Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
Catherine Russell’s latest concert for Jazz at Lincoln Center was apparently “thirty years in the making.” Both a celebration of composer/arranger/bandleader Sy Oliver and an appreciation of Russell’s mother, Carline Ray, for 70 years an innovative jazz singer and musician, the evening is clearly a labor of love. We hear numbers from Oliver’s tenure with the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra and selections rearranged for, and performed by his vocalist wife, Lillian Clark, first with The Sentimentalists and then for The Lillian Clark Trio which included Ray and young Catherine herself.
Though Russell has presented isolated selections from the original show, up to now, she hasn’t had the opportunity to offer a large number of the swing songs as originated by the group. Tonight, joined by Carolyn Leonhart and La Tanya Hall with pristine harmony, impeccable phrasing, and infectious pleasure, the artist realizes her dream.
Mike Munisteri, Catherine Russell, Tal Ronen, Evan Arntzen
We begin with a musical rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Mandy” ebulliently swung by the terrific band in an arrangement by Jon-Erik Kelso. Kelso’s solos throughout support his reputation for sparkling clarity and invigorated swing. The entire room grins. A happy-go-lucky, crisply articulated “My Blue Heaven” (Walter Donaldson/ George A. Whiting) follows. “I used to sing the top part, now I’m singin’ the bottom,” Russell quips.
“Don’t Blame Me (for falling in love with you)” (Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields) evokes a USO dance from the forties. It’s slow enough so that awkward soldiers won’t step on their partner’s feet too much. The trio is complicit, not a musical thread dangles. It’s as if they’d been doing this together for years. “Say It Isn’t So” (Irving Berlin) delivers swaying, textured harmony hand in hand with John Allred’s polished, wah-wah trombone. Vocal solos are cottony; sincere.
Mark Shane, Carolyn Leonhart, La Tanya Hall, Catherine Russell
Oliver’s arrangement of a medley from Oklahoma! bears his signature stamp. Familiar songs sound blithe and fresh as swing. Vocalists emerge and retreat back into the group with fluency, sometimes warmly acknowledging one another. Guitarist Matt Munisteri provides subtle underpinning.
A 1950 version of the 1927 “Ain’t She Sweet?” (Milton Ager/Jack Yellen) with Evan Arntzen’s here doodling saxophone is hip and happy. …Cast an eye in that direction/Dig that child from fore to aft…Arntzen is this evening’s discovery. Russell calls him an old man in a young body. The musician plays superb sax, clarinet and flute exhibiting a preternatural understanding of the period and stylistic savvy.
“Opus One” (Sy Oliver/ Sid Garris) is the epitome of harmonic vocal swing, playful and bubbly. “It’s The Talk of the Town” (Jerry Livingston/Al J. Neiburg/Marty Symes), on the other hand, is so shadowy, even consonants seem airbrushed. Vocals dip and rise like scallops. Munisteri again embroiders.
Catherine Russell (behind: Mark McLean, Evan Arntzen, Jon-Erik Kelso
Russell also offers solos. I Know a Little Bit About a Lotta Things/But “I Don’t Know Enough About You,” popularized by its author, Peggy Lee, is eeezzzeee. Lyric lines have fading tails so that each connects to the next without a gap. The song arrives unfussy, conversational. Louis Armstrong’s “Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On,” with lush, muted trombone, begins the mellow, lilting, slow dance we know, builds to a burlesque stroll, and ends emphatic.
“T’Aint What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It)”written by Oliver with Trummy Young for Ella Fitzgerald is performed with call/response, vocal to horns, then vocal to vocal: the band speak/sings in unison. “I’ve been waitin’ to ask them to sing somethin’ for a long time. They weren’t overjoyed, but…” Russell wryly tells us. Vocal is brighter here, more open-throated. The performer taps her right foot, then steps side to side in her inimitable, refined, I-can’t-help-but-move-a-bit manner.
Oliver’s arrangement of “On the Sunny Side of The Street” (Jimmy McHugh/ Dorothy Fields) was a big hit for Tommy Dorsey. Jaunty and light with Kelso’s trumpet in tangy, rasp mode, the song leaves the room awash in high spirits.
The three vocalists should come together again. Their sound is catnip.
Also featuring: Mark Shane-piano, Tal Ronen-bass, Mark McLean-drums
April 15, 2016- Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room
Queens born Ethel Merman (1908-1984) sang publicly from the age of nine. Completing school, determined to forge a show business career, she performed nights after full time work as a stenographer. Merman was discovered in a club, offered a contract by Paramount, and made a series of short, cookie-cutter-plotted films.
Her breakout theatrical role in “Girl Crazy” put the incipient icon at the forefront of musical theater transition from operetta to jazz-based scores. The orchestra pit of George and Ira Gershwin’s show held Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Gene Krupa. One review said “She can hold a note longer than The Chase Manhattan Bank.” Merman starred in 14 Broadway successes.
We learn all this during Ted Sperling’s introduction to an evening of Merman numbers almost none of which represent the spirit of the artist. When the host informs us the company will not try to impersonate the celebrant, but rather share the joy of her singing, we assume that means not imitating her vocal style.
Instead, slowed and weighted musical arrangements with dissonant instrumental solos by otherwise good musicians and two a capella choral numbers that can’t be further from the singer’s essence, make the presentation seem longer than its almost 2 ½ hours. A sing-along with lyrics projected is assigned to a complex a song and quickly loses the audience. Direction dictates that naturally animated numbers are performed almost stock still. (Several artists’ tendencies to put their hands in pockets doesn’t help.) Hard working vocalists seem tethered.
Having said that, Sperling does deliver a sense of Merman’s trajectory, her becoming a sassy broad who could hold her own with the guys, professional idiosyncrasies, and personal challenges. We’re privy to a couple of priceless film clips, some nifty anecdotes, and there are entertaining musical exceptions.
Ted Sperling, Lindsay Mendez
Lindsay Mendez, perhaps the closest reflection of La Merman not only in lung power, but in energy, pluck, and unaffected presentation, offers such as “You’re a Builder-Upper” (Ira Gershwin/EY Yip Harburg/Harold Arlen from Life Begins at 8:40)- crisply articulated and sparkling with exemplary player-piano like accompaniment and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (Stephen Sondheim/Jule Styne from Gypsy, a musical that was turned down by Irving Berlin) wherein some octave changes are very Merman-like, but performance is ultimately her own.
Natasha Yvette Williams gives us “Eadie Was a Lady” with spot-on instincts when to sing or speak a lyric, big eyes, rolling hips, and a bit of an appealing growl. (BG De Sylva/Nacio Herb Brown/Richard A Whiting from Take A Chance!) Cole Porter’s “Blow, Gabriel Blow” (from Anything Goes), on the other hand, is curiously bereft of exuberance until 2/3 of the way in. Undoubtedly not her fault. Williams preaches with zest and aptitude looking in audience faces.
Natasha Yvette Williams
Julia Murney’s rendition of Cole Porter’s “Down in The Depths On the Ninetieth Floor” is too big and depicts misplaced sexuality. (from Red, Hot, and Blue for which contested billing was decided by printing Merman and Jimmy Durante’s names graphically crossed.) Though the vocalist has a good instrument with fine control, she overacts. “Small World,” however, accompanied only by Kevin Kuhn’s guitar, is lilting and sincere. (Stephen Sondheim/Jule Styne from Gypsy)
The excellent Charke Thorell sings a jazz-age tinted “Anything Goes” (Cole Porter from the musical of the same name) with some easy scat and a breezy, cutely directed “You’re the Top” (Cole Porter from Anything Goes) with Emily Skinner. His interpretation of “Do I Love You?” following Sperling’s description of tragedies in Merman’s life, is handicapped by clear instruction to appear inconsolable. Vocal is pristine. (Cole Porter from DuBarry Was a Lady)
Clarke Thorell, Emily Skinner
Emily Skinner’s “Some People” is pithy and clarion without over-reaching. (Stephen Sondheim/ Jule Styne from Gypsy) Her version of “A Lady Needs a Change” (Dorothy Fields/Arthur Schwartz from Stars in Your Eyes) is aply wry. The rarely performed “World Take Me Back” has just the right tone. (Jerry Herman, written for Merman in Hello Dolly, cut from the original Carol Channing version when Merman at first turned the show down.) Skinner makes lyrics authentic.
Perhaps the highlight of the evening “You Say the Nicest Things” is jauntily performed by Williams and Thoreau AS Merman and Jimmy Durante for whom the song was written. Both vocal and movement are charming. Thorell excels. (Dick Manning/Carroll Carroll- special material)
An experiment in which two “double duets” – “You’re Just in Love” (Irving Berlin from Call Me Madam) and “An Old Fashioned Wedding” (Berlin from Annie Get Your Gun) are sung first, separately, and then simultaneously, surprisingly works as novel discovery. Both songs are sung in counterpoint, yet have such similar construction, lyrics sync. Skinner and Williams perform the first, Mendez and Thorell, the second-this delightfully expressive.
92Y Lyrics & Lyricists presents Everything’s Coming Up Ethel-The Ethel Merman Songbook Ted Sperling- Artistic Director/Stage Director/Writer/Host Jeffrey Klitz-Music Director/Piano Lainie Sakakura-Associate Director/Choreographer Theresa L. Kaufman Concert Hall 92 Y at 92nd and Lexington Avenue NEXT UP:I Have Confidence-Rodgers After Hammerstein– May 21-23
