"A Testament to the Human Spirit"
Jesse Malin's Triumphant Return to the Stage
Over a year-and-a-half ago, Jesse Malin, one of the most affecting, enlightening, entertaining, and empowering singer-songwriters of our time, suffered a rare spinal stroke. Paralyzed from the waist down, he spent the rest of 2023 and 2024 undergoing experimental stem cell treatment in Buenos Aires and a grueling physical therapy program.
On Sunday night at The Beacon Theatre in his hometown of New York, he returned to a concert stage for the first time since April 29, 2023, a performance that took place a few weeks before his crippling injury.
Those present Sunday night saw a resounding return for the troubadour in a performance that reassured the sold-out audience of his admirers, friends, fans, and physical therapists that everything essential about the life-affirming powerhouse that is Jesse Malin is intact.
Jesse Malin, and everything salient about him, is back. He is even walking again (to a degree). And no part of his energy, enthusiasm, humor, artful songcraft, or positive mental attitude (“P.M.A.”, he calls it) is diminished by his tribulations.
A Benefit for Jesse Malin began with Alejandro Escovedo performing his own “Sensitive Boys” followed by Rickie Lee Jones and Jesse’s close collaborator Don DiLego performing “Cycles”. After a somewhat mysterious curtain drop and a ten-minute intermission, the curtain rose to Jesse and band seated, playing a substantive set of new originals, old originals, and covers, interspersed with Jesse’s trademark “bits” (humorous anecdotes about his life and career). Jesse Malin is every bit the raconteur as he is the chanteur, and these stories, brimming with keen memory and jaunty joie de vivre, are almost as memorable as the musical moments of his shows. One of those highlights was a tale of Jesse working in the road crew of a band that opened for The Dead Kennedys at The Beacon in the 1980s. He said that he saw Woody Allen and Mia Farrow perusing the poster for that night’s performance sometime during the day and muttering, “The Dead Kennedys? What a terrible name for a band.” And Jesse’s mother’s remarks were almost identical. (This account does not do it justice; you must hear Jesse tell it.) Musical highlights included “Oh Sheena”, a celebration of romance and mutual support that praises a woman who can “keep a secret even better than the CIA”. The song is from 2015’s New York Before the War (Velvet Elk Records/One Little Indian), a prescient album title after the last five years. Another high watermark was “Argentina”, a new song dedicated to his nurses and physical therapists, many of whom were present. An unannounced Little Steven played a scorching guitar solo with Jesse and band during “Turn Up the Mains” and stood out among the many special guests. One quality of Jesse Malin’s I noticed (again) is the quality of his vocals, which stood out among a star-studded bill. Someone unusually for a twenty-first century performer, his words are easily understood and ascertained amid a culture of mumblers, whiners, and caterwauls. After a cathartic eighty-four minute set, Jesse walked off the stage (with the aid of a walker) and several guests led the band for a song each. “I’m walking,” he said with understated but triumphant pride.
The man of honor is not physically one hundred percent recovered. Every time he stood from his chair, it took prodigious effort and the aid of his microphone stand and longtime personal assistant Harry Greenberger. And his gait is somewhat labored. But what matters is that he is walking, less than two years after a literally crippling injury.
After the rotating set of guests, Jesse returned for a four-song encore, including the Ramones’ “Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio?” and his own “You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start to Pray”. The songwriter introduced the latter with remarks that the song is about immigration and his family history, and the tune, spiced with the horns of longtime band members Indofunk Satish and Danny Ray, is much ebullient than anyone else could make a song with that title. The celebratory evening ended with many of the participants re-joining for The Clash’s “Rudie Can’t Fail”.
Earlier in the evening, someone, while introducing a performer, stated that it was a welcome respite today to be part of something on which “we all agree”. (I think it was Mary Louise Parker introducing Jones and DiLego.) Later, while introducing another performer, someone else remarked that Jesse Malin is “a testament to the human spirit”.
Jesse Malin and company returned to the venue last night for a similar event with a different setlist and some different guests. Hopefully, he will be able to resume at least semi-regular performing.
If it was ever the least bit deniable that Jesse Malin is a testament to the human spirit, no one who was fortunate enough to be present at The Beacon Theatre on Sunday evening or last night could possibly deny it.
Critics of heroic and romanticist art constantly deride its artists and fans with dismissals that “life isn’t like that” and “people aren’t like that”. Jesse Malin, who has written more than a few romanticist songs, has shown us, again, that sometimes, it is, and sometimes, they are.
A Benefit for Jesse Malin
The Beacon Theatre
New York
Sunday, December 1, 2024
Alejandro Escovedo:
Sensitive Boys
Rickie Lee Jones and Don DiLego:
Cycles
Jesse Malin:
I Would Do It For You
Before You Go
Oh Sheena
Room 13
If I Should Fall from Grace with God
Argentina
Turn Up the Mains (with Little Steven)
She Don’t Love Me Now
Deathstar
The Way We Used to Roll
Aftermath
State of the Art
She’s So Dangerous
Backstabbers
Sway
Silver Manhattan
Meet Met at the End of the World Again
J Mascis:
Brooklyn
Danny Clinch:
Almost Grown
Paul Garisto*:
All Bets Are Off
Jakob Dylan:
Don’t Let Them Take You Down (Beautiful Day!)
Butch Walker:
In the Modern World
Adam Duritz and David Immerglück:
A Long December
Elvis Costello and Lucinda Williams:
Wild Horses
Encore (Jesse Malin):
Do You Remember Rock ’n’ Roll Radio?
Greener Pastures (with Diane Gentile)
You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start to Pray (with Catherine Popper)
Rudie Can’t Fail (with Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, Butch Walker, Danny Clinch, and Danny Sage)
*My recollection and notes suggest that this vocalist was introduced as Randy Schrager. According to setlist.fm, it was Paul Garisto, another drummer who has worked with Jesse Malin. It was difficult to confirm from my balcony seat.
Thanks to Brian Falk and Bethanne Zink