Tuesday, July 11, 10 PM, local time, in Juan-les-Pins, a handful of the privileged, including your humble servant, had the immense honor of attending a recital by the maestro Joe Bonamassa, a grand mass of a little over an hour and a half set against a backdrop of Rock, Blues, and Soul.
Armed with nothing but his six strings and incendiary riffs, Big Joe literally set the Pinède Gould on fire and showcased his class and talent at the 62nd edition of Jazz à Juan. More than 60 years this event has shone worldwide, counting luminaries from Louis Armstrong to John Coltrane, including John Lee Hooker, James Brown, Nina Simone, and even Pink Floyd in 1970, all have graced this now legendary Pinède at least once. Let’s revisit, if you will, this flamboyant and particularly exhilarating evening, Jazz à Juan, on the Rock again?
First, allow me to apologize to the more than decent opening act, the duo Matthis Pascaud and Hugh Coltman, who offered us a rather inspired blues-rock tinged with very New Orleans-like sounds. A minor downside, the perhaps slightly too linear aspect of their music, unfortunately, failed to captivate me until the end. It felt like listening to mere intros of songs without real development thereafter.
So, far be it from me to give them any advice, but I think it would be opportune, rather than excessively focusing on form, to delve a little deeper into the guts of composition by paying more attention to substance, thus providing more weight and a real density to the whole. Advice that, rest assured, will never reach them; is that a good or bad thing? Honestly, we will never know.
Transporting the Audience
Anyway, back to our business and to the hero of the evening, his serene highness, Sir Bonamassa, and the least we can say is that the fellow more than lived up to his title. What struck me from the start of the concert was the sound, powerful, massive, not really what one expects for a “Jazz” evening. The particularly heavy riffs remind us that although the man has built his legend with the label of Bluesman, he nonetheless remains a formidable riffer who undoubtedly, similar to Gary Moore, cut his teeth with Rock, even Hard Rock.
And even as they age, both would tend to, if not renounce this heritage, at least not pride themselves on it, Joe Bonamassa riffs and sends out solos like a hard rocker, and it’s not his last piece, which is a cover of the very electric “Just Got Paid” by ZZ Top, complete with a Flying V, that will contradict me. The stage is set, tonight, his lordship is in great shape and fully intends to take his audience to lands, if not unknown, perhaps a tad more hostile but in a good way.
That was for the purely guitar aspect; the second thing that hit me hard, and not insignificantly, is the voice. I already knew he excelled in this field, but live, I realized the full extent of it, what an impact and what an instrument!!! If I may say so, powerful and precise, his voice gives the whole a formidable impression of strength, a monolith of Blues-Rock enhanced by a pair of chorists directly imported from Los Angeles that not even the greatest divas of Soul would renounce.
The songs swept through at lightning speed, covering his already 35 years of career in barely 46 years of life. Keep in mind, this alien of the six strings started his career at 11 years old opening for BB King — no small feat — tallying more than thirty solo albums, including live recordings and assorted collaborations. We get a slightly better understanding of the magnitude of the phenomenon before us.
The first piece to dazzle us: the excellent “Evil Mama” from the equally excellent album Redemption. From the very first notes, one can feel the solidity of the whole and the hero of the evening’s desire to deliver a five-star performance to his loyal followers. Soul full of life and swaying rhythms caress the ears and take the audience by the hips. Also worth noting is the dazzling: “Self-Inflicted Wounds” with its masterfully harmonized solos.
The performance is impeccable, the overall level stratospheric, and the pleasure felt that night, indescribable. As an old hand, Lord Bonamassa, alternates hot and cold on an audience already fully won over to his cause, skillfully alternating between heavy riffing, funk-infused rhythm guitar, and violin-like effects full of touch and sensitivity that certainly would not have been disowned by the great Steve Morse himself.
A special mention for the keyboardist, who I think might have been the same age as his Hammond organ, kidding aside, what an honor it was to see this immense musician perform, Reese Wynans, who has collaborated with Hank William Jr, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, John Mayall, among others, 76 years old and still eager to go at it, an example of talent and longevity, assuredly…
An Exceptional Place
An evening that put the spotlight on music, therefore, but what about the setting? Absolutely magical, hearing such musical alchemy, occasionally glancing toward the horizon, rocked here and there by the salty whiffs of the Mediterranean, all mingled with the sirens’ song from this luminous ensemble. That was all your servant needed to exult, but rest assured and contrary to usual customs, all in feeling and modesty, like this magnificent Mediterranean sea, a fantastic backdrop for a musical embrace that no discordant note would spoil. From then on, I just had to let myself be carried away, intoxicated by so much talent, drunk with ecstasy from a unique moment.
Joe Bonamassa and his comrades, that night, took us into a marvelous world, as it should always be, a world where excellence, hard work, and sensitivity reign supreme, antipodes of what we currently live in our caricatures of disembodied societies so cruelly lacking in benchmarks and values. Thank you for being a beacon in the night, perhaps just for an evening, but one that will resonate forever in eternity. Like all the greats, his music will transcend time and warm some lost souls, for such is the mission of the great, and on that night, Juan dreamed big, very big indeed…
Aurélien Maccarelli
