Previously on Joan As Police Woman. . . For those arriving late, what follows is a brief introduction to Joan As Police Woman (those in the know, please feel free to skip ahead).
No stranger to collaboration, Joan Wasser's solo career was delayed and somewhat avoided while she worked with and alongside other performers early in the 1990s before she was confident enough to front her own 'solo' project in the latter half of the 2000s, taking the name from a 1970s TV show.Two and a half years on from her last solo Australian shows on the Joanthology tour, Joan has returned with a band (Parker Kindred on drums, Eric Lane on keyboards and Benjamin Lazar Davis mostly on bass) to promote her most recent album 'The Solution Is Restless'.
That album was completed during pandemic downtime from a night of improvised recordings done with Dave Okumu (The Invisible) and the Afrobeat percussionist Tony Allen – who has since passed away – and the performance tonight across two sets comprises over half of that album.
Commencing the first of two sets with the appropriately titled 'Get My Bearings', Joan sits at the upright piano with her back to most of the audience, although her face is clearly reflected in the backboard in front of her.
The stage setup has the band mostly facing each other, almost as though they are having a jam session and Joan later refers to this a "jazz brunch style show".
She has a very inviting persona and her performance is relaxed and natural. It is almost like there is more effort in her facial expression and feeling what she is playing herself, and the audience could almost be absent and her performance would be no different.
Although later in the evening she graciously comments to the attentive and respectful audience that "live music is the thing that matters the most to me".
Continuing with the funky 'Take Me To Your Leader' bringing to mind a Herbie Hancock-styled jazz fusion, what follows is a set of mainly groove-based soul.
A David Bowie cover of 'Sweet Thing' segues into 'Geometry Of You' before the set changes pace with another cover, Michael McDonald's 'I Keep Forgettin'' during which Benjamin Lazar Davis kneels front of stage and unleashes a guitar solo with Joan howling lightly in the background.
'Warning Bell' and 'Stead' complete the first set and immediately following the latter, Joan exclaims: "Get nasty!" – and, almost embarrassed, describes the song as "dirty".
After a break, the second set commences with 'Let It Be You' from Joan and Benjamin's collaborative album of the same name. Throughout this second set, it becomes more apparent that her music is routed elsewhere especially on the lengthy performance of 'Barbarian'.
To describe it as soulful would be unfair as it more than transcends that genre. This piece is almost an ongoing suite with both Joan and Benjamin joining Kindred on additional percussion throughout, and is unarguably the centrepiece of at least the second set, if not the entire evening.
There is something autobiographical in the lyrics of 'The Magic' ('I wonder if the wild animals living in me will ever find freedom') as Eric Lane briefly lets loose on the keys. This song closes the second set and Joan thanks the audience for their applause, joking: "That makes all the childhood trauma go away."
She commences the encore solo with 'Forever And A Year', and I am reminded of her 2019 solo show before she is belatedly rejoined by her band for the final song, a cover of the Timmy Thomas song 'Why Can't We Live Together'.
By the end of the evening, Joan and her colleagues have been successful in giving a performance that was extraordinary, fluid and kinetic, familiar but completely fresh.
Joan As Police Woman's tour continues with Melbourne tonight, followed by Sydney tomorrow and Brisbane on Saturday.
Read our recent interview with Joan.
