Paul Delean, The Gazette, Montreal
May 20th, 1995
Delia Vannelli got a belated Mother’s Day gift this week. It was a copy, hand-delivered by the man himself, of son Gino’s new jazz album, Yonder Tree. That’s right. Jazz album.
After 20 years in the rock-and-pop genre, the 43-year-old Montreal native decided to follow a new path. “I’m not a traditional jazz writer or singer,” he noted during a brief visit to the city. (He’ll return next month to perform at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.) “I’ve simply taken a sound from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, pop production and vocalization from my era, musicianship that is fusion, also from our era, lyrics from I don’t know what era that have an element of antagonism and inner conflict, topics of the day, and strung them together to make the album what it is.”
“What I was after above all was a simple sense of beauty. If I didn’t achieve that, I achieved nothing at all. Beauty has to be it’s most definitive and lasting point. If I didn’t make that, it doesn’t have much of a point.” Reaction has been strong, and mixed. Some people on the pop side consider it too bold a departure; some in the jazz field say it’s not pure jazz. “I’m glad I wasn’t aware of this (debate) while I was recording it,” Vannelli said. Lyrically, Yonder Tree is very much in the Vannelli tradition of intense social, spiritual and emotional probing and evaluation, what he calls his “internal dialogue.”
The songs come complete with references to Walter Whitman, Marx, Moliere, Blavatsky, Jesus, Siddhartha, Solomon, Judas, Gideon, Jehovah, Gabriel and Coltrane. It’s a long way from People Gotta Move. “I’ve got a lot of complex feelings about existence itself,” he said. “I’m a real devotee of the mystics. I understand them, have had much similar experiences.” But he says the album also has a lighter side, “unspoken humor that belies all the serious questioning,” and points as an example to the song A Little Bit Of Judas, which begins with the words “well, you can wear those pajamas/Like those Tibetan lamas all day.”
Personally, the singer of hits like I Just Wanna Stop, Living Inside Myself and Black Cars says he’s happier than he’s ever been. “I used to be too tied to my career. It’s a subsidiary of me. How I feel in my life, the people around me, am I happy where I’m at – those things are more important to me now.” Still, he’s thinking of relocating again, after moving from California to Portland, Ore., three and a half years ago with his wife and son.
“My son’s in the second grade and I’d like him to finish fourth grade in Portland, but I’m not sure I want to stay there (beyond that). Maybe we’ll let the wind carry our seeds somewhere else.” There is no tour yet built around Yonder Tree, only next month’s visit to the Montreal Jazz Festival.
“This is something I wanted to do especially for Montreal – play for people I know, sort of a homecoming, with only piano, vibes and bass. The farthest people will be 50 feet from me. We might even have a few people from the audience sit in for a few numbers; we definitely will have some guests from the festival sit in.”
Twenty years after becoming an international star, Vannelli said he still gets nervous coming home to play. “Some of the people have such expectations, a wide variety of expectations. It’s kind of like singing for my father (Russ, who died four months ago of cancer). There’s a sort of unspoken rivalry. You want to do good; you hope you don’t disappoint.”
