Paul McCartney tries his hand at standards on 'Kisses on the Bottom'

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Paul McCartney tries his hand at standards on 'Kisses on the Bottom'

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

What creates a Paul McCartney? What force of sound and nature can account for it?

No one can pick apart the ideal alchemy, but Sir Paul’s new CD goes a ways towards filling in another piece of his impossible puzzle.

In the past, Paul has talked often about his rock ’n’ roll role models, from Little Richard’s manic whoop to Fats Domino’s rolling riffs. But the new disk shows the imprint of something that went in first: American standards. Thanks to his dad, the ex-Beatle grew up listening to songs by writers like Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and Johnny Mercer, the very scribes he would grow up to overshadow.

Of course, Paul’s generation has worked overtime in the last decade to make up for that slight. Has any boomer star not cut a cover album of ’30s to ’50s classics, going as low as Rod Stewart’s morbid slogs through the American songbook? Even Ringo beat Paul to the punch with his own run at the standards 42 years ago. And, of course, the Beatles themselves covered “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man” in their early prime.

The ubiquity of such beasts threatens to render Paul’s take redundant. But that wasn’t even the CD’s biggest potential threat. It could easily have emphasized McCartney’s career-long Achilles heel: his deep love of goo.

The good news is, “Kisses” rarely indulges it. Paul’s versions of standards like “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and “The Glory of Love” are lean, open and surprisingly subtle. As guided by jazz producer Tommy LiPuma, it’s a spare and quiet recording. Paul sings in whispers, his support players dance around the melodies gingerly. The approach recalls Barbra Streisand on her most recent saloon recordings, which matched her to a small jazz combo. While strings enter some songs, they never drench. The instrumental focus more often falls on the velvety bass of Robert Hurst, the silvery guitar of John Pizzarelli, and the crystalline notes of pianist Diana Krall.

While McCartney has sounded remarkably robust singing full-bore in his recent live shows, on this project he brings us closer, letting his flaws show — for a purpose. They give his performance a fragility that underscores the subject of many lyrics. Pieces like “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter” (from which the title phrase of the CD springs) treat love as a projection, a fantasy conceived alone. McCartney’s vulnerable performance makes this movingly clear.

While the pace of the disk remains snail-like, with just a brush of percussion to move things along, the sharp arrangments save it from becoming logy.

Naturally, McCartney has to take at least one step too far into schmaltz — namely. “The Inch Worm,” backed by a kids choir no less. But he makes up for it by offering two faux standards of his own, including the lovely “My Valentine.” These songs make winningly clear the connection between writers of the Irving Berlin era and the artist McCartney grew up to be. They prove that the man who may well be the greatest melodist of the last half century didn’t spring from nowhere.

Paul McCartney upholds standards on “ Kisses on the Bottom.”