Bruce Hornsby reached early pop success with his first albums with his band The Range in the mid-1980’s. He has managed to stay relevant on the music scene ever since, constantly reinvigorating, refreshing, and reinventing along the way. He has collaborated notably and meaningfully with everyone from Don Henley to the Grateful Dead. No matter what though, his voice, phrasing, and touch on the keys are always unmistakably his.
At Bon Iver’s Eaux Claires festival in 2016, Hornsby discovered yMusic, a six-piece chamber ensemble. He started a relationship with them from there and it has been bearing fruit ever since, and seemingly spurring a bit of a creative renaissance for Hornsby, who has released four albums in the last five years. Last year’s Deep Sea Vents, an aquatically-themed LP, is the first fully collaborative album between the two. Touring in support of that, Rochester was fortunate enough to be a stop on their short Spring tour, which saw them at the beautiful Temple Theater on May 6.
yMusic opened up the evening with a short set, the sextet evenly split between string and wind instruments. Their sound output was somewhat avant-garde, as they explored compositions about zebras, elephants, and wolves. The animals stampeded, trumpeted and hunted across sweeping spaghetti western panoramas and colorfully flourishing landscapes, all through the voices of the six musicians on stage.
The crowd’s enthusiastic ovation for yMusic was barely dying out as Bruce Hornsby entered on stage left, sat down at his piano and began a short solo piano set. Papers strewn atop his piano contained requests received over the internet and from the audience, and he tried to play as many as he could get to while also granting calls from the crowd coming in between songs.
In contrast with yMusic’s more scripted affair, Hornsby, untethered, flew by the seat of his pants, meandering in and around the music, taking flight when the mood struck. “King of the Hill” found its way to a new as-yet recorded or even finalized BrhyM collaboration.
Midway through “Meds,” violinist Rob Moose waltzed out on the stage to join in. It may have been planned, but it certainly felt off the cuff. Plucking became bowing became a building flourish. “So ok, it’s all downhill from there!” Hornsby quipped. But there was much more to come.
“Harbor Lights,” “Lost in the Snow,” “Fortunate Son,” “A Night on the Town,” and “Show Goes On,” which has seen renewed interest recently for it’s inclusion on the TV hit The Bear, all made their way into his short set, pleasing as many in the audience as possible.
After a short break, both yMusic and Hornsby made their way back to the stage for the main event. The scripted and the improvised married together, a study in contrasts with delightful results. The set flipped back and forth from the avant-garde Deep Sea Vents material to Hornsby’s more tried and true hits of years past. Reinvention and reimagining.
The aquatically-themed new material was left-of-center, if not completely off the deep end. Chanting and trance-like, and lyrically playful. “Playpus Wow” opened with a piano and trumpet improvisation before dipping into a rhythmic, syncopated and dissonant space, with a repeated lyric, “I am the platypus.”
Hornsby took up his dulcimer for “The Wake of St. Brendan,” which started spooky and strange before drifting slowly into something brighter and more accessible, building quickly to an uplifting finish.
yMusic, behind Rob Moose’s arrangements, took the well-worn Hornsby material and revived them to a newfound glory. Had “Every Little Kiss,” “Never in This House,” “The Way It Is,” or “End of the Innocence” ever sounded so good? As each performance ended, you had to wonder if you just saw the quintessential version. After all these years and all of his performances, and all the accolades, and perhaps it was recency bias, but it sure felt, in that moment, that these songs had finally reached their true potential. “End of the Innocence,” in particular, got drawn out with various creative chamber arrangements and combinations giving Hornsby a canvas to improvise over.
Whether through new compositions with new friends, or new angles on old favorites, Hornsby and yMusic provided sparks of inspiration to the Temple Theater crowd, a memorable show on an otherwise dreary Rochester night.
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