Jack Jones at 72: Gift of song

MANILA, Philippines - When the lights dim to signal the start of the show, ‘60s crooner Jack Jones appears below the stage bursting into song face to face with the front-row audience. At 72, the voice is less than fine, huskier, the hair silver but is still remarkably lush, and the memory starts to fail. Still, Jack can still hit the high notes and sustain them for some time. A show-off, this septuagenarian. He still brims with brio.

Doing a terrific 28-or-so song repertoire, Jack sends women in the big Saturday audience at the Araneta Coliseum in constant ecstasy. Many of these women can’t get enough of him, so they come to him to pose for pictures — while he’s singing. Only in the Philippines.

Jack does not seem to mind the intrusions, though, for he keeps coming back to the crowd (in the orchestra seats anyway), shaking hands and even singing along with them. “There’s my chorus,” he points to this crowd at front left. Security is kind of lax because, well, what real physical harm can a bunch of swooning matrons do to a healthy-looking idol. Sort of like kids lining up to sit on the lap of a bearded man in a red suit at the department store during the Christmas shopping season. Jack mixes with the crowd often, and unfailingly, women come to him, a cameraman in tow. Jack can only quip, “How come I feel like Santa Claus?”

Jack acknowledges some individuals in the audience, paying tribute to Jose Mari Chan at the beginning of the show, and recalling impromptu singing at the Manila Hotel decades ago with Imelda Marcos before doing his fifth number People. He introduces his wife and near the end of the show hugs her.

Jack salutes songwriters before singing their songs: Johnny Mercer, Brian Wilson of the fabulous ‘60s American band The Beach Boys (God Only Knows), Stevie Wonder (For Once In My Life; he does the Tony Bennett version), Paul Williams (who he says called him up to do the Love Boat Theme for the popular ‘60s TV series), David Gates of the popular ‘70s band Bread (If), and lyricist Rod McKuen (If You Go Away, music by the French Jacques Brel).

It’s a wonderful program, moving from jazzy, bluesy to romantic and then grand, Jack giving life to great standard tunes like Just One of Those Things, In Other Words/Fly Me to the Moon, Somewhere, Call Me Irresponsible, All Or Nothing, and the song many seem to mistake for his own, She (written by Charles Aznavour, the French singing idol and actor long before the likes of Jack, Robbie Williams and several other guys covered it).

The crowd expects Jack to do some of the songs identified with him, like Where Love Has Gone, I Wish You Love, but he does not and instead does his other hits: Roses and Lollipops, If You Ever Leave Me, Dear Heart, Lorelei. Some of these songs have also been the signature songs of other balladeers like Andy Williams and Steve Lawrence.

Jack offers a generous serving of songs: I Am a Singer, I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, Hey Little Girl, Day in the Life of a Fool (Carnival Song from the French film Orfeo Negro), and the highlight — the title tune from the musical Man of La Mancha which segues to The Impossible Dream.

This last may as well be the show’s finale (but he sings two lesser known and therefore anti-climactic pieces after it) for which he removes his black jacket and necktie and dishevels his hair to approximate the looks and character of Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha. When the song ends, Jack’s eyes are in tears. A theatrical performance that drives the crowd to its feet.

Throughout the show, Jack gets intimate with the big crowd as though in a lounge and not at the Big Dome, and consults his four-man band (pianist, guitarist, drummer, and keyboardist) which he once asks, “What’s next?” — explaining they put the show together and design it as the needs arise. He admits forgetting a word or a line sometimes, occasionally looks into the iPad on the piano for the song lyrics, and at one point, insists on turning the stage lights low “for mood” before doing the beautiful Beach Boys ditty, starting the song only when the level of light satisfies him.

Maybe he’s only following the dictum that before you even please the others, you have to please yourself first.

As for longevity, he says in one of his spiels: “A long time ago, I was introduced as young Jack Jones. A few years went by and then I was just Jack Jones, and they say ‘he’s still got it.’ What happened then? This (career) is a glorious, glorious gift and responsibility.” From a song with lyric by Alan and Marilyn Bergman (from the album Love Makes the Changes), he may as well be borrowing a line that sums up his life and career: “I won’t change a thing that happened.”