By Andrew Poretz …
Writer, dramatist and concert/revue creator Deborah Grace Winer continued her popular Songbook Sundays series at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club with more than a dozen songs by the great composer, Harold Arlen. If you are somehow unfamiliar with the name Harold Arlen, he composed the music for some of the greatest songs of the American popular song canon, including “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz. (Only the lyricists are named after the songs mentioned herein.)
Ms. Winer chose a brilliant quartet of pianist (and music director) Ted Rosenthal, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, drummer Jimmy Macbride, and tenor saxophonist Alex De Lazzari. The host regaled the JALC audience with tales of Arlen and his songs. She utilized a rotation of three guest singers for the evening: Tony-winning (Contact) performer Karen Ziemba, Broadway star Allison Blackwell, and the young vocalist/composer Georgia Heers.
Karen Ziemba was first up with a rousing “I’ve Got the World On a String” (Ted Koehler), a song perhaps best known as an early 1950s Sinatra hit that was a mainstay of his live act for the rest of his career.
The very young and statuesque Georgia Heers came out swinging with “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (Yip Harburg and Billy Rose), with just a bit of scatting after the break.
Classically trained Allison Blackwell, though known as a soprano, has a deep, rich chest voice reminiscent of Sarah Vaughan’s. Her singing is powerful and sure. With just piano accompaniment, she performed a moving “Stormy Weather” (Ted Koehler), followed by a lightly swinging “Ill Wind” (Ted Koehler), a bluesy number that ought to be more of a standard than it is.
A gem of a song is “A Sleepin’ Bee,” with lyrics by, of all people, Truman Capote, the author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Capote and Arlen wrote it for the 1954 flop musical House of Flowers, based on Capote’s short story. In Ms. Heers’ hands, this was one of the set’s highlights. The bee clearly woke up, as Mr. Yakamura’s hard-driving bass solo evoked an angry bee.
The quartet shined with an instrumental of “My Shining Hour,” led off by Mr. Rosenthal’s gentle ballad verse, before becoming a fast swinger with superb solos by Rosenthal, with the other musicians trading fours in a brisk call and response.
A fascinating tidbit provided by Ms. Winer was that Arlen, though a jazz and blues guy, considered his cantor father one of his biggest influences, just from observing him improvise from ancient, non-musical Hebrew texts.
Ms. Blackwell was outstanding on the rarely heard “Legalize My Name” (Johnny Mercer), which was written for Pearl Bailey for the short-lived 1946 Broadway show St. Louis Woman. Mercer’s lyrics are in the style of a 1920s bawdy blues number. The “Black dialect” lyrics are funny, if slightly cringeworthy now, yet Ms. Blackwell made this number into a show highlight.
Alex De Lazzari was brilliant on sax throughout the set. He had quite the “musical chat” with Ms. Blackwell on “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (Ted Koehler).
Ms. Ziemba’s best song of the set was her emotional delivery of “The Man That Got Away” (Ira Gershwin), an iconic hit for Judy Garland in A Star is Born.
For the finale, all three women performed “Get Happy” (Ted Koehler) which, Ms. Winer informed the crowd, started as an improvisation Arlen played for dancers in his days as a rehearsal pianist. Each of the stars took turns with the lyrics, and they came together with great harmonies, like all-star Boswells.
This short, tight first set—only an hour—left you wanting more. (Mr. Rosenthal informed me that it did clock in at the usual 75 minutes in rehearsal.) There was nothing from The Wizard of Oz. While Ms. Winer might have intentionally avoided the overperformed “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, an all-female version of “If I Only Had a Brain” would have made a fine extra song.
Songbook Sundays: One for Harold Arlen took place on October 1 at Dizzy’s Club, located on the fifth floor of The Shops at Columbus Circle, 10 Columbus Circle (jazz.org/dizzys).
Photos: Andrew Poretz
