Pink Martini

"Hang on Little Tomato"

Heinz

4.5 stars out of 5


Trove The Crimson’s archives, and you’ll find an interview with a graduating musician who, four years before, had nearly made up her mind to attend Yale.

That is, until she visited as a pre-frosh and heard China Forbes ’92 sing.

“She was such an unforgettable singer. I had such a huge crush on her that I wanted to come to Harvard,” said Alexis Toomer ’93.

Forbes, who became a Harvard stage phenom, remains just as stunning more than a decade later. She has that rare species of blessed voice—fluid as quicksilver, full as down, and fine as lace. It carries a richness and sincerity that saturates every note she sings, regardless of the style or sentiment it embodies. It’s no exaggeration to say that, given the right combination of time and place, China Forbes’s voice can change your life.

Pink Martini, a jazz/world band led by pianist Thomas M. Lauderdale ’92, has given Forbes the perfect venue to do just that. Lauderdale spent his undergraduate years at Adams House, where he was famous for wearing expensive women’s evening gowns to the dining hall and throwing extravagant shindigs—one of which forced the closing of the former house pool. He’s parlayed that exuberance into 14 beautifully composed songs on 2004’s “Hang On Little Tomato.” The album is instrumentally immaculate, orchestrally intricate, and overall, drop-dead gorgeous.

And oddly, it’s coherent, a stunning feat given the number of stylistic pots into which the disc dips its fingers. The first ten minutes bound from the lush, sultry Flamenco of “Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love,” to the airtight montuna of “Anna (El Negro Zumbon),” to the plainspoken ragtime of the title track.

The ensemble tries its hand at French, Eastern European, and even Japanese melodies, applying flawless instrumental technique to each one without the air of novelty that many jack-of-all-trade groups adopt. But Forbes’s voice puts even this virtuosity to shame.

Take “Autrefois,” a Francophone ballad and the record’s most understated track. As strained cello and Spanish guitar pepper the undercurrent of snare drum and legato piano, Forbes murmurs with a distant passion. It doesn’t matter whether you can understand the lyrics, whose protagonist “whisper[s] sweet nothings to all the girls of France” and “hopes that they respond.” Forbes’s voice, echoing cavernously under heavy reverb, oozes unrequited love and regret entirely on its own.

Melancholy is common in the group’s songs (at least seven other pieces focus on love lost or never found), but it never robs the compositions of their sincerity and vibrancy. The slinky double bass and drum brush-work of “Veronique” is cut straight from a smoky Harlem jazz club. “The Gardens of Sampson & Beasley” has a crisp energy in its samba beat that betrays its nostalgic lyrics. “Clementine,” which carries Burt Bacharach’s spirit if not his name, counters the “packing up of summer clothes” and musings on “if the sun doesn’t shine” with a series of light major-key arpeggios.

This sense of balance means that while Pink Martini channels other artists and styles, their music never feels derivative. But beyond balance, the group earns its allure from a certain reserve. Even at their most lush and enthusiastic, they never seem to be moving at full kilt—neither offering full volume, full energy, or full emotion.

However, where one would usually chock this up to frustrating intransigence, Pink Martini seems instead to be searching for reciprocity. The crispness of their songs is evidence of the joy they take in their music, but they expect their audience to contribute as well. It’s beautifully illustrated on “Dansez-Vous,” where a whispered chant of “dance, dance, dance” meets a simple statement of purpose:

“I have a full heart / It leads my entire life / I can give you a bit of my heart / But first you must dance.”

Pink Martini doesn’t lay itself bare on “Hang on Little Tomato.” Rather than force themselves on the audience, the songs invite listeners to partake of the band’s energy, urging them to find as much joy in the music as the musicians themselves.

The result can be life-changing, or it can merely be excellent cocktail party music. In any case, it remains art.

—Reviewer Nicholas K. Tabor can be reached at ntabor@fas.harvard.edu.