As singer-songwriter Joe Jackson returned to the stage for his encore in Los Angeles on Tuesday, he acknowledged what his British manner long suggested.
“It’s no secret that me and L.A. don’t get along that well – present company excepted, of course,” he said with a grin as the crowd in the Orpheum Theatre loudly cheered. “I like rainy weather. I don’t drive. I could go on.”
But there is a version of L.A. he’s always loved. The moody noir visuals and classic pop arrangements of the Hollywood of yesteryear always spoke to him as a gangly teen growing up in the British seaside city of Portsmouth, Jackson said.
All that was by way of introducing “Peter Gunn,” composer Henry Mancini‘s theme for the TV show of the same name, with which he and his band opened the encore, playing a version with lyrics added in the mid-’60s when jazz singer Sarah Vaughan sang it.
But the point holds even when you consider Jackson’s work as a whole, from his 1979 debut with “Look Sharp!” to this year’s 22nd album, “Hope and Fury.” The past is always present, be it lyrics or melodies, arrangements or styles, in the music Jackson makes.
“Is She Really Going Out with Him?” came first as it had in his career. Jackson’s 1978 debut single had scuffled along the lower reaches of the charts for six months before it ultimately climbed into the Top 20 or Top 10 in English-speaking countries in mid-1979 as the new wave scene took off.
Originally written for a full rock band, he’s mixed up the arrangement in the past, sometimes doing it a cappella with the group on harmonies. Here Jackson played it solo on piano, bringing the crowd so loudly into its call-and-response chorus – “Look over there! WHERE?” – that the singer laughed out loud at the volume.
“It’s Different for Girls” from “I’m the Man,” Jackson’s second album released in 1979, followed as bassist Graham Maby joined Jackson to more cheers. The two men have played together for nearly 50 years now. The rest of this terrifically tight band, all of whom have played with him for quite a while, consisted of Teddy Kumpel on guitar, Doug Yowell on drums, and Felipe Fournier on percussion.
“Hope and Fury” provided five of the 19 songs in the hour and 40 minute set, with “Welcome to Burning-by-Sea” the first of those. It, like many of the songs on the album, has a particularly English bent to the narratives within the songs.
“It’s a tart of a town, but she’s still holding on,” Jackson’s spoken-sung vocals rumbled in a lower register than usual. “And still looking sexy in the right kind of light.” The tale of a seaside resort that’d seen better days continued into the choruses, the band joining Jackson on the choruses, singing, “Burning by the sea is a bloody place to be, talk about history, burning by the sea.”
Another terrific new tune, “I’m Not Sorry,” followed; its Latin-jazz rhythms reminiscent of early ’80s albums such as “Body and Soul” and “Night and Day,” a point underscored when it slipped seamlessly into the latter album’s track “Another World.”
“This is sort of a humorous song with a sad twist,” Jackson announced before the new album’s “Fabulous People.” “It’s about a boring, ordinary, white, gay guy who can’t stand that he’s a boring, ordinary, white, gay guy.
A few songs later, Jackson returned to “Look Sharp!” for “Sunday Papers,” one of the purest new wave rockers in his catalog. “Strange Land,” one of two songs pulled from his most recent rock album, 2019’s “Fool,” arrived as a slow and dreamy atmospheric piece that perfectly fit the introduction Jackson gave it. “It’s a bit surreal,” he’d said. “It’s a song about being lost or feeling lost. What people in England call disorientated.”
Other highlights as the main set neared its end included “Be My Number Two,” a lovely ballad from 1984’s “Body and Soul,” performed solo at the keyboards, which flowed directly into “Real Men” from the 1982 release “Night and Day.”
“The next song I’m going to ramble on a bit about, so it might be a good time to take a break,” Jackson warned the crowd as he prepped to play “End of the Pier,” the last of the new numbers and yet another English seaside story.
In it, he imagined two English families, one in 1922, the other in 2022, considering their lives and entertainments. The earlier one looks forward to a holiday at the shore, singing along with family and friends to the popular entertainers of the day. A century later, the piers are passe.
“That’s if they survive, because some of them are burnt down,” Jackson said. “Did anyone see the movie ‘Tommy’? That movie was filmed in my hometown, and I remember as a teenager seeing this huge cloud of black smoke coming up from somewhere down on the seafront.
“They were filming the Who performing live on the pier, and there was some sort of accident, and the pier went up in flames,” he said. “Anyway, at this point someone shouts, ‘Get on with it!’ and someone else shouts, ‘Shut up and play!’” And several people in the audience did just that to Jackson’s delight. “So thank you for your patience.”
The main set wrapped with “two sides of the same coin, and the coin is New York City in 1982,” Jackson said, before launching into “Target” and “Steppin’ Out,” the first, sharp angles and a frenetic tempo, the second, soaring and romantic. By the end, each of the band members had slipped off stage one by one, leaving Jackson alone at the keyboards for a well-earned standing ovation.
The encore opened as noted at the top with the heavy rhythmic charge of Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” and Jackson singing its choruses of “Bye-bye, bye baby, I’m going to kiss you goodbye and slip right through that doorway.”
“You Can’t Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)” raced on the terrific playing of the entire band, with Fournier and Yowell particularly impressive on percussion.
Then, as each wave farewell one by one, Jackson was left alone again on stage to sing “Home Town,” one final ode to the city of his birth and upbringing, and one of the most wistfully nostalgic songs he’s ever written. “Back to my home town, ’cause it’s been so long,” he sang. “And I’m wondering if it’s still there.”