"Tribute albums" have become almost a subgenre, with country stars tackling the Eagles' legacy, movies resurrecting the songs of Elvis Presley and acolytes re-recording music of old-guard rockers like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young. But actually the "songbook," as some will remember, goes way back. Etta James, Johnny Mathis and Ann Jillian have tailored the idea to their own talents and interests on three new collections.
ETTA JAMES; "Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday" (Private Music 01005-82114-2). * * * 1/2
Etta James' "Mystery Lady" is a cozy concoction, a subdued jazz-and-blues mood piece that, beginning to end, maintains a relaxed atmosphere - sometimes romantic, sometimes bittersweet, just right for twilight, late-night or a rainy day. The mystery lady of the title may be Holiday, whom James met but one time; or it could be James' enigmatic mother, whom she knew as Dorothy and who loved the music of the legendary singer; or it might be James herself.
That one encounter with Holiday was in the late 1950s, toward the end of Lady Day's life, James recalled in an interview with David Ritz, who penned the notes for this collection. "I was called to New York to do a radio show for NBC called `Jazz Plus Blues Equals Soul.' It was Count Basie, Billie Holiday and me. Well, I knew Count Basie was jazz, but who was blues - me or Billie? The term `soul music' wasn't yet in use, so the distinction between me and Billie wasn't clear."
In retrospect, though, that radio program's title seems perfect for James' approach to songs popularized in part by Holiday - numbers like Holiday's own resigned but romantic composition "Don't Explain"; the Gershwins' "The Man I Love" and "Embraceable You"; the lonely "Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be)"; as well as "You've Changed" and "I'll Be Seeing You." The just-right arrangements, by Cedar Walton, balance James' vocals with an easy-going combo including piano, sax, trumpet, guitar, bass and percussion. In the mix her seen-it-all voice recalls at times a muted coronet or a smoky alto sax.
A foundation of jazz, a bit of the blues and a singer with soul. The recipe couldn't be better.
JOHNNY MATHIS; "How Do You Keep the Music Playing? The Songs of Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman" (Columbia CK 53204). * * *
Fans of Johnny Mathis' intimately quavering vocal style should be most pleased with "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" The album is archetypical fireside-romantic Mathis.
What's surprising, perhaps, is that Barbra Streisand didn't latch onto this concept first, considering her longstanding link with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman. (In fact, one could easily put together an impressive collection from existing albums of Streisand performing Bergman songs -including chart-toppers like "The Way We Were" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" - without even dipping into the "Yentl" songtrack, which they co-wrote with Legrand.)
With that aside out of the way . . .
Composer-arranger-conductor Michel Legrand deserves praise for pulling it all together, giving the sequence a graceful structure that glides from the spare to the lyrical to the big and Broadway-esque and back again. He and the Bergmans began collaborating over a quarter-century ago when songs were de rigueur for movie interludes. They won an Academy Award together for "The Windmills of Your Mind," from 1968's "The Thomas Crown Affair," and as a team and apart have been Oscar-nominated, and occasionally honored, more than a dozen times in the years since.
All of these songs are about love, and it's to the credit of Alan and Marilyn Bergman that they've found so many ways to lyrically portray that emotion's complexities. To be sure, they're fond of equating love's cycles with the seasons (as in "Summer Me, Winter Me," "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" and "The Summer Knows," better known in its instrumental incarnation as "The Theme from `The Summer of '42" '). But they also reflect upon love's enigma in the whirlwind images of "Windmills" ("Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel") and its simpler purity in pretty, poetic songs like "Something New in My Life" ("You're like a sudden breeze that blew in my face, a new smile, a new song . . .").
Mathis is, of course, a veteran interpreter of this kind of song in this kind of setting. "His voice dims the lights and makes all within the sound of it feel as though he's singing just to them," write Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
Together, Mathis and friends have created a warm and delicate exploration of love's many aspects.
ANN JILLIAN; "In the Middle of Love: The Songs of Steve Allen" (AER Music Group 51012). * * 1/2
Yes, that Ann Jillian, the resilient TV actress. And yes, that Steve Allen, creator of "The Tonight Show" 40 years back and of the intelligently clever PBS series "Meeting of the Minds," author of two-score-and-more books and hundreds of songs.
In fact, the notes accompanying this album put forth the figure 4,700 for the number of Allen compositions to date. Some folks eat an apple a day; he must write a song a day . . . or at least every other day. Jillian has selected one less than a dozen to pay homage to Allen's productivity and old-fashioned wit.
Steve Allen was probably born a decade, maybe two too late. His style of song owes much to the Broadway of Rodgers & Hart (i.e., even earlier than the heyday of Rodgers & Hammerstein) and to the golden era of the big bands. The songs Jillian has selected are showy and often clever. The patter of "The Day We Do As We Please" and the fond observations of "I Hate New York" ("except for Broadway opening nights/The magic of those twinkling lights/The Garden and those crazy fights . . .") are Allen through and through.
Although her vocal delivery is sometimes ever so slightly nasal, Jillian overall sings ably and with affection. The arrangements by Tom Brunner and producer Lenny Stack recall a more sophisticated era, full of sass and brass. They showcase Jillian's ability to sing both sweetly (as on the Hallmark-simple "I Love You Says It Very Well") and with a tip of the chapeau to Ethel Merman (check out the showtune-like "I Depend on Me"). Allen even joins her for a jokey duet, "Pals."
If you're tempted to say they don't write and sing 'em like they use to . . . Ann Jillian's "In the Middle of Love" is evidence that supposition's not entirely true.
RATINGS: four stars (* * * * ), excellent; three stars (* * * ), good; two stars (* * ), fair; one star (* ), poor, with 1/2 representing a higher, intermediate grade.