Lancaster Newspapers, PA
May 28 2006
The man time forgot
Leon Redbone opens Gretna jazz season
By Michael Long
Sunday News
Published: May 27, 2006 11:12 PM EST
LANCASTER COUNTY, PA – Leon Redbone could manage little more than
weary whispers as he spoke into the telephone, his signature mellow
baritone reduced to barely audible scratches of sound.
Clearly, Redbone was not a well man. `I’m doing so-so,’ he said. `I’m
worn out, I guess.’
But not from touring. Of late, Redbone has taken his sunshine jazz
and throwback blues act on the road just one week a month, and when
he takes the stage June 9 at Mount Gretna, it will be his first
scheduled performance in nearly two months.
No, it wasn’t the rigors of life as an entertainer that had Redbone
seriously ailing for, he claims, the first time. The problem was
something less tangible.
`Perhaps it’s just my general sensation of being overwhelmed by the
complete nonsense that goes on today. It’s beginning to wear on me.’
Onstage, Redbone hearkens back to a different age, with his largely
pre-World War II material and standard uniform of white suit, Panama
hat and dark sunglasses. His offstage persona appears to be
strikingly similar.
Redbone considers himself a `bizarre extension’ of someone who
performed in a musical age sometime between the mid-19th and early
20th centuries, when the roots of blues and jazz were still taking
hold around the campfires and on the porches of America.
What is nostalgia for some is a way of life for Redbone. Talking to
him, you get the sense he sincerely wishes he could go back to a time
far removed from today. The present, it seems, drags him down.
`When I do get connected to the realities of today, it’s
disappointing, depressing and annoying. Every aspect of it,’ Redbone
said.
Get him going, and Redbone can kvetch like an old man, which, by some
estimates, he is.
While speculation and conjecture place Redbone a little past
retirement age, no one knows for sure his exact age because he
obsessively guards the details of his personal life.
He first appeared in Toronto in the mid-1970s as a man of about 30.
He may or may not be Canadian. Popular mythology holds he was born in
Cyprus in 1949 to Armenian parents and given the name Dickran
Gobalian.
Rebone is now believed to live somewhere in Pennsylvania with Beryl
Handler, who has produced some of his albums and is his supposed
wife.
It could all be true, or it could all be a carefully orchestrated
ruse; no one knows because Redbone resists talking about his own past
almost as vehemently as he resists participating in the present.
`I have great difficulties because I have absolutely no liking (for
this time). As much as I like some of the technological advancements,
I really don’t feel any affection for the time and the place.
`So I try not to get too involved with the present, as much as I can.
I try not to get too involved with the mind set of today. In some
ways, I’m living in my own time.’
Redbone does feel comfortable connecting to the here and now for that
short time he’s onstage. Performing, he said, has calmative
properties.
`It’s like taking a pill: You get some relief.’
– – –
All jazz concerts in the 2006 Music at Gretna series will be held at
Mount Gretna Playhouse, off Route 117 in Mount Gretna. Performances
begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. The following is a schedule
of performers:
June 10 – New Black Eagle Jazz Band
June 11 – Jazz Worship Service featuring New Black Eagle Jazz Band,
11 a.m.
July 22 – Progressive Jazz: An Evening with Patricia Barber
Aug. 12 – Brian Lynch and Eddie Palmieri, trumpet and piano
Sept. 2 – Bill Charlap, piano