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This time, a look at two musicals whose initial recordings are separated by eight decades: 1929 and 2009. One is Bitter Sweet and a romantic flight of fancy that's rather fancy and flouncy as it follows lovers of music. The other is bittersweet and follows 21st century lovers of music whose own tough bluff may be called as they follow their call of music. In between, a look at the soundtrack of a new movie that uses Noël Coward's songs and other vintage material.
Noël Coward's mix of romance and bounce and a taste of his trademark wit, Bitter Sweet, celebrates its eightieth anniversary this year with a gathering-up of various recordings of its songs for Sepia Records. The show's complicated story includes the tale of a woman studying voice and her love for her music teacher: they eventually elope, despite other obligations and entanglements and find more entanglements to come when she is a singer who changes her name and her tune and ... well, the plot thickens and the score is thick with flowery and lush melody. Nostalgic even in its day, since, though its opening and closing scenes take place in its own year of initial production, 1929, most of the story takes place in flashback to the central character's youth, looking back to Vienna and the waltz. The newly released CD is a collection of the big numbers recorded by the stars of its first productions in London, New York and Paris, plus a 1958 studio cast re-creation that had much, but by no means all, of the score. Before the introduction of the long-playing record, theatre stars might record a few numbers that would appear on two sides of 78 rpm singles, or an orchestra would come up with a medley of instrumental selections to give a sample of (or "sell") the score. Herein we also have such an undertaking by the London Palladium Orchestra, which is almost exactly the same length of the overture recorded for the 1958 presentation—each is just over four minutes. Considering the age of the recordings, the sound quality is quite impressive and not jarringly different from one chunk of history/decade to another. Liner notes, with photos, give an interesting overview of the show. Notable in the notes is the story of how the star first offered the role, soprano Evelyn Laye, turned it down because of personal life strife/resentments—but when the show became a hit without her, she regretted this and jumped at the chance to head the New York company. However, we only have two samples of the Laye way with the role: "Ziguener," which we must take in context as being something that is supposed to be a number in a fictitious operetta within this operetta, and then there's the show's famous love song, "I'll See You Again" ("... whenever spring breaks through again ..."). This collection takes déjà vu, or shall we say "I'll See You Again," to an extreme: over the 23 tracks, you'll "see" it again and again—eight times! In addition to the graceful solo by Miss Laye, it's heard at the end of both instrumental tracks, as one of three tracks translated into French and sung by the Paris cast, and twice by the leads of the 1958 studio cast: rather serious Vanessa Lee and suave Roberto Cardinali with his charming accent—it's reprised as part of that recording's "Finale." In addition to all that, there's the last word(s) from Sir Noël himself, with his own solo version, a classy illustration of economy and emotional restraint as the CD's last track. One's taste for waltz and schmaltz might dictate how much enjoyment is taken in these recordings. Bitter Sweet has a dramatic storyline that has some thwarted romance, headiness of young love and regrets in the long view, danger, and even a death caused by jealousy. Some performers find more of the wistfulness or wit (though some of the more slyly clever or fun songs are absent here). Others lay on the idealistic or outsized emotions pretty thick, or their vocals bow more to the sweeping melodies or strict rhythms rather than what might be the nuances of the lyrics. It's the old distinction between finding the sentiment versus the easier sentimentality. There's some glorifying of innocence and high drama here in that older old school way of the day, of course. Comparing the different versions is interesting and makes one wonder how perspective and hindsight about the score can be helpful. The Lee/Cardinali "Dear Little Café," recorded about three decades after the original, strikes me as sounding like two people who genuinely prize the ambience and uniqueness of the café, while the earlier versions skim over that and emphasize the cheer and sprightliness of the melody: all sunshine, much less depth. As a standard song outside the show, "If Love Were All" has proven to be a heartbreaker, revealing the loneliness of the performer with no romantic partner who is focused on the mission to please the audience and keep her own emotions on hold and private. This comes through somewhat in an elegant orchestration and thoughtful and restrained phrasing in the last chorus of Julie Dawn's 1958 version, even with the distancing of the formality of vocal presentation with rolled Rs, etc. Ivy Heller's cast recording is quite different: idiosyncratic and far from subtle, with showy flourishes. There are frequently shifting tempi in her interpretation, including sliding into dramatically speaking some phrases and then chuckling to herself and going for a grand diva moment of a high note on the penultimate line that is generally done as wistful ("I believe that, since my life began, the most I've had is just a talent to amuse"). It becomes more about the singer and less about the song at times. Some other recordings of songs from Bitter Sweet were issued in the vinyl era, with studio casts assembled to record more of the score. Some were on British labels and never were issued on CD. Those looking for a recording of the complete score made after the introduction of the CD format which allows more playing time will find one on JAY Records.
Sir Noël Coward and his song "I'll See You Again" show up again with the new movie release, Easy Virtue and its soundtrack. Not another Coward musical, but a non-musical he wrote five years prior to Bitter Sweet and previously filmed as a 1928 silent movie by none other than Alfred Hitchcock the year before Bitter Sweet, the story has its own bitter and sweet elements: A couple has married in haste, getting carried away with the giddy nirvana of new love to the point of spouting song lyrics and dancing through life. There's the sweetness, here comes the bitter: it's the disapproving reaction to this news and the bride specifically on the part of the young husband's rich, haughty mother. The matriarch of the upper crust British family meets her at the family mansion, aghast that her only son's chosen mate is a widowed rebel, hardly wealthy, and an American. It's battle of wills and insults and lifestyle clashes. For this new version, some vintage songs are employed for the soundtrack, including Bitter Sweet's "I'll See You Again" for the film's leading man, new young movie star Ben Barnes, whose voice is another taste of the "sweet." Though it's a rather modest voice, he fits in nicely and neatly into the period flavor, with a gentle and endearing—and best of all, convincing—airy air of authenticity. There's a disarmingly fresh sincerity in his approach to the aforementioned song and another Coward classic, about an idealized simple and carefree life, "A Room with a View." Jessica Biel plays the bride in the film and is heard performing Coward's classic "Mad About the Boy," originally written with different sets of lyrics to show very different kinds of women characters' personalities and perspectives, mostly having crushes from afar on a movie star, some bemused or innocently gushy. Here, it is more intense, suggesting real emotional attachment and involvement, with some conflict. Her singing is a bit odd, sometimes sounding (as does Barnes' at times) like the aural equivalent of tip-toeing, a kid dressed up in parents' clothing, trying to be sophisticated and self-conscious—but almost carrying it off, and you root for them. She can be breathy and overwrought more than intrinsically musical, but the track does have dramatic build. Yet another Coward song is the sharply comedic "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," merrily chirped here by Andy Caine. Other oldies are trotted out for the soundtrack—they are used often as source music rather than characters bursting into song as Ben Barnes' joyful John does. We get three Cole Porter sparklers: "You're the Top," "You Do Something to Me" and "Let's Misbehave," all with male vocalists and orchestral accompaniment that successfully mimic the sound of the jazz age and fizzy, perky insouciance. Some may sigh and just want to stick to the authentic originals, but this is a swell collection and as far as the orchestrations, the string work is especially appealing and the ambience is great, finding a balance between the period tinny sound and modern technology. Contemporary music producer Marius De Vries serves as music producer and contributes some original music for three tracks that add more period flavor. The final, extended track (over six minutes in length), uses the 1985 hit "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" (previously recorded by the group Boyzone and one of the song's co-writers, Billy Ocean, and featured in the film The Jewel of the Nile) as a commentary. Members of the cast are heard chiming in (including Colin Firth) and the band gets introduced by name and instrument. Other latter-day songs are part of this soundtrack, oxymoronically for quirky/quaint value perhaps, archly adopting the zippy flavor favored through much of the period music: "Car Wash" and "Sex Bomb" as if filtered through Rudy Vallee's megaphone and homogenized. Talk about your mixed bag! Traditionalists may shudder at some of what's on the album and feel it's all too faux and oh-so campy or just kids at play. But there's a lot of spirit and affection as I hear it with open ears and an open mind to be harmless at worst and valuable exposure of oldies like the Noël and Cole and good ol' tunes like Sean Palmer's dandy, delicately delectable "When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You)" or Celia Graham's "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag." Wistful or wishy-washy? Coyly campy or a fresh coat of musical paint with favorite standard colors? All of the above. As a soundtrack mining the past and reinventing, the 17 tracks on Easy Virtue have many virtues easy to like.
Crackling with energy that is a wonderfully rewarding mix of cleverly bright banter and genuine human feeling is the score for The Gig and its recording on JAY Records. The cast here is from a concert at The York Theatre in midtown Manhattan, that bastion of musical theatre celebrating—and producing—the old and the new. This smartly crafted show has a mission and serves it superbly: it looks with a clear but sympathetic eye at the lives and dreams of some men approaching or past middle age (someone once said that middle age is defined as always being ten years older than you are at any point). The male bonding aspect is terrific, especially and perhaps most challengingly because it feels real when coming face-to-(stiff-upper-lipped)- face with contemporary American heterosexual men who were not societally conditioned to wear their hearts on their sleeve or be in touch with their emotions. These are guys. They took practical paths, weren't starry-eyed innocents. They've woken up and smelled the coffee most of the time, even if they don't like the taste, and swig it down. Their bond is that they take a break from their workaday lives and obligations to play jazz music just for the fun of it every Wednesday night and have been doing so for years. It is then that they let loose and follow their common bliss. That can be felt in the characterizations that are just-right and down-to-earth and not hammy or precious or sentimentalized in performance or writing by the gifted composer-lyricist Douglas J. Cohen. We meet the men all individually first in an excellent character and frustration-establishing opening number. The show, based on a film of the same name, gets inside their skin at a put-up or shut-up turning point. While professing a love for music and jamming, for years they have just played for their own pleasure and never been tested. Reality steps up when the band bands together to accept or sidestep a paying job out of town arranged independently by one of the members and later presented to the group as a done deal. Quite a bit of dialogue is included, and the transitions from speech to song or the back-and-forth within a section all feel smooth. Most of the actions, and thus the songs, take place during "the gig" which serves as both an extended, claustrophobic frozen moment in time and space and a too-short snapshot of their lives for the audience—but that's the point. We have enough of a taste of what they've left behind and would return to, assuming their don't have some kind of "American Idol" idealized discovery overnight sensation moment, which is never really indicated in the reality-based tone, but hey, it's a musical and anything is possible. No, never mind. This is more interesting, if more than slightly depressing, as reality can have a tendency to be. There's joy in the expression of the love for music for its own sake and its escapist appeal. This is especially well represented here, with memorably sharp and sharply rhymed lines sung with ferocious glee: the men rhapsodize and exult about doffing "the suits and ties that bind" and calling "goodbye, mere existence—hello, jazz!" like boys let out of school for summer vacation. In one case, an actual vacation presents a schedule conflict as well as some fun rhyming: when a planned trip for one of the men and his wife presents a schedule conflict with the gig, the rhymes include "better bring a bucket" and "tell her to chuck it," and "just my luck/It coincides with Nantucket." Elsewhere, there's depth in the writing about deferred dreams and regrets ("Where is the time out/ To listen to your gut?/You're always much too busy providing/ You've got to climb out/ Of that daily rut/ And find the guy who might be hiding.") It's the ultimate compliment and coup that this recording—and I suspect, the show, which has seen productions already and the CD should inspire more—works perfectly as an ensemble piece where no one man of the six—or the professional jazz musician they meet—outshines the other or the material. Likewise, the songs are the model of character-driven writing with their specificity to situation and relationships and personality revelation like the peeling of an onion. Some songs are like scenes with the interaction involved, not to mention the dialogue inserts themselves within numbers. It is perhaps a backhanded compliment to Mr. Cohen that in his music and lyrics for a song that is supposed to be a badly written show biz number for a washed-up star the men encounter is not quite "bad" enough to be consistently out loud funny as campy in just the right way. Or maybe on disc it just sticks out and spoils the mood of tenderness at the point it comes, although it may be needed comic relief. That and a couple of other numbers introduce female characters past the middle of middle-aged men's story. The performer fresh out of rehab but still out of touch is played by Michelle Pawk with some blowsy flair. Karen Ziemba is one man's love interest but doesn't get much to do, though her duet with Jill Paice, "Put Your Toys Away," one more heavy dose of reality medicine, is movingly done. But it's really the men's show and they are all fine and distinct. (One other male character is the outsider/agitator of sorts: the resort's boss who is the antagonist and broad comic relief at various points, well played with just enough Jewish schtick and slick by Stephen Berger.) This is a musical for grown-ups with little flash and lots of feeling, but also laced liberally with humor and sarcasm, mirroring real-life friendships where people bristle and blend and blubber and bond. Presenting no pot of gold at the end of anyone's rainbow, it has some of those glances back at life and wondering if that's all there is or will be that we find in shows like Follies and clear-eyed contemporary just-plain-guys and dashes and flashes of glory like in The Full Monty that make us stop and take stock and look where we don't always want to—but need to—look: in the mirror. The late Michael Gibson's orchestrations, featuring terrific jazz players (like Bud Burridge on trumpet) that more than help to capture the very accessible jazz elements of the score, are spot on. The buoyant and snappy jazz and snappy patter are a perfect counterpoint to the more intense feelings brought up (without being a spoiler, mortality is an issue here) and so ... the Gig is indeed bittersweet. But that's better than "sweet."
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SELECTIONS FROM BITTER SWEET
EASY VIRTUE
THE GIG
