On November 20th, I had the opportunity to attend a Leon Redbone concert which was hosted by the Stockton Performing Arts Center.  Leon Redbone is a talented singer and guitar player who combines the genres of jazz, blues, and ragtime into his performances.  Redbone was accompanied by an equally talented piano player, named Paul Asaro, who added depth to each song that was played.  These two musicians worked very well together and this concert very enjoyable.

At the start of the concert, Leon Redbone walked on stage dressed in his trademark Panama hat and dark tinted sunglasses.  He sat down on a chair in the center of the stage and began to speak to the audience as if he had known all of us for a lifetime.  Redbone had no trouble in conveying his personality to the audience.  Whether he wanted to tell the audience about a song’s significance, or simply to crack a joke, he had no problem making himself feel at home at Stockton.  Whether singing or speaking, Redbone’s most interesting quality was his voice.  His voice had a deep and smoky sound to it which made him seem both mysterious and grandfatherly at the same time.

Nearly all of the songs that Leon Redbone performed came from the Jazz Age of the 1920s.  Redbone sang popular songs of that period such as Big Time Woman by Wilton Crawley and Mr. Jelly Roll Baker by Lonnie Johnson.  An interesting aspect of the performance was Redbone’s reliance on Paul Asaro, the piano player, to choose the next song that he would play.  As a form of gratitude Redbone gave Asaro a solo during the performance and allowed him to play a song of his choice.  Asaro chose to play Blueberry Rhyme, a ragtime song composed by James P. Johnson, which fit the mood of the performance.

The magic of this performance was that it brought the audience back to an earlier time in American music.  Leon Redbone exuded a certain quality of Americana that is rare in musicians today.  Redbone waited to sing the songs that he was most famous for such as Ain’t Misbehavin’ for the end of the performance.  These were the songs that the audience knew best, and Redbone encouraged the audience to sing along with him.  For the encore, Redbone sang Shine on Harvest Moon, and nearly the entire theater was singing along with him.