Podcasts from The Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook Volume 1

I admit to being years behind the curve with this one, but after discovering the music of Jeff Blumenkrantz about four years ago, I have finally taken the time to download and listen to (most of) his collection of 20 recordings of the songs from The Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook Volume 1, along with about 18 recordings of songs not in the songbook. I have made it through probably half the collection so far, and I look forward to listening to the remainder and any future songs Mr. Blumenkrantz may add to the collection.

I first learned of Jeff's songwriting by falling in love with (have so many have) his "I Won't Mind" on Audra McDonald's album. It took me a long time to realize that this was the same Jeff Blumenkrantz I had done summer stock with in 1984 (like there could be more than one?). I had seen his name in performing credits from time to time, but hadn't realized he had added songwriter to his accomplishments. Well, not to dis Jeff's capable performance abilities, but I suspect that at the end of his career it will be as a songwriter that he is most warmly remembered--and rightfully so.

With a wide range of styles and themes, and a keen intellect for writing lyrics that often manage to be poetic and conversational at the same time, these are songs that performers clearly love to sing, as evinced by the stellar line-up of performers singing on his podcasts--Sutton Foster, Kelli O'Hara, Kate Shindle, Megan Mullally, Marin Mazzie, Judy Blazer, and on and on. There are some men, too, but it seems to be with women that Mr. Blumenkrantz's music really takes hold. The singing is uniformly good, and often great, with performances that draw out the nuances in the songs without making them too precious. There are comedy numbers, too, which are all character-based and deserve wider hearing.

The last few recordings I have to listen to include most of Jeff's settings of Edna St. Vincent Millay poems. I've only listened to one so far and it had a tremendous, emotional impact with an art-song sensibility that will bring me to the other settings in the near future. When I have more to say about those songs, I will. Until then, if you want to check out Jeff's music for yourself, the podcasts are all available free through www.jeffblumenkrantz.com.

Enjoy.

The Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook Volume I

Music by Mr. Blumenkrantz, lyrics by Mr. Blumenkrantz, Edna St. Vincent Millay and many others.

Cast: Jeff Blumenkrantz, Kelli O'Hara, Sutton Foster, Judy Blazer, Marin Mazzie, Kate Shindle and others.

Candide--semi-staged concert version on DVD

There must be more versions of Bernstein's Candide than any other musical. There's a three-act version, a two-act version, an opera house version, and myriad concert versions that distill the dialogue down to anywhere from non-existent to nearly full-fledged. Previously, I watched a concert version from the 1980s, but today I'm taking on the 2004 semi-staged version presented at Lincoln Center by the New York Philharmonic.

This version keeps the show fairly intact, I believe--certainly more so than the earlier concert version I watched--allowing sections of dialogue to remain for all the characters, yet utilizing a narrator to talk through some of the action. There is a surprising amount of staging in this version, a ton of work for the chorus, and all of it is memorized. That's a plus; while I understand the need to present works in a compressed rehearsal time frame, sometimes I think the mere hint of a script in a binder somehow blocks the connection between performer and audience. Not here, though, the audience is mostly lapping up whatever is given them by the accomplished cast.

I have heard Kristin Chenoweth sing the aria "Glitter and be Gay" before, in a concert in Central Park, that I saw on television. So, I knew she could sing it. If she goes a little (or a lot) overboard with the camp theatrics, it would seem to be my issue, because everyone else seems to love it. I liked it up to a point--that point being when it took away from the singing.

The rather adorable Paul Groves sings the title role of Candide with all the finesse and security you would expect from an accomplished opera singer. If he seems a little one-dimensional in his portrayal and the delivery of his dialogue, well, it's balanced out by the 12-dimensional delivery of Chenoweth.

Baritone legend Thomas Allen (that's Sir Thomas, to you) takes on the role of Dr. Pangloss and provides the narration throughout. He sings his one song well, and delivers his raft of narration very well. Here clearly is a singer who can act, well giving narration is slightly different than acting, but suffice it to say he can deliver spoken word as well as he can sung words.

Candide
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Dorothy Parker, John La Touche, and others
Book by Lillian Hellman
Based on the novel by Voltaire
Opened on Broadway in 1956
This concert version filmed in 2004
Cast: Kristin Chenoweth, Paul Groves, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Thomas Allen, Patti LuPone, Janine La Manna

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat television production on DVD

I think this was produced for television, but it may have been a feature film release. Either way, it's a very lavish, colourful production, basically recreating the stage production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that swept across the planet in the 1990s. The film was made in 1999, thirty years after the show was created for performance by schoolchildren, and 18 years after if first appeared on Broadway.

I've known versions of this show since the early 1980s when a church in my hometown produced the children's version. I've seen the adult version of the show twice, once in a professional summer stock setting, and once in a community theatre production (where my sister played the hairy Ismaelite--get some waxing already!). In any version this show is a delight--witty without being self-pretentious and telling it's wide-ranging story with a lot of verve.

This film version stars Donny Osmond who has done somewhere around 2000 performances as Joseph around the globe. He was in the Chicago production that was here for seemingly ever, but I never saw it. Hats off to Mr. Osmond. In 1999, he would have been 42 or so; he looks good. And we see quite a bit of him as he spends a lot of the show bare-chested in a loin-cloth. That clean Mormon living has some benefits. More to the point he sounds good singing as Joseph, rarely relying on pop-isms when not appropriate and showing good lyric lines in the big ballad "Close Every Door".

The rest of the cast is also good. Maria Friedman as the Narrator is a new name to me, apparently with a busy musical career in England. And deservedly so; Ms. Friedman has a lovely voice, capable of both belt and lyric singing without an obvious break. She is also a lively performer, although I felt sometime she was overused in the film when she was not singing, and the focus should have been on other performers.

In the cast as Simeon is Jeff Blumenkrantz, whom I will make a point of finding again for my Year--if only to name-drop a bit. Jeff and I did summer stock one year on Cape Cod. He was a star in everything, I was an enthusiastic but unfocused chorus member. Some Google-stalking has shown that Jeff has a successful and wide-ranging career, both as performer and song-writer. His song "I Won't Mind" which I first heard on an album of Audra McDonald is beautiful and haunting.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Film in 1999
Cast: Donny Osmond, Maria Friedman, Richard Attenborough, Joan Collins, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Ian McNeice, Robert Torti.