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This week, a very mixed bag of surprises, starting with the cast album from Hockey: The Musical! which is somewhere between rock opera and soap opera, anything but sweet and light. And the title Sweet Feelings doesn't quite capture the essence of Sunny Leigh's CD. But short and sweet is a 5-song EP from Kristin Porter, lightly singing and swinging By the Light of the Moon.
The first word that comes to mind when listening to the Toronto Fringe Festival cast album of Hockey: The Musical! is "earnest." With musicals tackling all kinds of subjects, this title with its exclamation point might first be assumed to be a goof, especially with Fringe Festival shows sometimes known to be saucy and edgy and wacky. Indeed, there are some broad strokes here and the fourth track is a very campy, bouncy number called "Hockey Is a Musical!", name-dropping Sweeney Todd and other shows. But the name of the game here is not fun and games but message, high drama and high stakes. It's laid on so thick at times that it takes a while to switch reactions from "They can't be serious" to "Yeah, they are serious." Rather than a feel-good, male-bonding romp or a snarky dismissal of sports as silly and spoofy, professional sports are used as a setting for a drama about human emotions and values. The opening number, "To the Untrained Eye," ardently proclaims that things aren't always what they seem, but all the while nearly deifies athletes and makes sports oh such a noble calling. It may be difficult not to smirk during this set-to-music sports TV commentary when catchy or soaring musical phrases accompany verbiage such as " ... But, hockey, yes, fortunately hockey ... " or referencing the "unspeakable violence" of the game. We soon learn that this female reporter was involved in a hush-hush relationship with a member of a major hockey team, against the journalistic ethics. But wait, the plot thickens and churns (so does the music) when the story becomes all about the star player struggling with, hiding, denying, acting on, repressing, being troubled by, embracing, and being blackmailed due to his homosexual urges (not necessarily in that order). Anthem-like songs are trotted out, declarations declared defiantly and directly ("I'm Not Doing That"), catharsis and confrontation ensue. Will the guy come out or be thrown out? Can they accept his sexuality? Can he? It's all done in songs and performance style whose tone might recall some circa-1980s throb-and-sob musical dramas. I very much admire the desire to expose and explore homophobia in sports through theatre, and present sports figures who can be heroic in their personal stance and values rather than just heroic by winning a game at all and any costs. Go, team! And when the moment comes for the spirited team spirit number for bonding, boosting morale, again we get the mix of intense intent with an instinct to suppress giggles: There's the fervent-toned utterance of the team's name, but when that happens to be the word "Turtle," the testosterone-enhanced chorale with its building, repeated lines imploring the fellow to remember the dignity and respect engendered when "You're a Turtle" is odd. Is it just me or is the image of turtles cute and goofy and would it be better if the team were the Lions or Eagles? Or is it just the team's treating hockey so reverently like it's the most honorable thing in the world to do? I don't admire gang violence more than ice violence and puck-chasing, but somehow, it sure works a lot better in West Side Story when a bunch of guys sing "When you're a Jet, you're the top cat in town." The singing is fine, with committed, unblinking (unwinking!) performances by the 12-member cast, with some dialogue included. Jennifer Hope as the reporter is particularly strong vocally. The play-or-be-gay-or-maybe-both hockey star hero is portrayed by Chris Leidenfrost-Wilson with much angst, muttering and railing, seeking to be the locker room equivalent of the dressing room "I Am What I Am" defiance in La Cage aux Folles. The driving force on the project is Rick Leidenfrost-Wilson (the liner notes, with their detailed plot synopsis and background on the piece, do not mention the relationship between Chris and Rick). Rick is composer, lyricist, director, music director, co-book writer and plays keyboards and synthesizer. Chris also plays guitar, concertina and synthesizer on the album. The book is a collaboration with Justin DeMarco whose class project was a speech about hockey that got the ball rolling. (or should I say got the puck sliding). There's also a drummer and a third synthesizer player completing the band for the recording. The Hockey team is "currently in the process of developing the show" and the cast album includes a song added after the first (Fringe) run as well as demos of two numbers which are themselves reprised in the main ("cast") portion: "Somehow" and the pleading/plodding "What's Going On?" It might take some real reshaping and rethinking and rewriting to get past some clunkier and overstated elements to get to the core of what is definitely there at its admirable heart. At present, Hockey is hokey in its transparent form but can be entertaining and thought-provoking nevertheless. I feel at a disadvantage in getting the full flavor and intent of the show just hearing songs, despite the plot summary. I suspect there is more here than meets the ear. Since this album's genre is original dance/pop music, I would not ordinarily address it here, though I enjoy some light dance music as a change of pace. But the music director/pianist/composer of all songs is Barry Levitt, and I was also interested to hear the participation on vocal back-ups by a singer I like a lot: Catherine Russell (spelled wrong on the CD's single-slip paper, but it's she). The singer and lyricist is Sunny Leigh, who has appeared before the mic in cabaret rooms. I hadn't seen her shows but have seen her at open mics numerous times where she has attempted standards and show tunes with mixed results, often losing her way and going wildly off pitch and out of tempo. I'm happy and relieved to note that notes seem surer or just less challenging here, with the recording studio offering more options to reduce chance and enhance things. Sunny Leigh's vocals don't screech or bark here, but are more smoothed out. Some of the Levitt melodies have their catchy moments. He has been musical director for the Broadway musical revues Swinging on a Star and Catskills on Broadway, Off-Broadway's Taking My Turn, the Lyrics and Lyricists series, and for many singers at the Iridium Jazz Club, Birdland and many cabaret and jazz singers, recording with quite a few, some reviewed in this column (Craig Pomranz, John DeMarco, etc.). His piano work here, alas, is often buried by the other sounds and the genre does not boast piano solos as jazz does. There are some fun and ear-catching riffs and splashes of melody he's composed here. If "innocuous" is a positive thing, and loud thump-thump-bump-bump-hump-hump and cotton candy satisfies your taste buds, then you may have sweet feelings about Sweet Feelings. You might also need a taste for cheese but it's Velveeta here as things seem mellowed-out, homogenized when tackling gritty to make it pretty (or pretty bland). I prefer that over insufferably raucous and vulgarized tales of infidelity and lust that bellow and blare. A spoonful of sugar helps the whatever go down and get down. Dance music can be just for fun: it has a beat and you can dance to it, is that enough? Or does Sunny want to communicate more? There aren't any liner notes but she was a website that has comments on what the songs tackle and what she's learned: For one, she instructs us, "Sometimes you feel and have a sense that something's changed in a relationship and they're not the same." We hear Sunny or others call out things in the foreground or background: "He's married!," "Now I know you'd rather have two," "He's no good." An unidentified man mutters, seduction-style (I guess) "You got it wrong, baby." Song topics and mindsets tend toward one extreme or the other: either it's blessed-out contentedly cozy, rosy romance as in the title song or there's trouble in would-be paradise. In various songs, she laments or tells the tale of a woman whose man won't make a commitment ("Commitment") despite her charms and allure, lies and/or cheats, has another lady (such as the pesky presence of a wife) or maybe a few. Just as the situation in song tends to be full of those Sweet Feelings or soured ones, the lyrics tend to be either quite prosaic or chatty and unrefined or attempt the lofty poetic heights. Some examples: "I wanna dance, I wanna sweat/ I wanna see how funky I can get" and "You never call me ... . You didn't write an e-mail/What's the deal?" In a snuggly mood, she coos, "I feel the power/ I feel, feel the power/ Of your lovely sweetness." When reaching for something beyond the mundane and lusty, there's "I see the embers of your burning soul./ When I touch you, you feel me" and "You taught me how to fly when I was frozen." But whatever the lyrics, they do repeat and repeat and repeat over and over and then over again. In "Can't Love You Boy" the key line appears 59 times and in "Can I Love You?" a key line is repeated a mere 47 times. In "Hold Back" she doesn't hold back from repeating the chorus - we hear it nine times. Some of the lyrics rhyme with true rhymes and some feature near-rhymes more prevalent in pop music. Examples of the close-but-no-cigar rhymes are: man/hand; fine/mind; rising/horizon; eyes/paradise and those showing less effort like up/love (!) and me/me. The singer sees her work and mission in her own way and says she sports the "Positive Attitude" to never listen to reviewers and has sent out mass e-mails to cabaret followers and had a circulated Facebook battle protesting to a negative review of a live show, with no "sweet feelings" on either side. Apparently she sees herself in a different light and perseveres, seeing her work as more than whatever entertainment value she can offer, and her press calls this "the amazing and historical musical journey." Enjoy the ride.
Although Kristin Porter's debut release is just a five-song EP, it gives evidence that we have an intriguing new singer in our midst. Every now and then, someone hits with a different kind of vocal sound that catches the ear, perhaps too elusive to accurately describe and therein lies the charm. The light, breezy, crushed velvet right-in-your-ear comfort feel is akin to voices where there's a unique way of putting out a vowel sound or inherent attitude that isn't a regional accent or characterization per se but sounds like it's from another place—like Norah Jones, Maria Muldaur or someone who recently burst onto the cabaret scene in New York, the MAC Award Female Debut winner, Danielle Grabianowski. Accompanied by seven musicians, the set is a classy but easygoing one. Things begin with "It Could Happen to You" (the standard by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen) and we can immediately tell that she's got things in control, taking some liberties with the song in ways that feel fresh and free. It's not just change for the sake of being different. "Teach Me Tonight" is good example of how Miss Porter is sly and sultry without putting on attitude and trying to be a seductress or femme fatale or cutesy or blatantly lusty-needy, but she's appealingly coy in a way that doesn't cloy. She has some fun with the playfulness of the Sammy Cahn lyric while toying more with the Gene DePaul melody. And she can swing. Another plus: she's a songwriter, with two of her examples here showing promise, unusual in approach just like the songstress herself. Her title song is slightly funky as she paints the scene of a woman at her piano while a lover is outside throwing little rocks at her window to get her attention. Delightfully droll! "Never Telling Me You Loved Me," the other original, is more serious yet offhand as she acknowledges that she's "breaking my own heart" while waking up and smelling the coffee of an unrequited love. But it's still a breezy approach. I would like to hear her dig into something more in the future. And I think she might have a bright one. There's a confidence that is not at all showy but she's in the zone—the comfort zone—and at home in different tempi and can even hold her own in "Moody's Mood for Jazz," the vocal version of James Moody's improvisation on the old song "I'm in the Mood for Love," with bits of the original lyric and flights of fancy and Moody-ness. The mini-album might have been more interesting if there were more variety in tempi within a song and from song to song, but it does get in a groove and stay in it without really overstaying the welcome per se. It's more a one-size-fits-all thing, but tasty in that ambiance, and with sure laidback musicianship that all invites return visits to the CD player. As happens with some such releases, it's not a bargain; at less than half the playing length of a full CD it is selling at more than half a usual CD's price. Let's hope there's a full-length offering soon. She has my ear.
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HOCKEY: THE MUSICAL!
SUNNY LEIGH
KRISTIN PORTER
