Judy Collins Covers Sondheim

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A LOVE LETTER TO STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Judy Collins

MVDvisual 9662D

There are some things that come around only once or so in a lifetime–a horse like Secretariat, a painter like Picasso, a dancer as graceful as Nureyev, or a voice with the beauty and crystalline purity of Judy Collins.

Ms. Collins has taken her lumps from grumps who decry her lack of creativity. It's true that she's written very few songs in a career that's now in its 58^th year. I'd argue that offerings such as "My Father," "Since You Asked," and "Blizzard" address with quality whatever her pen lacks in quantity, but let us concede that she has always shined brightest as an interpreter of songs written by others: Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Lennon and McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Ian Tyson…. She made her mark as a "folk" singer, but because Collins has always been drawn first and foremost to melody, it was pretty much inevitable that folk music wouldn't contain her. Along the way she also began to pick up songs she liked from composers such as Jacques Brel, Aaron Copland, Marvin Hamlisch, and Rogers and Hart. Almost without trying, she morphed from a folk singer to an interpreter of what for lack of a better term could be called "art songs." If there was a tipping point, it came in 1975, when Collins recorded what is now viewed as the definitive version of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns." I do not exaggerate with the adjective "definitive." Consider that Sondheim has won 8 Tony Awards, a Pulitzer, an Oscar, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Laurence Olivier Award, and 8 Grammys, but only one of those Grammys is for Song of the Year: Collins' cover of "Send in the Clowns." 

Call that the genesis of Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim. Collins and Sondheim became friends and, in May of 2016, Collins began rehearsing a full slate of his songs with the Greeley, Colorado Symphony Orchestra. She then launched a tour that took her to places exalted, including the Metropolitan Opera. Some of you have perhaps seen the PBS special of her Denver concert. If you've not, I'm sure it will be rebroadcast during numerous future pledge drive, though you'll have to put up with viewing it with numerous interrupting prattle of PBS barkers asking for money. A much better way to enjoy this glorious treat is to mail your check to your local PBS affiliate, then go online and purchase the DVD.

The concert has a few diversions–"Chelsea Morning" and a John Denver medley–but the rest is a select sampling from Sondheim shows. Each track is polished and superb, so it really boils down to which Sondheim show floats your boat to the high water mark. Personal favorites include: "I Remember Sky" from Primrose; "Sunday" from Sunday in the Park with George, "The Road You Didn't Take," from Follies, "Beyond the Sky" from A Little Night Music, and of course, "Send in the Clowns," one of my all time favorites (also from a Little Night Music). But let me return to my opening remark. One can like or not like the repertoire or performance style of Judy Collins, but you simply can't watch what she's doing and fail to marvel over what a force of nature she is. The woman before you is 77-years-old and her voice remains supple, strong, clear, and gorgeous. She has, of course, fallen a bit from her 1975 peak, but she has also learned a lot abut how to sing–when to drop half an octave to avoid cracking, how to nail a note to the instrumentation and let it drift on the wind, when to soar, and when to swoop. In my lifetime, I have witnessed ruthless Time diminish many of my musical heroes, but Time may have met his match in Judy Collins. The only way he's silencing this voice is to sneak up on Collins when she's not on stage.

Clips from the trailer: Collins at age 77!

Rob Weir

New Music for Specialized Tastes

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Specialized Tastes

Music is mysterious. Psychologists say we literally need music in our lives and have shown how the brain responds to tonal stimuli. Musical taste remains an unknown. Maybe it's where nurture trumps nature, but who knows? Why does a Bach fugue induce yawns, whereas an old Beatles tune makes me grin like a Cheshire cat? Every devotee thinks of his or her tastes as "refined" and views those who don't agree as "barbarians," but such judgments are deceits. In that spirit, here are a few recent projects that fall into the amorphous category of "specialized tastes."

Collaborative concept albums are tricky. I liked Songs of Separation (Navigator), but I didn't love it, though it includes many personal favorites: Eliza Carthy, Hazel Askew, Mary Macmaster, and the glorious Karine Polwart, about whom I only half jest I'd pay attention if she were singing binomial equations. I adored her take on an old song reworked as "Echo Mocks the Cornrake." The album's central idea is that the Scottish isle of Eigg is a metaphor for Scotland's two poles—to be independent or to be "British." The musicians seek to transpose the fragment-versus-unify dichotomy to deeper themes of personal, community, global, spiritual, and cultural imaginings through a mix of traditional and original songs in English and Gaelic. I enjoyed Hannah Read's sensitive treatment of Robert Burns' "It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King," Askew's arrangement of two waulking (women's work) songs, Hannah James' "Poor Man's Lamentation," and Macmasters' gorgeous take on "Over the Border." I am less certain of songs that opt for faintly boogie-woogie, jazz, or 1930s echoes and, I must admit that occasionally the all-female group singing made me long for more tonal coloration. It must also be said that some of the larger themes that this talented crew—which also includes Jenn Butterworth, Jenny Hill, Kate Young, and Rowan Rheingans– sought to highlight were probably more poignant in discussion than in music. This is certainly a CD worth considering, but there are some cracks in the Eigg. (Bad pun—it's actually pronounced something closer to Ā'-keyah'.)

Abrazo: The Havana Sessions (Parma Recordings) emerged from the partial restoration of relations between the United States and Cuba. It brings together musicians, conductors, and composers from both lands on an album whose major strength and weakness is its diversity. Jazz has long been a Caribbean staple, so naturally this double CD contains a lot of it: small combo projects marshaled by folks such as Mel Mobley, Juan Manuel Ceruto, and Bunny Beck, as well as big band material in the spirit of Buena Vista Social Club led by Timothy Lee Miller, Don Bowyer, and others. What we don't expect to hear is Roger Bourland-led madrigal singing, a Michael Murray choral project inspired by 9/11, or a burlesque shepherded by John Carollo. My take is that the project is overly ambitious and could have usefully been two separate releases. But, then again, this is based on the fact that, although I appreciate the complexity of jazz, there are forms of it I don't actually like—especially small combo efforts, which often strike me as incoherent look-at-me virtuosity. On the other hand, I was thrilled by the vocals and adore madrigals so much that it felt like a slog through really boring stuff to get to the singing. My taste, for sure, and I wonder how many jazz devotees would feel the opposite. Is this a case of too many irons in the fire? 

On the subject of jazz, a lot of experimental efforts also leave me with mixed feelings, which is pretty much my take on Archipelago by Melody Parker. Ms. Parker is a young singer who calls her music "chamber pop," by which (I think) she means a pottage of experimental and improvisational music leavened with evocations of other eras. I found the album to be interesting in places, but meandering overall. "Love" comes off as music that's a mash of what you'd get from a jazz club, post-punk attitude, and sounds from a Bobo hipster café; and "The Prophet and the Prof" is a cross between girl groups and a '30s film song. Parker likes to mix things. The title track opens with a colliery brass band prelude, but segues to carnivalesque departures; "Everything to Sing About" has blue notes piano, but then subsumes them and Parker's voice in a thicker mix. About Parker's voice: It's your call whether it's unique, or just odd. At times she's close to Betty Boop territory; at others, cool and torchy. I prefer the latter, which is why my favorite tracks were those with less going on, such as "Vertigone" and "Upon theDune." 

Did you enjoy the music of Cabaret? Are you ready to stretch yourself even more? Rescued Treasure from Berlin's Semer Ensemble (Gema) definitely falls into the specialized tastes hodgepodge, as it highlights Jewish music of the Weimar Republic. The 1920s were a golden age for Jewish music in Germany and, of course, we know of the horrors looming on the horizon. The title is apt; much of what we hear has been lost or mostly forgotten for 80+ years. The material spans a bit of everything: arias, Russian folk songs, cantor singing, Yiddish theater, cabaret… and much of it is showy and sometimes schmaltzy. It's a live performance from Berlin's Maxim Gorky Theater, but being able to dip in and out enhanced my appreciation, though I suspect I would find an entire evening of this music to be too much. Samples here.

If you think the last one is specialized, check out Hungarian Noir (Piranha), which devotes 12 tracks to the same song, "The Gloomy Sunday." It has been covered by scores of singers, but was penned by Rezsó Seress in 1933, and has long been known as the "Hungarian suicide song." The artists on this collection seek to make us think about it a bit differently, but it remains doleful and dirge-like no matter who performs it. The most famous rendition, included on the release, came from Billie Holiday. We also , get a global look: Mozambique's Wazimbo, Cuba's Domingo Sombrio, Colombia's Bambarabanda, the Spanish guitar rendition of Triste Domingo, a Ukrainian take from Chango Spasiuk, a rap version from GOG, and (naturally) a Hungarian take by Pál Kalmár. What's the Esperanto word for "melancholy?" Is this a gutsy release, or an exercise in redundancy? Probably both. Samples here.

Few genres of music are as lampooned as New Age. At its best it is hypnotic and transportive; at its worst, it's the musical equivalent of refrigerated Maypo. For me the, The Breath, Carry Your Kin (Real World Records) lacked sparkle because it's in the middle of the hypnotic-versus-Maypo spectrum. There is little doubt that Irish-born Ríoghnach Connolly is a skilled singer, or that her band mates—guitarist Stuart McCallum, drummer Luke Flowers, pianist John Ellis–are equally talented. As the title suggests, though, much of this album consists of loops, vocalizations, sound effects, and breath exercises. When Connolly turns her attention to serious topics such as feminism, colonialism, or the life cycle, the form in which she wraps these issues encourages listeners to drift rather than focus. I'm sure there are many who will find this release relaxing and quietly powerful, but I found myself thinking of Enya, Clannad, and Órla Fallon, who cover this terrain with more flair. Click here for three videos.

Rob Weir

War Horse, the Play: Imagination Trumps CGI

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Joey the 'Horse'

I’ve just had a glorious and magical evening. After getting shut out of the play War Horse in both New York and London, I finally caught it in a local cinema, courtesy of a National Theater Live broadcast from London. Viewing an NT Live! production in an American cinema isn’t as good as strolling the South Bank of the Thames before taking in a show, but it’s cheaper and the view is better. But that’s not what has me juiced about seeing War Horse.

The play is touching, sweet, and moving–a sort of My Friend Flicka adapted for the trenches of World War One. A cynic make say that the narrative is a bit ‘thin,’ and so it is, but it’s a different kind of storytelling. It’s the kind that lives in the imagination and asks viewers to fill in the blanks in ways that films, video games, and CGI effects sometimes fail to engage both brain and heart. For those who think maybe we’ve become too slick for our own good, the play proves that the simple done well triumphs detached sophistication. Think I exaggerate? Director Nick Stafford did something very few have done: he kicked Stephen Spielberg’s butt.

As I’m sure you know, in 2011 Spielberg brought War Horse to the screen. It was neither a hit nor a bomb. The movie cost $70 million to make and it covered costs in the U.S. market–just barely; it ranks a mere 22^nd (of 27) on the Spielberg movie moneymaking machine. The play War Horse made more on American stages than Spielberg on the screen. The London numbers are astronomical–as are those in Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney, Dublin, and Berlin. In addition, they play generates millions more though NT Live broadcasts. Now consider that there are roughly 260 professional theaters in the entire of the United States and over 40,000 movie screens. Spielberg’s film may have made marginally more money through foreign and DVD releases, but if you break it down by revenue-per-venue, Stafford creamed him.

How did a guy working with a bare stage, a revolving turntable, some sticks, a swath of torn sheet, a slide projector, and puppets trump the king of movie fantasy? Simple: Stafford beat him at his own game. Spielberg told us the story; Stafford made us feel it. Spielberg showed us; Stafford asked us to dream. Spielberg gave us stunning detailed visuals; Stafford gave us bare bone essentials and invited us to imagine. The play’s ‘horses’ are little more than thin metal rods and gears held together by cable and covered in strips of leather. As many as six puppeteers at a time work the ‘horses,’ some partially visual inside the exoskeletons and others in plain view manipulating the puppets. Except, soon, we don’t see them at all. In our mind’s eye chestnut red “Joey” and midnight black “Topsoil” are mighty steeds. There is a moment in the play in which Joey is an awkward colt being trained by teenaged Albert. As he is being galloped around and around in a circle, the colt puppet frame vanishes and Albert is astride a stallion. The audience gasped. Game, set, and match to Stafford.

But I have not come to bury Stephen Spielberg–rather to praise flights of fancy. We live in an information age, but we sometimes take this too literally. Too much information can overwhelm; it can also blunt creativity, fantasy, and thought. Sometimes we confuse images with imagery. Like him or not, Stephen Spielberg is a master storyteller, but at least in this case, he gave us too many pictures and left too little to the imagination.

I was exhilarated when I left War Horse. I felt that sense of wonderment that was so strong when I was a boy and (alas!) is under exercised by most adults, me included. I experienced the rapture that comes from actively engaging in a story rather than passively receiving it. It was–magic. All hail the wizards, shanachies, tellers of tall tales, wordsmiths, raconteurs, fabulists, poets, actors, minstrels, sleight-of-hand con men, and other casters of cantrips who amuse us, but also have the power to make us muse.  Rob Weir

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Works Brilliantly on Stage

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Adapted and directed by Simon Stephens

National Theatre Live

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 When I heard that the National Theatre of London had done a stage adaptation of Mark Haddon’s acclaimed novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, my first thought was “How?” Luckily my second instinct was to check it out. Glad I did—it’s a small masterpiece the likes of which will make North American audiences jealous of the creativity that can be accomplished when government subsidizes the arts.  (Imagine such a thing!) Anyone living within driving distance of a movie theater that broadcasts NT productions should make a beeline for this one.

If you’ve read the novel, you will certainly share my kneejerk skepticism over turning it into a play. Its central character is Christopher, a 15-year-old high functioning autistic student. He’s imaginative, a math savant, capable of intense concentration, and is (literally) incapable of falsehood. He’s also terrified of being touched or having his routines altered, has few social graces, is unable to master most mundane tasks, and is so withdrawn that he makes Mr. Spock seem like Mr. Rogers. We first meet Christopher—played with utter brilliance by Luke Treadway–bending over the body of a pitchforked dog, which he is falsely accused of having killed. And we witness his first emotional meltdown when he assaults the policeman who lays hands on him. That trauma out of the way, we proceed to learn about Christopher, his well-meaning but ineffectual father (Paul Ritter), his missing mother (Nicola Walker), and his special needs teacher, Siobhan (Niamh Cusack). I’ll say no more except to say that when Christopher becomes obsessed with solving the dog’s murder, it takes him and the audience on a journey fraught with peril, revelation, drama, and reconciliation.

Haddon’s novel was told almost entirely from Christopher’s (skewed) point of view, so the first stage hurdle is how to represent a mind whose logic runs on a completely different course than most. How, indeed, does one physically show something as abstract as human thought? Stephens and producer Marianne Elliott accomplish this with a set that’s where minimalism meets high tech. The play takes place in a theater in the round upon a bare stage that’s something akin to a mash between a chalkboard, an electrical grid, and an iPad. It can be drawn upon or projected onto, and subsurface lights and diodes are activated by computers to build what can be described as light-based semiotic signs. Need to show a subway train? Activate two vertical lines and set them in motion.  A neighborhood street? A series of squares connected by lighted corridors along which actors dash will do the trick. When Christopher’s mind overloads, lights flash, and holographic letters tumble randomly from the ceiling like snowy gibberish.

Clever staging will take one only so far, though, and it’s the acting that makes those lights sparkle. Treadway is astonishing, both physically and in his range of emotions. He can go from withdrawn to a semi-psychotic tiger and back with the brush of fingertips. He also strikes the perfect balance between being lovable and exasperating. Kudos also to Ritter, who convincingly portrays a working-class bloke with simple tastes who wants to do well for a son who is equal parts genius and volcano, but hasn’t a clue on how to manage his own emotions, let alone Christopher’s.  Niamh Cusack—the younger sister of Sinéad—is also superb as Siobhan, a teacher with the patience of a saint, but the cleverness to plant ideas in Christopher’s mind in non-threatening ways. All I’ll say is this: stay until the very end, after the credits.

Loved the book and loved they play even more. It reminds us that theater done well, with superb actors and visionary directors, casts magical spells that TV and movies often fail to convey. The tendency of the latter would be to convert Christopher’s story to biography, which isn’t the best frame for a boy who lives in his imagination. Simon Stephens invites us inside Christopher’s chaotic mind and we are richer for the experience. —Rob Weir

Rob Sez: We Need a New Woody

David Lutken as Woody Guthrie 

I recently drove to Cambridge to an American Repertory Theater production of Woody Sez, a musical about the life of Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-67). This show has been kicking around since 2002 and is definitely one you should catch if it appears anywhere near you.

David Lutken plays Guthrie, and he has a fine sense of Woody’s wonderment and temperament. When Lutken twinkles his eyes, gazes upward, and puts on an Oklahoma draw, he transforms himself from actor to sage philosopher. (Guess it comes naturally. He’s not an Okie, but he grew up in Dallas; he’s also played Will Rogers on stage.) Frankly, Lutken sings and plays a whole lot better than Woody did.

The latter is one of many those looking to poke holes in Woody Sez can find. The play sanitizes Guthrie, starting with his physical appearance. Lutken appears in a clean work shirt and khaki pants; Guthrie–who was a Dust Bowl hobo for quite a few years–was known for being disheveled on a good day. In fact, his poor hygiene was legendary even among his closest friends. In like fashion, the show also glosses Guthrie’s irascibility and irresponsibility, viewing them as occasional bouts of crankiness lurking within a noble soul. There was indeed a principled core to Guthrie, but the man was also a lousy husband, an absentee father, stubborn as a mule, and as dependable as a Yugo.

A few other flaws: Darcie Deauville is a terrific musician, but an occasionally sour singer (unlike Helen Jean Russell and Andy Teirstein, fine interpreters of old-time music). It would also help to review Guthrie’s bio before you go. There are only four actors on stage and the “play” is more of an operetta. There is minimal dialogue–often a “Woody Sez” spoken segue–to cement a biographical sketch that also includes snippets from 33 songs in just over 90 minutes. The actors, except Lutken, play multiple roles at the drop of a hat. (They also play a dozen different instruments.)

Yet the darn thing works. The telescoped life and repertoire acts as a sort of Whitman’s Sampler and makes one appreciate how much Guthrie crammed into a short life. No one knows how many songs Guthrie actually penned–we’re still unearthing them–but though it’s seldom realized, Guthrie’s active career spanned fewer than 20 years. He was struck by Huntington’s chorea in the late 1940s, and spent more time in the hospital than he did on the road. 

Here’s the other thing Woody Sez invokes: a sense that too many of today’s musicians wallow in narcissism and/or isolation. Name a prominent post-1975 protest song singer. Had to think about that one didn’t you? They exist, to be sure, but whose modern repertoire quakes with songs of moral outrage such as    “Jolly Banker,” “Do Re Mi,” “Pastures of Plenty,” “Vigilante Man,” or “The Ballad of Tom Joad?” Who even remembers that “This Land is Your Land” was a protest song written to blow the rose-colored glasses from the faces of kneejerk patriots crooning “God Bless America?” (Check out the lyrics no one sings: http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/this-land.shtml ) And how many of today’s look-at-me singers would live among ordinary folk, crash in hobo camps, pick fruit with migrant workers, or walk the picket line? Many contemporary musicians proudly proclaim their apoliticism, a pronouncement that would have sickened Guthrie’s generation (Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Paul Robeson, Lee Hays…)

Guthrie did those things. He also emblazoned his guitar with the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists,” spoke truth to power, and reveled in making songs simple enough to sing. (He once said, “Anyone who is using more than two chords is just showing off.”) He warned us that some men rob us with six-guns and some “with a fountain pen.” His advice for the bellicose? “Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.” The pious? “Love is the only God that I’ll ever believe in.” It’s as if he anticipated today’s music when he said, “I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my songs and to sing the kind that knock you down farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that.”

Rob sez, we sure could use a new Woody Guthrie. --Rob Weir

unHun