Much more than mere nostalgia, Benny Dimas in Mama Alto’s Blues in the Night. Photograph supplied.
Shimmying through the audience in a slinky, softly shimmering gold dress, the fabulously tall figure of Mama Alto took to the smokey stage and opened proceedings with a bluesy rendition of ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’. ‘Lady Sings the Blues’ followed, and it seemed as if Mama’s dusky, dynamic voice, gracious gestures and the big fabric flowers in her hair were drawing the audience back to the 1930s.
No matter how much Billie Holiday came to mind, however, the show was so much more than mere nostalgia. Mama Alto is the stage persona of Benny Dimas, a queer person of colour, so her very presence, and in particular her velvety alto voice, challenged assumptions about gender, while racism was tackled more overtly throughout.
Yes, there was plenty of old-timey blues, sung with hypnotic beauty by Mama Alto, who was backed by a gifted quartet of bass, trombone, drums and, most notably, some slick piano courtesy of Tiffanni Walton aka Miss Chief. But the blues is born of suffering, and here it was put into a contemporary Australian context of social injustice.
Snippets of audio recordings were occasionally played between songs: Pauline Hanson condemning multiculturalism, for example, and an exchange between Magda Szubanski and Senator Fiona Nash about marriage equality. A couple of times, these jarring blasts of reality cut into the music’s ostensible beauty mid-song, most notably during ‘Strange Fruit’. Juxtaposing its lyrics about the lynching of African Americans decades ago with the current immigration crisis created the most powerful moment of Mama Alto’s Blues in the Night.
There were also several interludes by a pair of ‘minstrels’ in white face, who shook up this outmoded tradition further by lampooning today’s conservative Australian leaders, from federal social services minister Scott Morrison to George Pell. The satire was intentionally broad, but again effectively juxtaposed past and present injustice.
For the most part, however, the focus was on Mama Alto, who gave a total performance: singing into an old-fashioned microphone with one part seduction, two parts pain and a little bit of fun; delivering some sardonic patter between songs; lying on a bed, reading a newspaper with irritation – irritation presumably aimed at the attitudes targeted in this show. Through this political context and the emotional depth of her delivery, ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ was transformed from well worn standard to a lament whose meaning and power were reclaimed and reinterpreted for contemporary audiences. It epitomised Mama Alto’s Blues in the Night.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Mama Alto’s Blues in the Night
Vocals: Mama Alto
Piano and musical direction: Miss Chief
Chapel off Chapel 9-10 December 2016
