Paul Simon appeared focused on making up for lost time Saturday at his Ravinia debut. Touching on every major phase of his career and five decades of music, the iconic singer-songwriter took the sold-out crowd on sonic journeys into the American South, through Brazilian rainforests, over South African deserts and across Asian tropics with stops at various points in between.
Such curiosity, in combination with an ace nine-piece backing band, compensated for stretches marked by dulled emotions and languid tempos. His evident sincerity aside, Simon didn’t show many outward signs of enthusiasm until midway into the 125-minute concert. The 74-year-old vocalist also kept a tight leash on the instrumentalists and primarily stuck to contours of the studio arrangements. The decisions nullified opportunities for extra energy and elements of surprise.
MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR
Adventure instead transpired via an abundance of genre-hopping and vibrant rhythms. “The Obvious Child” and the Cajun-accented “That Was Your Mother” swayed to beats created by as many as four percussionists. Other songs accumulated momentum by fusing zydeco melodies with tones created by woodwinds, cowbells and chimes. Horns played equally integral roles on African- and Latin-themed material, adding jubilant rejoinders and integrating with chicken-scratch guitar lines to enhance dance grooves. The occasions during which Simon utilized his group as a miniature orchestra to meld multicultural pop, gospel and traditional roots strains sounded the freshest.
While nostalgia surfaced in every verse of older folk favorites (“Homeward Bound”) and jazz-based ballads (“Still Crazy After All These Years”), the handful of mbaqanga-flavored songs off 1986’s “Graceland” and trio of South American-tinged selections from 1990’s “The Rhythm of the Saints” dazzled with exotic textures and novel ideas. The globe-trotting openness extended to the jive-talking “The Werewolf” and funky “Wristband,” two of just three tunes Simon performed from his recent “Stranger to Stranger” album.
Singing in a casual, conversational manner — the vocal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders — Simon came across as a mellow confidant with a penchant for recounting stories and dabbling in poetic rhyme. He often balanced serious observation with whimsy, whistling or unleashing a wordless doo-wop cry. Yet for all the carefree quirks of clipped, street-corner narrations on songs like “Rewrite,” nothing hid the wistfulness that emerged on reflective fare such as “Duncan” — as well as in most of Simon’s softened deliveries, his baritone slightly weakened by age and unable to always reach higher notes.
“After changes we are more or less the same,” Simon sang on “The Boxer,” the line echoing with deepened gravitas despite it lacking in truthfulness.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.
RELATED STORIES:
Review: Grant Park Orchestra offers more enterprising fare
Summer music preview: Top 10 rock shows and festivals
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #144A7C;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “Entertainment Photos and Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 20px Georgia,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
var playlist = ‘chi_ent_movie_trailers’,
layout = ‘autoblurb’,
iu = ‘%2F4011%2Ftrb.chicagotribune%2Fent’;
Watch the latest movie trailers.