 Dawn Upshaw Traditionally, classical vocalists have not had much success in the milieu of the pop song, given that the subtlety required for pulling off a delicate lyric is absent in the towering bigness of the general classical voice. What ends up happening is you get the sound of a Pavarotti or Te Kanawa applied to a familiar melody with all the taste of a central Illinois flea market. These voices were designed to scale the heights and rigors of Schumann and Schubert, but with the likes of Judy Collins they are hopelessly lost. It's not a question of pop or classical singers being superior, it's more a matter of what R. Crumb would call "using the right tool for the job." (That wasn't an intentional "tool" pun, in case you're a fool.) Pop isn't well served by overly precise enunciation, classical isn't well served by shameless theatrics. Fuse the two and you end up with Andrea Bocelli, at which point most people are forced to throw themselves against a wall in protest. "NO!" they scream autistically. "Pop and classical DO NOT MIX! Keep them APART!" Enter Dawn Upshaw, soprano with a technically flawless voice which somehow is also capable of expressing the perfectly appropriate emotional range called for by virtually anything she sings. Wait, maybe I should cram more superlatives into that sentence. Sings Rodgers & Hart was Upshaw's first full album of pop songs, and for its uniqueness in her discography it remains the one I return to most, reveling in its sheer beauty and charm every time. Her recordings tend to be so uniformly good that the classical ones stop standing out after awhile-they're great, given. This one stands out in so many ways it's silly. Upshaw has managed to record a Rodgers & Hart collection more perfect than Ella's (no small feat in itself), creating in the process one of the most impossibly beautiful albums I've ever heard. Show tunes mainly from the 20s and 30s – oh, there's so much emotion to be uncovered there, right? Dismiss any notion that the "clever" showstoppers of yesteryear can't be done convincingly nowadays. Dawn Upshaw brings out every nuance of Richard Rodgers' effortlessly melodic grandeur, and also conveys the brilliance of Lorenz Hart's lyrical flair with its aching romanticism and breezy humor. The album is a total treasure, even though it steps very near that cabaret-singer territory that does no one any good and also approaches that "Prairie Home Companion" type of "sophistication" that makes me nearly drive my Neon into a telephone pole when I pass by it on the radio. But the sophistication here is real, and as long as you have no aversion to music that is just honestly gorgeous, this CD delivers profoundly. The mood is generally light and buoyant, highlighted by duets with Audra McDonald and David Garrison ("Sing For Your Supper" and "Thou Swell") and several tracks featuring Fred Hersch accompanying Upshaw. These tracks in particular, with Hersch's lyrical jazzy piano and trademark introspective approach, find new layers of emotion within these decades-old songs. I want to call them "dusties" but I'd hate to be sued by the folks at that race music station. Most satisfying are Upshaw's renditions of "I Could Write a Book" (almost weepily perfect) and the opening track, "He Was Too Good to Me." On some of the more comical songs, Upshaw has fun with Hart's playfully forced rhymes ("Coney"/"baloney"). Throughout, her diction is clear but not overenunciated, with glorious expressiveness of emotion. She's something like a musical Lynne Russell, with a voice Celine Dion couldn't match if she sold her soul to Satan, again. Perhaps I'm growing prematurely old, and shouldn't enjoy albums that are so goddamn pretty. Soon I may find myself enjoying fine wines, organizing murder mystery theme parties, and playing cribbage. I'll chance it, though. The old folks can't get all the good music.
Review by Noona Poy |
