Podcasts

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.

Lyrics & Lyricists

Deborah Grace Winer – Defined By the Company She Keeps

02/21/2018

Author/historian/dramatist and self avowed “show maker,” Deborah Grace Winer owns her grandmother’s 1929 piano. (“Lots of cool people,” some of the best in the business, play it.) Among photos atop the instrument is her younger self with beloved mentor Rosemary Clooney. On the wall behind is a framed copy of “The Ballad of The Shape of Things” a hand written birthday gift from the song’s lyricist Sheldon Harnick. Across the room her sister’s paintings swirl. This is a woman defined by family and the company she keeps.

Deborah, Toba (their mother), and Jessica Winer

“One of the greatest gifts is to wake up in the morning and do something you love surrounded by people who have the same passion and love to create in the same vein… It’s flip side of the professional struggle. I’m a very glass half full person…”

Winer talks with urgency. Thoughts race forward like salmon determined to spawn. Enthusiasm palpably sparks. Longtime fan, author/historian Robert Kimball, whom she asks for advice and information, was instrumental in paving the way to her successful tenure as Artistic Director of 92Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists. He calls her a “cheerleader,” noting she brings out the best in people. (Positivity/can-do attitude is mentioned in every comment made about Winer.) She tenderly remembers Kimball’s being one of the first to telephone congratulations upon seeing her newly published 1990’s book on Dorothy Fields: On the Sunny Side of The Street in Barnes & Noble.

Robert Kimball and Deborah GraceWiner (Photo: Stephen Sorokoff)

“Bob’s work is the gold standard of historical scholarship in our field. He’s extraordinary about recognizing when someone of a younger generation has a passion and talent for understanding this music, nurtures and champions their effort. He does that for me.” There’s no doubt these two would go to the barricades for one another.

Her eyes fix on mine, typifying focus that enables the artist to metaphorically juggle an apple, a hat, and a buzz saw. Conceiving and putting together successful American Songbook concerts/revues requires knowledge, taste, imagination, planning, diplomacy, and tenacity. “My 92Y work taught me to organize lots and lots of moving parts.”

She thinks fast, speaks with confidence, and rhapsodizes about people she esteems as if they were leaders of a common tribe. Were it not self-created, the kind of professional freedom she enjoys might be viewed as a fairytale. Even during her demanding term at 92Y, she remained an independent contractor.

My subject has dedicated herself to illuminating and presenting songs and, in her books, associated talent, from the 1920s through the early 1960s, when popular culture shifted. She’d have loved to have been born early enough to have had her “heyday” in the time of supper clubs and The Golden Age of Broadway.

Deborah Grace Winer, Teenager

As an adolescent, friends listened to rock n’roll while Winer played Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and musicals on the turntable. A quintessential New York kid growing up on the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, she was raised by “smart set” parents: a mother who’d been a classical piano prodigy and a physician father with interest and friends in theater. Deborah and her sister Jessica (the painter responsible for the mural in Sardi’s upstairs banquet room) were surrounded by the arts.

Winer’s mom “instilled in us that in the world there’s no hierarchy or bureaucratic impediment to accomplishing anything you dream…if you envision it and do the work, there’s no earthly reason you shouldn’t go immediately to the top and sort it out with whoever’s in charge.” Her  dad offered “a philosophical view of people, very measured and insightful…taking people on their own merits and accepting them for who they are.”

Dr. and Mrs. Winer had a subscription to The Metropolitan Opera. When her mother didn’t want to go, one of the girls was escorted as daddy’s date. Deborah’s first exposure occurred at seven years old. The opera was – wait for it – Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. I wonder aloud at her sitting through, leave absorbing the piece. She lightly assures me that having had dinner, they arrived after the performance began and because her father had to be at the hospital early, left before it was over. This happened often. “…so stories often ended happily and we always got a cab.” She smiles. It seems to come easily.

That same year, a friend invited Winer to her first Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof. It was, she says, “tremendously impactful.” Recollected impressions include “visual enormity,” “thrilling theatrical values,” “wonderful dancing,” and “the sound of the pit orchestra.” Curiously, she applies none of these vivid descriptions to years of extravagant opera. Winer filtered everything through songs. She was more stylistically excited by Broadway and old Hollywood musicals. Though she appeared in school plays, even as a child she wanted instead to write them. Her work was produced at school.

Deborah Grace Winer and Jesscia Winer, Apprentices

The Winers spent summers in Westport, Connecticut, a haven for people in the arts. Deborah rounded up neighborhood kids and put on al fresco plays. The Westport Country Playhouse was a short drive and family friend Lucille Lortel’s White Barn Theater just a bike ride down the road. Mrs. Winer asked the impresario to take her daughters and “make’m sweep the stage or something” in order to get theater out of their systems. Like countless other cases, the reverse happened. Winer hastens to tell me that any field was fine with her parents as long as she and her sister “showed verified talent. “

Apprentices Debbie and Jessie got a taste of both grunt work and creative aspects of theater. As “pets” of the barn’s grande dame, they were additionally dressed up (she grimaces slightly) and trotted out to greet audiences. “We were the kids without sun tans, but I got to show Jason Robards where the bathroom was,” she adds nonchalantly. Even as a teen she was never starstruck. “It’s a missing valve.”

Lortel set another example for Winer. “A rich, social woman whose husband wouldn’t let her pursue a career she’d begun as an actress, she loved theater, and though not an intellectual, had an uncanny sense of what was valuable to our time.” Here was an independent, iconoclastic spirit – she sat her audiences like guests at a dinner party and insisted on having submissions read aloud to her – who found a way to participate in the art about which she was passionate.

A history major at Swarthmore, the young woman took every theater course. She and Jessica (also enrolled) were characteristically impatient to create rather than discuss. They began putting on plays and concerts at the campus coffee house. “Reinventing the space, creating our own opportunities to get work up set the template for almost everything in my career.”

After graduation, she was employed at what she cites as her only “real” salaried job, tearing and logging in Metropolitan Opera raffle tickets. No kidding. Winer had been “note-taker, sometime driver and all around resource person” for every show at the Barn directed by Charles P. Maryan. Reading a play by “this bright, enthusiastic young woman” led to his becoming a mentor. He recommended her for an editorial position at Opera News, later directing her Off Broadway play. Ever unorthodox, Winer’s first article, “Kid Sister,” was a profile of Frances Gershwin Godowsky. Making a living as a playwright is extremely difficult. Writing about what she loved, Winer found her way “in.”

“And then I made my way,” she comments mildly. The new graduate wrote for Opera News, The New York Times (she simply sent them a letter pitching an idea), and Town and Country. In 1995, Winer’s play, The Last Girl Singer, was produced Off Broadway by The Women’s Project Theater. (Others would follow.) Stephen Holden of The New York Times opined “…it offers a bracingly cynical view of show business and has some acidic, funny lines…” She was just out of her twenties.

Winer authored four books, the first two with Dennis McGovern, two on her own. Among solo efforts was The Night and The Music, day to day portraits of treasured mentors/ friends Rosemary Clooney, Barbara Cook, and Julie Wilson. Her show based on the vocal virtuosos will be presented during Mabel Mercer Foundation’s October 2018 Cabaret Convention.

Deborah Grace Winer and Rosemary Clooney (Photo: Jessica Daryl Winer)

Meeting Rosemary Clooney was “like lightening striking in a romantic story. We were insanely close. She taught me everything about how to be an artist in this business, how to be true to oneself and build what one thinks is valuable…” Winer shares the example of Clooney’s appearances at New York’s iconic Rainbow Room. “The economics of the job and the vocalist’s expenses meant that inevitably she would barely break even.”

Clooney told Winer it was nonetheless the most important gig of the year because artistically she made it exactly the way she wanted, stellar exposure made it worth the outlay. “It had to do with priorities…” This was a major star “whose psychological and prescription abuse issues along with the arrival of rock n’ roll had reduced her to playing The Holiday Inn in Ventura, California.” Winer notes this would be the show Clooney afterwards took on the road as if it was secondary motivation.

Barbara Cook and Deborah Grace Winer; Deborah Grace Winer and Julie Wilson (Photos: Jessica Daryl Winer)

“Barbara (Cook) was a broad with a great sense of humor… She was grounded…There was nothing world weary about her or namby pamby….She had edge, and fire and temperament… Even when very successful, Barbara kept pinching herself to recognize where she was and what she achieved.”

“Julie Wilson taught me mastery over an audience. She had them in the palm of her hand even when she had no voice left…she was never a worrier… she knew things were out of her control anyway, so whatever happens, happens. Other people knew that too…but they worry all the same – not Julie.”

Lyrics & Lyricists: Songs of The City-Billy Stritch, Klea Blackhurst, Jeffrey Schecter, Leslie Kritzer, Darius De Haas, La Tanya Hall, Deborah Grace Winer (Photo: Stephen Sorokoff)

Having parted with the 92Y hasn’t slowed the artistic director a moment. Her Gershwin program at The Schimmel Center downtown established a relationship there. Great Women Songwriters of The American Songbook began Winer’s collaboration with Feinstein’s/54Below, which will continue with The Classic American Songbook Series on March 27, May 8, and June 17, 2018.

Each of these will feature vocal entertainment bridged by brief anecdote and/or historical narrative riffs. Winer’s philosophy pervades: “I never want the Songbook to have a whiff of nostalgia. Do you go see Traviata and get nostalgic for the 19th century? The material is fresh, vibrant and current. Our first audiences included a bunch of young people.” Some recent and upcoming shows will also be staged at out of state venues. Projects abound. Multitasking is second nature to this seemingly indefatigable woman.

Feinstein’s 54/Below: Great Women Songwriters of The American Songbook – Margo Seibert, Karen Ziemba, Deborah Grace Winer, Kenita Miller, Emily Skinner (Photo: Bruce Cohen)

“I have been in the audience for programs about songwriters produced by Deb Winer and I have performed in such programs. Deb’s affection and respect for songwriters is quite moving to me,” friend/mentor Sheldon Harnick tells me. Ironically Harnick is the lyricist behind her first Broadway experience, a fitting case of aria da capo.

The artist met the famed wordsmith in the early 1990s. “I learn from him almost every moment we spend together, asking for stories about how he wrote this work, or solved that theatrical puzzle, or the ins and outs of collaborating with this or that iconic creative artist.  He is also one of the most deeply principled human beings I’ve ever known…”

Deborah Grace Winer and Sheldon Harnick (Photo Stephen Sorokoff)

Winer absorbs something from every talent with whom she comes in contact. Professional relationships often evolve to friendships. “The biggest blessing is the people in my life.” Her mentors appear to be as outstanding as they are legion. Their presence and devotion is telling.

To Deborah Grace Winer, show making/artistic direction is alchemy, a great adventure, a cause. Watch the horizon.

Deborah Grace Winer at work (Photo: Jessica Daryl Winer)

Opening Photo of Deborah Grace Winer: Jessica Daryl Winer

 

Let’s Misbehave: The Sensational Songs of Cole Porter

02/15/2017

Unlike most of his iconic peers, Cole Albert Porter was neither Jewish nor of immigrant heritage. Born to an extremely wealthy Indiana family and raised among the privileged class about which he’d eventually write with rapier wit and veracity, Porter defied his family’s wishes to become a songwriter.

Host David Loud condenses his subject’s history into a three minute preface, from unpopular first effort, See America First, through marriage to older socialite Linda Lee Thomas “…Man with One Million Marries Woman with Two” read the headlines-a love match despite opposite sexual orientation, success, failure, and the crippling, riding accident that would eventually drain him of the will to keep writing. Narrative is parsed between verses of “You’re the Top” (Anything Goes) giving neither the clever lyric nor background story opportunity to land well. (This also occurs with verses of the title song of that show. Further biographical details do emerge later.)

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Allison Blackwell, Lewis Ceale

A music director/arranger, Loud knows his stuff where song construction and lyrics are concerned. While pointing out adroit rhymes, high/low allusions (You’re a Bendel bonnet/A Shakespeare’s sonnet/You’re Mickey Mouse), lack of AABA structure “Richard Rodgers would set himself on fire before doing this,” word emphasis, and octave changes is interesting, the amount of time taken up with this academic approach deprives us of entertainment. Does the lay audience need to recognize a major 7th chord? It also means many numbers are aired as brief excerpts, used merely as examples of analyzed points.

On the plus side, the commentator has a fine, dry sense of humor, cites well chosen quotes, playfully brings out Porter’s facility with unabashedly sexual lyrics, and approaches the songwriter’s relationships and tragedy with respectful gravitas.

Five able vocalists offer examples of the writer’s remarkable oeuvre to varying success. Lewis Ceale employs his resonant voice a bit too robustly during “It’s De-Lovely.” “Begin the Beguine” (Jubilee) and “All of You” (Silk Stockings) however, arrive romantically low key, the former unexpectedly ending in high tenor.

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Matthew Scott, Nikki Renee Daniels

Allison Blackwell’s “Night and Day” (Gay Divorce) swells so quickly in volume, it diminishes emotional effect. “Find Me a Primitive Man” (Fifty Million Frenchmen) lacks sexual innuendo. “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” (Seven Lively Arts) is prettily, tunefully sighed by Nikki Renee Daniels.

Well performed numbers by Matthew Scott include a lovely, heartfelt, “In the Still of the Night” (Rosalie) with light piano and lighter triangle and a particularly rueful “Just One of Those Things.” (Jubilee)

The ever welcome, here under-utilized Rebecca Luker delivers entirely believable renditions of a wrought “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (Born To Dance) and infectiously swept up “So in Love.” (Kiss Me Kate.) “The Tale of The Oyster” (Fifty Million Frenchmen), sung in that beautiful soprano, gives its tongue-in-cheek satire just the right tone of sophistication and sarcasm.

trbecca

Rebecca Luker

At one point, we hear a recording of Ethel Merman, a pleasing addition.

All the vocalists have solid instruments and ample credits. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, one might conjecture heavy handed direction by Noah Racey. Additionally, some song interpretations are decidedly odd: After two lines of “Love For Sale” (The New Yorkers) whose sentiments belong to an exhausted, hardened purveyor of sex, a vocalist breaks into “I’m a Gigolo” (Wake Up and Dream) as if a college ingénue proud and excited by the new job.

In another instance, several lines from “Why Can’t You Behave?”, a song fed-up Bianca sings to her philandering husband in Kiss Me Kate, is followed (same singer) with “I’m Always True to You (in My Fashion)” (Kiss Me Kate.) During both, a pregnant vocalist pats her belly addressing her unborn child. Explain this to me.

“Let’s Misbehave” (cut from Paris) is presented with men (one drunk) pawing the women which changes intended lyrical flirt to unpleasant aggression. In response, the women’s “Let’s Not Talk About Love” (Let’s Face It!) is then reduced to disgust not frustrated bemusement. Staging a vivacious “Can Can” (Can Can) in which the company executes choreography from stools in deference to pregnant Nikki Renee Daniels, is very cute.

cole-porter-ii

Cole Porter

The finale, “I Happen To Like New York” (The New Yorkers) sung with appealing enthusiasm by Cleale, is an awkward musical choice for audience participation. Few join projected lyrics.

Tonight’s Orchestra: Robert Zubrycki, Sarah Seiver, Dave Noland, Mary Ann McSweeney, and Joe Nero; Paul Masse- Conductor/Piano- are top notch throughout.

Projections of cliché, clip-art images are unstylish and unfortunate. Where are the wonderful archival photographs to which we’re accustomed?

The great Irving Berlin once wrote to Cole Porter “Anything I can do, you can do better,” (a statement opposite to the lyric in his song for Annie Get Your Gun.) Based on surprising audience reaction, many remain unfamiliar with the Porter. I suggest those of you who fit this bill, immediately tap into YouTube and have a good time.

Photos by Richard Termine
Opening: Matthew Scott, Rebecca Luker, Nikki Renee Daniels, Allison Blackwell, Lewis Ceale

Lyrics & Lyricists presents
Let’s Misbehave: The Sensational Songs of Cole Porter
David Loud-Artistic Director/Writer/Host
92nd Street Y
92nd Street & Lexington Ave.
February 11, 2017
NEXT:  Baby, Dream Your Dream: Dorothy Fields and the Women of the American Songbook – March 18-20 

Get Happy: Harold Arlen’s Early Years

01/25/2017

…Forget your troubles/Come on get happy/You better chase all you cares away… Harold Arlen’s American standard (lyrics – Ted Koehler) introduces an entertaining look at the composer’s oeuvre between 1930 and 1939, from that first hit song through his beloved (and favorite) movie musical, The Wizard of Oz. (lyrics – EY Harburg.)

Discouraged from being a cantor by his parents, Hyman Arluck (1905-1986) was, by 15, forming one band after another. Prominent among these was The Buffalodians on whom intrepid archivists of this show managed to find 1926 film. As we watch the enthusiastic youngsters, onstage, Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks play an infectious “Buffalo Rhythm.” (Arluck with Ivan Beaty, Marvin Smolev.)

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“Get Happy”

The celebrated composer changed his name to Arlen while an accompanist in vaudeville. He had aspired to be a vocalist. (Later, we hear a bit of recorded croon.) From Arlen’s first show, You Said It (lyrics – Jack Yellen), Host Klea Blackhurst sassily sings “Sweet and Hot”: I don’t like highbrows/Who arch their eyebrows… Andy Stein’s terrific violin adds distinctive texture (throughout the evening).

Later, our host performs “Satan’s L’il Lamb” (lyrics – EY Harburg and Johnny Mercer) which was bumped from three films, but successfully recorded. Vocal is expansive without going too far, phrasing right on the money, arrangement sheer striptease. A professional in both theater and cabaret, Blackhurst draws in her audience rather than looking over our heads.

Catherine

Catherine Russell

Unexpected success with “Get Happy” propelled Arlen into composing – at first – for revues at The Cotton Club. Catherine Russell delivers an as-if-we-were-there, cheeky, horn-centric rendition of “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” “Ill Wind” arrives hot and sultry, low key, but insidious, getting under one’s skin, rather than toppling barrels. Russell holds one hand up as if trying to hold off the inevitable. She never stresses vocals. Even the often histrionic  “Stormy Weather,” introduced by Ethel Waters, is presented as if rife anticipation, low key and soulful. The song apparently took 30 minutes to write. (All lyrics -Ted Koehler.)

Stephen & Klea

Stephen DeRosa and Klea Blackhurst

Stephen DeRosa, emphatically in the period, offers a jaunty, light-footed “Happy As the Day is Long,” (lyrics – Ted Koehler), a lyrically novel “I Love to Sing-A” (lyrics – EY Harburg), and a cute duet (with ably animated Blackhurst) of “Calabash Pipe.” (lyrics – Lew Brown.) A wonderfully expressive performer, DeRosa wiggles, bounces, dances and gestures in shades of Jolson and Cantor. His vocals, several with decidedly New York accents, are good. The artist is thoroughly engaging. And he looks at us.

Stephen & Erin

Stephen DeRosa and Erin Dilly

“I’ve Got the World on a String” and “Let’s Fall in Love” (lyrics – Ted Koehler) are among those numbers presented by Erin Dilly with solid acting instincts and a pretty voice that tends to get stressed changing octaves. Nathaniel Stampley’s songs include “Down With Love” (lyrics – EY Harburg) which emerges without innate buoyancy, from – wait for it – Hooray For What! with Ed Wynn as a man who invents a gas that ends war, and the effective “Last Night When We Were Young” (lyrics – EY Harburg) during which Stampley looks sympathetically dazed and abandoned.

Nate

Nathaniel Stampley

Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks are given ample showcase for their terrific mostly 1920s arrangements. During the playful, gyrating “Tickeration” (lyrics – Ted Koehler), we even briefly hear the band leader’s own inimitable scat.

A sing-along of “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (lyrics – Billy Rose and EY Harburg) ends the evening on an up note. The well produced tribute is an auspicious beginning to this year’s eminent Lyrics and Lyricists Series.

Klea Blackhurst and Co Artistic Director and author Robert Kimball deliver illuminating, economic narrative about the celebrant. Both do a swell job.  The evening is well written. Gary Griffin’s Stage Direction has charm without seeming showy. Pacing is surefooted.
As always, film and stills add dimension.

Photos by Richard Termine
Opening: Nathaniel Stampley, Klea Blackhurst, Erin Dilly, Stephen DeRosa

92Y Lyrics & Lyricists presents
Get Happy: Harold Arlen’s Early Years
Robert Kimball: Co-Artistic Director
Vince Giordano: Co-Artistic Director, Co-Music Director, Arrangements
Klea Blackhurst: Co-Artistic Director, Vocals, Host
Gary Griffin: Stage Director
Peter Yarin: Co-Music Director, Piano
Featuring Vince Giordano And the Nighthawks
92Y
92nd Street at Lexington Avenue
January 22, 2017
NEXT: Let’s Misbehave- The Sensational Songs of Cole Porter
February 11, 12 13, 2017