Smokey rises above the din
by BilgewaterFlanagan on 7/15/09Eastman Theatre - RochesterSmokey Robinson's performance in the elegant Eastman Theater as part of the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival was terrribly diminshed by the sound quality, particularly the distracting, overloud bass. Smokey was, as might be expected, the perfect professional and the voice, when it could be heard clearly, retains it's unique, seductive smoothness and clarity. The arrangements and instrumentation were disappointing, based largely on the electronic capabilities of two keyboards. The lone sax player was excellent but, again,the sound set up made him and the drums sound artifical and the bass - I can't emphasize enough - was ghastly. The Vegas style show, complete with costume changes and sexy dancing girls, was not my cup of tea but seemed to be a crowd pleaser and the pacing of the show, inrterspersing familiar tunes with some newer and less familiar ones was well thought out. It seems that the Eastman, with its perfect acoustics, thwarts set-ups designed for hockey rinks and other large scale, acoustically mightmarish venues. Not to dwell on it, but the bass, in addition to providing a tactile punch to the ribs, sounded like a close miked cardboard box being hit with a baseball bat. I never distinguished any actual notes from the bass and the overall sound quality of the first two tunes was so atificial sounding that I suspected Smokey was lip synching. The show got better and Smokey, despite it all, was terrific. On a couple of tunes the bass laid out and it was a great relief. It made you long to hear Smokey, who clearly still has it, in a more intimate setting. it was especcially ironic to have such lackluster arrangements and such a poor bass sound when the Motown sound, that Smokey had so much to do with creating, was legendary, as was the house bassist, James Jamerson.