In a Sunday night outing at the Cubby Bear Lounge, 1059 W. Addison St., jazz-poet Gil Scott-Heron delivered some of the more emotive pieces in his repertoire in a rich, if off-key, baritone.
The performance was also noteworthy for the songs not rendered. Scott-Heron's signal piece, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and, from his latest album, his exhortatory address to young rappers, "Message to the Messengers," were not played despite the crowd's stomping for an encore.
Scott-Heron confined his show to poignant songs. Limning his own spiritual journey, he covered a terrain of physical and psychic craters in an uplifting, at times celebratory, way. Songs such as "The Bottle" and "Winter in America" had a battle-weary yet triumphant blues feel. Far from being depressing, these numbers gave hope and comfort to those exposed to real or metaphorical colds.
While on Sunday night he sat down more often than on any of the previous half-dozen times this writer has seen him, his singing, if not his presence, was also more commanding and soulful.
Scott-Heron's spiritual evocation was both for guidance as well as a declaration of unity with that world. "The Other Side, Parts I, II and III," a half-hour suite taken from his recently released album, "Spirits" (TVT), updates older numbers such as "Home Is Where the Hatred Is," with Latin-flavored arrangements: "Home is where I lived inside my white powdered dreams/Home was once an empty vacuum but filled now with my silent screams."
Scott-Heron rendered the post-mortem-yet-optimistic perspective of "The Other Side," as he did on all his tracks where he sang, in a strong voice that belied his spectral visage. Bone-thin, with elbows seemingly frozen away from his body, the 45-year-old appeared to have gone through some severe trauma.
His five musicians jammed with a skill and suppleness that had people bursting in muffled screams. Keyboardist Kim Gordon was particularly remarkable, tickling in soft, medium tones until the band (and the audience) exploded in guttural amens.