 Reviews |
Albums |
Touring |
Celebrating the runaway success of there fourth and best CD, Pennies from Heaven (Angel), Haran and her pianist, musical director, and vocal partner on a few very sultry duets, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, reprise her tribute to the songs of déclassé heroes and heroines of Depression movie musicals. As always, her narrative is smart and very funny and her arrangements full of surprises, like turning "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" into a romantic tag to "Breezin' Along with the Breeze."
Finally, a crossover to the most rewarding vocal album I've heard in years - and that includes those labeled "classical": Pennies From Heaven (Angel 7243556625-2), a program of 11 songs written for the movies during the Great Depression, as performed by Mary Cleere Haran with the pianist and sometime singer Richard Rodney Bennett. Ms. Haran, who is currently performing these songs at the Manhattan Theater Club, is as true a virtuoso in what she does as any more rarefied musician you might care to name. She and the superlative Mr. Bennett plainly agree that what got American through its most dismal economic collapse was not just F.D.R's New Deal, but Tin Pan Alley's care package of songs, with titles like "Love Is Just Around the Corner," "When My Ship Comes In," "I'm in the Mood for Love," " Breezin' Along With the Breeze," and "I Only Have Eyes for You." Ms. Haran's dusky pipes and pull-up-a-chair enunciation can flutter, wail, scat, soar, sass and moan in ways that recall-but never merely imitate- singers as various as Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Lee Wylie. There is no corny homage going on here, though, just a lot of singing that's really smart, really sly and really sweet- qualities that should be in every virtuoso's arsenal.
-Charles Michener
All those wet Sunday afternoons spent in front of the television were not wasted. Anyone who has whiled away the hours watching Hollywood films from the Thirties should not miss this beautifully constructed exercise in period atmosphere.
Manhattan's premier cabaret partnership, Mary Cleere Haran and Richard Rodney Bennett (now known to some New Yorkers as "Sir Bennett"), seem determined to make life difficult for reviewers. Having lavished praise on their last two London residencies, we now discover that their new Depression-era show - despite being crammed with some willfully obscure Tin Pan Alley numbers - is even more satisfying.
In their attention to detail, Haran and Bennett have proved themselves to be the Merchant-Ivory of popular song, with the advantage of a wickedly dry sense of humour. And immense amount of research has clearly gone into this programme, yet neither performer allows erudition to obscure the duty to entertain.
Haran's wry commentary deftly splices together reminiscences of a Roman Catholic childhood dominated by gangster films and musicals with a formidable degree of insider knowledge. As clever as she is, Haran never did discover why her father had a passion for Deanna Durbin, but then nobody is perfect.
Her singing is, however. She possesses an immaculate sense of dynamics, adding a subtle shading here, an accent and summoning up intense emotions without resorting to histrionics.
That defiant Depression anthem, 42nd Street, is taken at a wistful tempo, cleverly interpolated into a sequence in which Haran portrays a hard-bitten speakeasy hostess. Her gift for mimicry has never been better deployed, Ruby Keeler and Ginger Rogers joined the list of VIPs who pass before our eyes.
Bennett's piano playing, spiced with just the right amount of uptown blues, is woven delicately into the fabric. He throws a bar or two of Buddy Can You Spare a Dime? into another slice of social realism, My Forgotten Man.
Busby Berkeley dressed up this Gold Diggers showstopper with endless columns of silhouetted dough boys marching into a hopeless future. Haran and Bennett achieve the same emotional impact with minimal resources. A reminder, in case anyone needed it, that there is a poignant edge to all the jaunty escapism. Their residency, which includes a genial late set devoted to the Gershwins, continues for the rest of the month
-by Clive Davis