DETROIT, Mich. - Bill Murray wants everyone to know that his "New Worlds" tour, which arrives at the Fillmore Detroit on Wednesday, is for all audiences: highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow.
"You have to acknowledge the brows, you have to. We're not rejecting anyone. We're embracing all the brows," says Murray, turning a question about the sort of music lovers he's drawing into freestyle comedy.
"We’re tickling the eyebrows of everyone. It’s not a show that you can sort of put in a box like it’s one brow or another. People don’t see this one coming. They don’t know what the show is going to be, and their preconception of it is usually wrong.”
Put your assumptions aside about a concert that mixes classical, pop and Broadway music with readings from great American literature. Just trust Mr. Murray, the "Saturday Night Live" legend and movie star who rarely let fans down with his evolving, often marvelously unpredictable career choices.
"New Worlds" is serious, light, moving, rousing and just what you'd hope if you expect the unexpected from Murray. It features him in performance with renowned cellist Jan Vogler, violinist Mira Wang and pianist Vanessa Perez for an evening of wide-ranging entertainment.
Picture Murray reading James Thurber to the music of Maurice Ravel or singing "I Feel Pretty" from the musical "West Side Story." To grasp the range of material covered, consider that the "New Worlds" album includes Bach, "It Ain't Necessarily So" from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," a Van Morrison song and a James Fenimore Cooper excerpt paired with Franz Schubert chamber music.
"People think about Cooper as a little bit hard to read, but … hearing it with Schubert’s music behind it, you’re taken to another place," says Murray. "Your eyes close and you just drift away and go. You just ride with the words and the music.”
These days, Murray is traveling on a tour that's scheduled to be in Milwaukee the night before Detroit, then Chicago the night after and Minneapolis after that. Then it's off to dates in faraway places like Berlin, Reykjavik and Athens before returning in late July to Cooperstown, N.Y.
Is there any truth to the rumor — started with this question, full disclosure — that Murray wants to be in Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony of Detroit Tigers Alan Trammell and Jack Morris, which happens days after his Cooperstown gig?
Murray, a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan, rolls with the idea. "I don’t know Alan Trammell, but I do know Jack Morris, and I get a huge kick out of that guy," he says, speaking by phone during a joint interview with Vogel. "The fact that he’s going into the Hall of Fame is so charming to me because he is a wonderful, prickly personality who never suffered fools gladly."
Then Murray meanders into a story about how a minor-league team he co-owns, the St. Paul Saints, was the site of a brief Morris comeback in 1996. “He was a cool guy. I loved talking to him. I call him up whenever I get up there. He’s going into the Hall of Fame; that’s just great,” he says.
Humor and melancholy
Murray is surprisingly relaxed and open in conversation, given the weight of his icon status. This, after all, is the titan of comedy who sang the lounge version of the "Star Wars" theme on "SNL," who defined the ironic age with "Stripes" and "Ghostbusters" and who brought depth to humor with "Groundhog Day."
It's also the same artist who, in the midst of his big cinematic breakthrough, parlayed his clout into making "The Razor's Edge," a movie adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novel about a traumatized man's search for the meaning of life.
For the past 20 years, Murray has regularly found a muse in melancholy, co-starring in quirky films like Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes," Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" and Wes Anderson's "Rushmore." The latter was the first in a string of movies in which Murray's wry sadness has been a perfect fit for Anderson's precise, idiosyncratic comic tone poems. Their latest collaboration, the stop-motion animated adventure "Isle of Dogs," is in theaters now.
Murray earned a best actor Oscar nomination for 2004's "Lost in Translation," director Sofia Coppola's bittersweet almost-romance. It cemented his reputation as a screen actor who can project love and loss better than almost any of his contemporaries. At the same time, he has continued to bring the humor to talk show appearances, guest spots in sitcoms and the occasional "SNL" drop-in. (See his disheveled Steve Bannon on a January edition of "Weekend Update.")
Does Murray consider how his fans will react when he tries something completely different? His answer is contemplative and plainspoken. "I've had some good luck entertaining people. I’ve been in some good movies and have done some good performances," he says. "I remember someone said to me once, 'Bill, there’s a lot of goodwill out there for you.' And I never forgot that."
Then he segues into the New Worlds tour. "When I go to work and I see there are people and they’ve assembled — some come in my name to see me … and they believe I’m going to come through for them — it gives me courage to try to show them something new, to show them something different."
A collaboration is born
The road to "New Worlds" started when Murray met Vogler in Berlin in an airport security line for a flight to New York. They struck up a friendship that led to their current collaboration, which Vogler says purposely ignores the lines usually drawn between classical, pop and musical theater and and instead celebrates all genres.
"The range of music, I love that as a musician, I enjoy that," says Vogler. "I think what connects us all as human is something we create. Great art always hangs together."
Long before meeting Murray, Vogler felt the impact of his film work. He remembers watching "Ghostbusters" on TV in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
"You couldn't stop radio waves or TV waves," says Vogler, describing how his family was able to receive broadcasts from West Germany. He immediately connected with "Ghostbusters" and its expansive cultural references, "from ghosts to this incredibly charming and beautiful cellist played by Sigourney Weaver."
Adds Murray, "Yes, I have Sigourney to thank for all of this.”
Although the "New Worlds" concerts have a pretty firm set list, the encores often function as what Murray calls "an improv set."
"If they like us, and they often do, we keep playing," he says. "We do a sort of James Brown fake encore. I do a thing with a cape. We put it over Jan’s shoulders.Then we come back out and do a bit more. When we do that, really, you can’t get rid of us. At that point, we mix in whatever we’ve been working on and whatever we have a wild kind of feeling to do.”
Given Detroit's rich music legacy, might a couple of bars of Motown music make their way into Wednesday's show? ”We never really took requests before, but I guess we do now. We’ll see if we can do something," says Murray affably. "I guess you’re going to have to open up your cello case, Jan, and put it in front of you, so maybe people throw five bucks in there and say, 'You should play 'Melancholy Baby' or something.' "
At this particular moment, Murray is multi-tasking. ”I’m actually driving, and I’m trying to find something, and I’m having trouble finding it. Trying to look at a Google Map on a phone, to me, is sort of like trying to shave yourself with your hands tied behind your back," he says. "I’m not enjoying this experience of trying to find this place. If I can find it, I’m going to be a happy fellow."
If it's happiness you're after, he strongly recommends giving "New Worlds" a try.
“This particular show, it’s beyond anything I’ve ever done in terms of the expectation of what people are going to see and what they actually see. People believe it’s going to be entertaining. (But) they have no idea that it’s going to be as good as it is. They have no idea it’s going to be as strong as it is, as entertaining and edifying as it is. It’s really been a delight to be a part of this thing. We’re having an enormous amount of fun doing it, an enormous amount of joy in playing the music and reading the pieces to people."
Who wouldn't want to follow where Murray's art leads him? "People are glad they took a chance on this show," he says. "They end up walking out with a big smile on their face.”
'New Worlds: Bill Murray, Jan Vogler and Friends'
Slated for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 18 at the Fillmore Detroit.
Address: 2115 Woodward, Detroit
Phone: 800-745-3000
Website: thefillmoredetroit.com
Ticket prices: $45-$125
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture writer Julie Hinds: 313-222-6427 or jhinds@freepress.com.
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