The Musical Box

jolie holland. photo by scott irvine.

Even in its rockier moments, like the ones that define her wonderful 2008 album The Living and the Dead, there remains an unmistakable intimacy to Jolie Holland’s music. It requires space and demands attention. So placing her stories of addiction, abandonment and faith on display at the new Woodland Ave. music club Cosmic Charlie’s may not have been the most skillful booking job in the world. Located in the same space that occupied the old Lynagh’s Music Club, the room’s design seems to almost amplify the noise made by restless bar crowds - and last night there was a wealth of it. There was so much, in fact, that the musings of Holland and accompanist/guitarist Grey Gersten almost seemed like a secondary part of the bar atmosphere.

Amazingly, the performance drew a hearty crowd - a feat in itself, considering the concert received almost zero publicity. But it was disheartening to find nearly one-third of the crowd located at the back end of the room near the bar treat an artist and guest (and a performer they forked over 10 bucks to see) with such flippant resignation and ill respect. On club atmosphere alone, the evening was a disappointment.

Now, take away the offstage distractions and you were left with a rather accomplished performance. Holland painted musical portraits with a vocal accent beautifully stalled between the longing of Lucinda Williams’ Lone Star drawl (Holland, likewise, is a Texas native) and the soul/jazz phrasing of such timeless stylists as Billie Holiday. Instrumentally, she colored her tunes with rhythms from a weather-beaten Epiphone guitar and a handcrafted, cigar box-shaped violin, although Gersten’s keen guitar leads propelled the material

In terms of repertoire, the performance was a delight, from the show-opening montage of death, love and loss in Mexico City to the lone encore - a cover of alt-country fave Freakwater’s Gone to Stay. In between, the performance revealed snapshots of Western-flavored mystique (Roll My Bones) and rural Appalachian fancy (Alley Flowers) along with a few fun, well-chosen covers (Michael Hurley’s O My Stars and Sonny and the Sunsets’ Halloween-themed Death Cream).

Topping everything, though, was the highlight tune from The Living and the Dead - a remorseful but ultimately elegant romantic still life called Palmyra. Quietly rugged as this version was, it was still beautifully restless, emotive and tense enough to deflect the dismissive bowling alley ambience of an uninvolved bar crowd.