlier. We agreed that her song "There's a Use" was the track that sealed the deal. Her usual laid-back bluesy tone there gave way to an explosion of pure hopeful joy. Her performance there can still elicit emotion from the most hardened cynic; I know, because I sometimes identify as such.
Less than a decade later, the music of Madeleine Peyroux played a crucial role in what turned out to be one of the most important moments in my life. It was 2004–November 6, to be exact–and I was riding the bus back home from downtown. I was holding the press kit for Madeleine Peyroux's most recent album, which I'd gotten in the mail the day before but had waited to open until just then. While I was reading the liner notes, the girl sitting across from me dropped her book–a college anatomy book, it turned out, because she was studying for nursing school. I picked up her book, and in the process accidentally dropped my folder with the Peyroux stuff in it. We met, and we said hello. Her name was Sarah Whitlock, and she lived just a few blocks from me. We traded numbers, but we both had some time to spare, so we went to a place called Fuel Coffeehouse for a couple of beers.
That first conversation revolved largely around the music of Madeleine Peyroux, whose new album I was going to review for a publication called Ink 19. She asked me to come to her place, so we could both hear the album for the first time together, and we stayed together for the next 10,700 hours. She was the love of my life, and then she died, horribly and tragically, and I could never listen to the music of Madeleine Peyroux without falling apart, not for the next 15 years or so, not until just a few minutes ago.
She met Alan Justiss once, and she sat on the old man's lap and asked him about Peyroux, because I'd told her the same story that I told you earlier. Within four years, they were both dead, and I was not–and that was really a problem, for a very long time, but I've since made the closest possible approximation of peace with it. I wish I'd taken a picture of that moment, but the image remains in my mind, accessible when I need a reason to smile.
“Careless Love” was released in 2004. It’s been, by far, the biggest commercial success of her career to date, selling over a million copies worldwide and earning Gold certification in Australia, France, Germany and the United States, while also going Platinum in the UK. It was a big victory for her, and for the musical values she stands for. She fared especially well at places like Starbucks and Borders, which played an essential gatekeeping function back then.
Her success was earned the right way, with a purity of focus on the music, no gimmicks and no posturing. Now, almost 20 years later, local audiences have a unique opportunity to see what all the fuss was about back then, and to see why they’re still fussing now.
https://www.pvconcerthall.com/events/detail/madeleine-peyroux