As much as I adore the songs from A Chorus Line, the 1975 Original Broadway Cast could not really Sing Worth a Shit. Partially, I think it was a concession they made in casting-- they chose folks who could project their voices, dance and act; looking for that triumverate of talent, it mattered not whether they were Sarah Brightman belting out that vibrato like the unfurling petals of a glorious rose.
On the other hand, the voices on A Chorus Line were conversational. They had the advantage of sounding like real people conveying elements of their lives-- which is exactly what they were, in the context of the script. Wayne Cilento singing "I Can Do That" has all the requisite wackiness of a brassy jokester swindling his way into tap class; Priscilla Lopez's version of "Nothing" captured desire and revenge through the very viable channel prayer; both resonate with the banal reality of your neighbors grousing over what sweet morsel to throw on the BBQ next, only in song form. No spectacular warbles to phone home about, but somehow real in a way that Andrew Lloyd Webber's minions will never understand-- a sort of folk art, really.
Azita's Endantiodromia works in the same way-- terrible, compelling and somehow real all at once. Terrible comes first, and I mean it in the literary sense: formidable, extreme, bloody, larger-than-life. Terrible as in "Ivan, the." With the assistance of drummer John McEntire, bassist Matthew Lux, guitarist Jeff Parker, and cornetist Rob Mazurek, Azita plays armchair pub jazz in 70s half-step melodies, composing jittery modernist piano pieces for the pop age. Her singing voice, petted down quite a lot from her war-cry days in Chicago no-punk greats the Scissor Girls and Bride of Nono, is a flimsy, moppety, rubbery alto that never knows which note is safe to pitch a tent upon. Initially, it is something akin to off-putting-- or if you're feeling sinister, off-putting could also be interpreted as "intolerable."
However. Once the fertile terribleness of Azita's painfully unaffected delivery sinks in, it lays eggs, and Endantiodromia reveals itself as one of those records that shears the tiny line between genius and utterly confounding. She interprets her compositions like Linda Ronstadt's record with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, if Linda had first washed down a couple valium pills with a flask of Maker's Mark. Or, like Yoko Ono fronting Get Hustle. Or, on the vocal-free numbers, like Gyorgy Kurtag's jagged, frightening vocal explorations and Scriabin piano concertos interpreted in a pop-jazz context.
Azita interprets the aforementioned ideas-- along with a whole heaping spoonful of Steely Dan cocaine-haze melodics-- as if seeing them through a warped mirror bubbled up and cracked with globules of heat. And, as conversation goes, Azita's is appropriately deranged, as she barks out lyrics like, "I'd love to invite your eleventh finger in for a little tickle" on the slinky, cabaret number "Ooh Ooh Johnny". On the opening track, "Better End in Time", Azita's narrative gets anecdotal: "We split up after the Christmas party/ He was too far gone to care/ Pukin' out the driver side door/ Maneuvering the stairs/ Claiming his is the art of a sailor/ A little take from everywhere." She sings it in a whimper and, more important than the fact that her throat is clogged and froggy, she is utterly believable. She's believable 'cause she's flawlessly human and unscripted, like her vocal tracks were cut in one take, the second she thought of them. Unfettered.
And with that realization, something weird happens. The more I listen to Enantiodromia, the more I believe it to be a work erring more on the side of genius than on the side of confounding. Her piano compositions are quite impeccable (see Scriabin vs. piano jazz reference above), her voice is inimitable (without the slightest ounce of hyperbole, that one), and the album's final track, "Show Theme", left room for some subdued Fosse-style choreography after I threw back my Sunday mimosa.
