By IRA ROBBINS
The longstanding American effort to preserve and promote an ancient Asian culture was thoughtfully turned back on itself during the 16th annual fundraiser staged by Tibet House Wednesday. Following an edict by the Dalai Lama to help others, a portion of the proceeds was earmarked to aid New Orleans, a fine thought driven home by the performer who wrapped up the eclectic two-hour bill: pianist and songwriter Allen Toussaint, the living legend who has lately been the musical ambassador of his city’s music. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” he joked. “You get a booking agent named Katrina.”
Laurie Anderson provided the evening’s other wry chuckle. Seated with her violin, and accompanied by Tibetan flute player Nawang Khechog, she delivered “Huge Hole,” a piece about the war in Iraq in which she compared America’s surprise at being the subject of international enmity to “that girl in school who said, ‘People hate me because I’m beautiful.’ No, people hate you because you’re a jerk.” For “Big Science,” Anderson was joined by the ethereally voiced one-named cabaret-esque singer Antony (minus the Johnsons), a veteran of last year’s event who later returned for a haunting and beautiful solo piano performance of his own, “You Are My Sister.”
Instead of the classic rock stars who have appeared at past Tibet House shows – folks such as Michael Stipe, Lou Reed, Ray Davies, Patti Smith, David Bowie and David Byrne – the pop world was represented by contemporary singer-songwriters Damien Rice and Sufjan Stevens, both of whom strummed acoustic guitars, sang about a supreme being and tested the limits of audible wispiness by restraining their already thin, high voices.
Backed by horns, strings and Tibet House artistic director Philip Glass on piano, Stevens – an indie-rock phenom who resembled a management trainee, with short hair, rolled-up sleeves, slacks and tie – offered “The Lord God Bird” and the lyrically engaging memoir of “Kasimir Pulaski Day,” both of which were pretty but insubstantial. Rice’s selections, “Cold Water” and “The Blower’s Daughter Part 2,” lacked Stevens’ ambition, settling for wandering melodies and repetition of such rote lines as “Lord, can you hear me now?”
In stark vocal contrast to those fadeaway voices, the show began with a demonstration of throat singing – to Western ears, a freakish drone, guttural and supernatural – by six Tibetan monks resplendent in yellow, orange and red garb.
Throat singing also featured in the program’s easy highlight: after whispering a few nearly inaudible words of dedication to the people of Tibet, Khechog, joined by Patti Smith Group drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, let loose with an unbridled tumult of didgeridoo, powerful vocalizing and manic dancing that energized the room.
Toussaint played three solo piano tunes, including the delightful rag of “Whipped Cream,” then led the company in a finale of his Pointer Sisters hit “Yes We Can Can.” Though it might be hard to assemble a less funky group of artists – monks, folksingers, a cabaret crooner, an avant-garde pianist and violinist, all holding lyric sheets and trying to follow along – their game effort to sing what has become the unofficial theme song of New Orleans’ restoration capped the night in exactly the right spirit.
TIBET HOUSE U.S. BENEFIT CONCERT. Spirit, spirituality and charity in an eclectic program of contrasts. Seen at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday.
