Album Review: "THIS TIME IT'S LOVE" - Kurt Elling, Blue Note CDP 7243 4 93543 2 6, reviewed by Tony Magee

I first heard and saw Chicago based Kurt Elling and his band at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival in 1998. If that sounds like an unlikely place for an encounter with an international sensation, well it isn't. Wangaratta Jazz is now well established as one of (if not the) premier jazz festivals in Australia. But that's another story.

Kurt and band captivated his audiences with renditions of tunes - mostly familiar standards, but some not - that were so new, fresh, alive and vibrant that he tore the place apart and virtually caused a stampede to greet him and clamber for autographs afterwards. Women fainted in the isles. Come to think of it, a lot of guys did too.

The album I'm recommending is called This Time It's Love (a reference to the opening track, My Foolish Heart). Contained therein are eleven further tracks. Some romantic ballads, some cool swingin' numbers, some funky, a latin feel and more.

This is not yet another young cat singing the Sinatra songbook. Kurt Elling is quite simply a new breed of singer. It is classy stuff. It is intelligent. It is modern. It is exciting. It is certainly adventurous. It is infectious. It grows on you. I'll just bet that you will want more of his albums, after you get the feel of this one.

As for venues - well - no rules apply here. You could play this album in fine dining restaurants, or you could play it in smart lunchtime cafes. Even funky nightclubs could benefit from the Elling touch.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, Dec 2003

Album Review: "THE INTIMATE ELLA" - Ella Fitzgerald, Verve 839 838-2, reviewed by Tony Magee

As promised, this month I present an album which I think you will enjoy when you get home after having closed up the establishment. Let's face it, in the Restaurant, catering and entertainment industries, nobody goes straight to bed when they get home. You have to unwind.

There are two ladies whom might be described as the two greatest singers of the 20th Century (excluding opera). Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. You can't separate them. They are equals. I don't think there is anyone who can touch them, past or present.

The Intimate Ella is a collection of great ballads sung by Ella Fitzgerald with piano accompaniments by Paul Smith, who is one of the supreme accompanists for this kind of music. He creates a glorious cushion of sound over which floats Miss Fitzgerald's incredible, seamless, silken voice.

Ella's interpretations are timeless. She brings to each number the ultimate rendering and treatment. Lyrics suddenly mean a whole lot more. Each word is crystal clear. Each note a triumph of pitch, feeling, warmth and style.

The tracks are: Black Coffee, Angel Eyes, I Cried for You, I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Then You've Never Been Blue, I Hadn't Anyone Till You, Misty, My Melancholy Baby, September Song, One for My Baby, Who's Sorry Now, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You, Reach for Tomorrow.

Recording quality is excellent. The album is in stereo. It was recorded in 1960. Buy it.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, Nov 2003

Album Review: FRANGIPANI - Guy Strazzullo, ABC Jazz 980 824-7, reviewed by Tony Magee

Australian composer and nylon string guitarist Guy Strazzullo is a sublime player.

He is a genuine melody maker of the highest rank and is right up there with Jobim. Also, his beautiful guitar work is so very stylish and precise, whilst also retaining pleasing ease and flow. You can hear little influences of Louiz Bonfa, and others, but really - Guy Strazzullo is his own man and his own musician.

Well, I think you can gather that I really like this CD. Oh, yes - forgot to mention that. This month's CD is the music of the aforementioned musician and the CD is entitled Frangipani, released on ABC Jazz.

There are nine tracks of which Strazzullo has composed seven. He has also surrounded himself with the finest musicians including Slava Grigoryan (classical guitar), Matt McMahon (piano), Andrew Gander (drums), Hugh Fraser (bass), Mike Stern (electric guitar) and Geronimo da Silva (berimbau).

The album is quite eclectic, containing Brazilian influences, jazz-rock fusion, jazz, ballads and more.

Its main driving force always is beautiful melody, accompanied by understated arrangements so as not to intrude on the lyrical style of the playing - another Jobim influence.

This truly is Australian music making at its finest.

As for venues, well there is a certain element of "class" in this album, however it is perfectly assessable to a wide range of listeners. It is mellow and laid back listening, so perhaps the cocktail hour and dinner. Or, really late at night in front of an open fire with someone special. Excuse me whilst a just make a call.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, Sept 2003

Gery Scott at The Kiev Opera House, April 12, 1961 - the day Gagarin flew in space

Gery Scott acknowledges her audience at The Kiev Opera House, April 12, 1961

by Larissa MacFarquhar

In 1961, British singer Gery Scott was engaged to perform a thirteen city, seventy-five concert tour of the Soviet Union, including Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Odessa and Baku. 

Jazz, seen as an American attempt at cultural infiltration, had been repressed in the Soviet Union after the war and became the music of the underground.

Then, for a brief period after Stalin died, from the mid-fifties to the early sixties, jazz was permitted, the underground emerged, and suddenly bop, cool jazz, Dixieland and big band were everywhere.

By the time the tour started, three million of Gery’s records on the Czech based Supraphon label had been sold in the country and everybody knew who Gery Scottova was.

On the evening of April 12, Gery performed two sold out concerts at the Kiev Opera House.

But this was no ordinary night in Russia. Yuri Gagarin had shot up into space in the Vostok spaceship that day - the first manned space flight ever.

Gery, accompanied by husband Igo Fisher on piano, Kiev Opera House, April 12, 1961

Wearing an extradorinaiy dress - red sequins, strapless, low-cut and mermaid-shaped, Gery sang two two-hour concerts, back to back, with encores and at the end of each she sang “How High the Moon”. 

The audience, swelled with pride and happiness about Vostok 1 and Gagarin, went wild.

They made her sing it again and again.

An excerpt from “The Jazz Singer” by Larissa MacFarquhar, printed in The New Yorker, August 18 & 25, 2003

Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagarin, July 3 1961, during a Finnish press conference. Photo: Arto Jousi,
restored by Adam Cuerden - Finnish Museum of Photography. Public Domain.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful crewed spaceflight, became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes. By achieving this major milestone for the Soviet Union amidst the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including the nation's highest distinction: Hero of the Soviet Union.

Hailing from the village of Klushino in the Russian SFSR, Gagarin was a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy in his youth. He later joined the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was stationed at the Luostari Air Base, near the Norway-Soviet Union Border, before his selection for the Soviet space programme alongside five other cosmonauts. Following his spaceflight, Gagarin became the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre which was later named after him. He was also elected as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet.

The liftoff of Vostok 1. Photo: Roscosmos, courtesy The Planetary Society

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight, but he served as the backup crew to Soyuz 1, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Fearful that a high-level national hero might be killed, Soviet officials banned Gagarin from participating in further spaceflights. After completing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968, he was again allowed to fly regular aircraft. However, Gagarin died five weeks later, when the MiG-15 that he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seyrogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

Text reprinted from the Wikipedia article on Yuri Gagarin

Appendix

Two more photos from Gery's time in The Soviet Union in 1961:

Gery performing in Baku, Soviet Union 1961. It's packed!

Gery Scott and Igo Fisher are married in The Moscow Palace of Weddings 1961, at the suggestion of the wife to the British Ambassador. For official purposes, she probably would have used Diana Whitburn as her maiden name, and become Diana Fisher.

Gery Scott performs in Germany, 1955

Gery with son Christopher (aged 6) and Pan American Airways executive Barry Eldridge at Frankfurt Airport, 1955. Collection Gery Scott.

For aviation enthusiasts: The Pan American Airways plane registration number can be seen - N773PA. It was a Douglas DC-7B named Clipper Endeavour. Entered service that year - 1955, and retired 1964. My thanks to John Steele and the Pan Am Historical Foundation 2015.

by Larissa MacFarquhar

In the Summer of 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Gery was invited to perform at a big music festival in East Germany: Communist officials had come around to jazz in the fifties, because they had been led, by Paul Robeson among others, to understand that real jazz (as opposed to white commercialisation) was the music of the oppressed American Negro. 

By that time, Gery was well known: she had sung with Chet Baker and the Woody Herman band and had gone solo - she was living in sin in Wiesbaden with her accompanist, a handsome German pianist named Igo Fisher, with whom she travelled to gigs all over Europe, east and west.

She had a recording contract with Supraphon in Prague, and her recording of “When the Saints Go Marching In” was No. 1 on the Czechoslovakian hit parade for more than a year.

The music festival was to take place on an open-air stage in a park and officials expected an audience of more than 70,000. They were quite nervous about it and they were adamant that Gery sing only pretty songs - nichts zu heiss, nothing too “hot” - but at the same time they were very keen that she sing her signature hit, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” because it was Dixieland and most definitely the music of the oppressed American Negro. 

Gery explained that it was a fast song and could get quite heiss, but the officials insisted that she go ahead and sing it none-the-less.

The park was teaming. There was an East German Dixieland band, a jazz singer from Romania, a jazz singer from Hungary, singers and bands from all over the place, but they were all warm-up acts for Gery, who would close the show.

By the end of her set, everybody was yelling for more and when at last she sang “When the Saints Go Marching In,” the crowd went wild, clapping and screaming and singing along. 

As she was taking her bows and saying thank you, a little boy about ten years old slipped onto the stage, through a two-man-deep cordon of policemen, thrust a copy of one of her records at her and begged her to sign it. Gery was so high and boy was so small that she did.

Gery singing at Landsthul Air Base, Germany, 1955. Collection Gery Scott

At that moment, the crowd broke through the cordon and rushed the stage. Gery, terrified, ran backwards and fell down the stage steps and a thick piece of wood sliced into her calf. She screamed in pain, Igo screamed in fear, seventy-thousand people screamed in excitement and police whistles and sirens were going off everywhere.

But before a doctor could remove the wood from her leg, the police rushed into the Red Cross tent and demanded that she and Igo get in their car and drive straight to the border without stopping.

They were accompanied on the journey by the East German police and then drove eleven hours to Prague, where they were due to record the next day.

By the time they arrived, Gery’s leg was so swollen that she was worried about gangrene.

A week later, Neues Deutschland, the East German equivalent of Pravda, carried an article stating that Western entertainers were not allowed to come to East Germany to try to coerce the young people into revolution. Gery was declared persona-non-grata and was never invited to perform there again.

Reprinted from “The Jazz Singer” by Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, August 18, 2003

Album review: DOUG WILLIAMS - Check It

The Basement (Warner) BASE005

Review copy supplied by Abels Music, Canberra: (02) 6295 1466

Reviewed by Tony Magee

Here is a great album for funky bars and nightclubs.

Sydney based singer and songwriter Doug Williams is absolutely groovin' in this excellent CD of funk, funk -rock, soul and groove.

If you like performers like Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Les McCann - those kinds of soulful Afro American singers  - you will like Doug Williams.

Here, he presents a selection of mostly his own compositions, tightly arranged and performed with himself on lead vocals and a fabulous funky band with brass, congas and other cool instruments. Also present are the soul sisters providing great backing harmonies.

This album was actually recorded live at the basement. The sound is excellent. Punchy, dynamic and powerful. Not to heavy on the applause - just enough to remind you that a whole room full of people were grooving and moving to this excellent artist on the night.

Williams sings with conviction and ease. His voice can be tight and gripping, or sometimes so relaxed, soulful and mellifluous.

Many tracks are dance tracks, including Keep On Dancing, Loveland, Too Hot, Dance and Love Me Like You. Then there are some quieter mood tracks such as Love Is, Too Hot, As Long As I Know and Love. Yes - he seems to have a "thang" about love. 

If you want to get your guests tapping and grooving, then I would highly recommend this one.

First published in Restaurant and Catering magazine, August 2003

Article: Sondheim stars shine brightly in Sydney - Sydney Cabaret Convention 2003

by Tony Magee

Sydney Town Hall

MYSELF, Gery Scott and Scott Dodd - all Philo Sondheimettes - recently travelled to Sydney to perform at the 2003 Sydney Cabaret Convention, at Sydney Town Hall.  Gery was engaged as a headline artist for the final evening of the Convention, called the Gala, and she knocked the socks off everyone receiving two standing ovations during the course of her 20 minute show.

Sydney percussionist Nick McBride (a graduate of the Canberra School of Music Jazz Dept), joined us for the performance making the backing up to a trio. Also present was Daniel Mitchell, as personal assistant to all and unofficial ASM at the event. Daniel Edmonds and Fiona Sullivan also came as guests to enjoy the evening.

The day wasn't without its hiccups. At the sound check, Gery was sitting waiting for her turn. One artist to go - Dale Burridge - then Gery's soundcheck would commence. Everyone relaxed. No tension anywhere. Then Dale starts to sing: "Once in a Lifetime, A Man and His Moment…". Looks of horror all round. That was our second number. Gery bowed out gracefully and said "No matter. We’ll just completely re-structure our act". So we sat down and had a bit of a think.

Gery Scott

We re-positioned the final number (Don't Cry Out Loud), placing it second (replacing Lifetime). Now we needed a new closing number - something that we could perform with no rehearsal and that Gery would be comfortable with. So we sent for the clowns.

The newly restructured act ran thus: I Get A Kick Out of You, Don't Cry Out Loud, When in Rome, Something Cool, Uncle Harry, Send in the Clowns.

Closing with Clowns had the audience on their feet once again, having previously stood up for Gery's incredible rendition of the cabaret ballad, Something Cool. The story of this song is actually about the life of Blanche from Streetcar, but Gery says that it's about her life too.

David Schwartz, the Australian Correspondent for the New York based Cabaret Hotline Online wrote the most stunning review of our act. You can read it here.

We trundled home in triumph the next day. I had a smile like a Cheshire cat for about a week. I still can't help feeling a little smug about the whole thing. We showed 'em!

First published in the Canberra Philharmonic Newsletter, July 2003.

Album review: DANNIELLE GAHA - You Don't Know Me

Sony Music Entertainment 5106392000

Review copy supplied by Abels Music, Canberra

Reviewed by Tony Magee

It's always a pleasure, not to mention exciting, to discover a new outstanding singer and such a thing has happened.

Sydney based Dannielle Gaha has released a charming CD of lyrical flowing jazz standards, accompanied by sublime playing from an outstanding body of Sydney musicians including Jonathan Zwartz on double bass, Nicholas McBride on drums and percussion, John Harkins on piano (who has also written many of the arrangements) and Jonathan Pease on guitar, plus horns on some tracks.

Highlights for me include a great bossa version of I Concentrate on You, a swinging fun version of A-Tisket A-Tasket (Ella Fitzgerald brought that one to the world originally), a beautiful ballad version of My Romance just with piano, Taking a Chance on Love done in an easy medium swing style and The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (from Oklahoma), which begins as a cool easy ballad and then explodes into a kind of funk romp. There are eleven tracks in all.

These songs are all (even Moon River) absolute classic standards. It would be impossible to say how many times they have been recorded and by how many countless singers. But suffice to say that they are so well written in the first place, they just keep on inspiring new and talented artists to record them again and again, always adding that special something to make the performance yet another little gem in the international repertoire of listening enjoyment.

This is highly appropriate mood music for classy dining. I think you will enjoy Dannielle Gaha.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, June 2003

Review: GERY SCOTT at the SYDNEY CABARET CONVENTION, Sydney Town Hall, June 2 2003

by Dr David Schwartz
June 2, 2003

GERY Scott’s performance provided me with one of those life-changing and totally defining cabaret experiences that was instantly committed to memory, along with my first exposure to Mabel Mercer, Julie Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Sylvia Syms and a host of other greats. The impact that this woman made on me and the rest of the audience was so special that I want to digress and tell you something about her career. 

Gery Scott, who is about to turn 80, has been living and working in Australia since 1980, performing and teaching young singers at the Canberra School of Music as the head of the course in contemporary singing. However, her performing career has spanned more than sixty years and ranged over twenty-six countries. 

Her first recording, STORMY WEATHER, dates from 1941, after which she went on to work with various BBC bands in London. In the 1950's Gery toured Europe performing with Woody Herman, Bud Shank, Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan. Gery Scott was the first Western jazz and cabaret singer to tour the then Soviet Union, selling millions of records there in 1961, all capped off by a recital for the launch of Sputnik I. 

After returning to England for a recording session with Parlophone under Beatles manager George Martin, Gery Scott moved to Hong Kong and opened her own recording company, Orbit Records in 1962. In 1967, she was appointed entertainment director for the Hilton Hotel Far East chain. Gery is the recipient of two Canberra Critics Circle Awards for services to cabaret.

For her set at the Sydney Cabaret Convention, Gery Scott opened with a swinging version of "I Get A Kick Out of You" (Porter), segued seamlessly to a heart-wrenching performance of Peter Allen's "Don't Cry Out Loud" and lifted the mood with a snappy "When In Rome" (Coleman/Leigh). At this point, this woman could have taken her audience anywhere she chose, moving so effortlessly and elegantly from joy to sadness. 

For her next number, Gery chose one of the great cabaret ballads, "Something Cool" (Barnes). Ever since I first heard June Christy's recording I have longed to hear a live performance of this classic that caught the pathos and understated pain of this song; Gery Scott gave me the performance of my dreams and more as she held the entire audience in the palm of her hand. It does not get much better than this! 

In another change of pace she finished the set with a deliciously dry talked/sung rendition of Coward's "Uncle Harry" and received a standing ovation. In response, Gery Scott encored with Sondheim's "Send In The Clowns" in a performance that made me - and everyone else within earshot - forget every other rendition of this remarkable ballad they had ever heard. Once again the audience was on its feet. 

Of course, Gery's backing supported her magic. On this occasion she worked with a trio consisting of her superb accompanist Tony Magee, along with Scott Dodd on bass and Nick McBride on drums. For me, Gery Scott's set represented that rare moment in cabaret when the singer and her song are indistinguishable. This sort of alchemy comes only after many years; to witness it is to be blessed.

First published on Stu Hamstra’s New York based Cabaret Hotline Online, June 2nd 2003

A chair, a spotlight and intimate glamour - Sydney Cabaret Convention 2003

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD ON LINE

By Lenny Ann Low 

May 27, 2003 

Last year, cabaret fans discovered the razzle-dazzle of the Sydney Cabaret Convention via a side door next to the tradesman's entrance. Once inside Sydney Town Hall, they watched nearly 50 cabaret contestants over a week-long program and there wasn't a martini in sight. 

According to this year's inaugural artistic director, Ron Creager, quality was in abundance but the event was more "eisteddfod" than intimate. "The convention has always been done by a committee from the City of Sydney," he said. "Done very well, but they're always stressed and have about 25 events that they're planning."

Creager's vision for the seventh convention, which runs from tonight until Saturday, is a combination of purism and chic. Only 12 finalists are competing in the convention's nightly showcase and the venue, now called City Cabaret Club, features raised seating, a lowered stage and seats for 280 rather than 900. 

Toni Lamond

"It's stripped to just a stage, a light, a stool, a piano and a song," said Creager, who was previously the convention's musical director. "They told me to just dream so now there's glamour from the moment you enter."

The showcase will also feature a host, Gary Scale, and compere, Chelsea Plumley, who will also perform. 

"Gary is the figurehead of the club, which leaves Chelsea to be the star of the room. She doesn't have to deal with anything ugly or untoward like explaining where the toilets are."

Nearly 100 performers auditioned for the showcase, vying for the chance to win prestigious awards allowing them to appear at or attend the New York Cabaret Convention. 

"Three finalists will compete each night and, after interval, three professionals will show them how it's done," said Creager.

Gery Scott

The inaugural Open Mic Bar invites members of the public to try their luck after 9pm. Creager is also keen to highlight Australian cabaret talent rather than imported stars. Local legends, established performers and rising stars such as Eddie Perfect, Phil Scott, Lorrae Desmond, Nancye Hayes, Gery Scott, Toni Lamond and Stuart Wagstaff will appear.

"Oh, absolute legends," Creager says. "Gery is probably the closest we've got to the source of what original cabaret was like when it all started. 

"And that's why I've put Toni, Lorrae and Stuart on the second night together. They won't admit to how much each one's contributing but, between them, they have over 160 years of show business."

www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/cabaret/ 

Article first published in The Sydney Morning Herald, May 27 2003

Broadway delights for lovers of musical theatre

Sensationally Sondheim

Devised by Tony Magee

Directed and designed by Cathie Clelland

Choreography by Sherriden McDonald

Canberra Southern Cross Club

May 2 - 18, 2003

by W. L. Hoffmann

Photo: Rex Features / thereviewshub.com

THIS is an excellently collated and entertainingly presented tribute to lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim, one of the most significant figures of the Broadway musical stage over the last four decades of the 20th century.

The musical interest is broad, not only encompassing Sondheim’s better-known shows and some of his best-loved songs but also including musical material drawn from some of his earlier musicals which are not so well remembered.

With an assembled cast of 15 of Canberra’s finest musical theatre performers it is very much an ensemble production. Therefore it is sufficient to say that it is a well balanced cast who maintain an easy flowing presentation in which the varied vocal resources are effectively utilised in solos, duets and group numbers.

The printed program consists only of an alphabetical list of performers with a similar list of the Sondheim shows from which the musical numbers are drawn.

But there is no listing of the songs or who sings them. Thus there is surprise for the audience as the familiar is mixed with the unfamiliar. And I do not intend to spoil that surprise my mentioning any of the songs, nor who performs them. Every member of the audience will have their own special highlights. Suffice to say then that this is a presentation which offers continuing delights for lovers of musical theatre and in particular for those who admire Sondheim.

A small instrumental ensemble led by Tony Magee from the piano, supports the singers, and the total presentation displays an impressive assurance with singing that is powerfully projected when necessary while also being warmly expressive in the more lyrical numbers.

Having greatly enjoyed the show myself, my advice is simple - don’t miss it!

Originally published in The Canberra Times, May 6, 2003

Album review: DORIAN MODE - A Cafe In Venice

La Brava LB 0046

Review copy supplied by Abels Music, Canberra

Reviewed by Tony Magee

This one is a cool, laid back CD, featuring the aptly named NSW Central Coast based singer and songwriter Dorian Mode, with an impressive line-up of musicians on brass, rhythm and strings and guest singers Joe Lane and Nicky Crayson (whose own album, I have reviewed previously).

Dorian Mode has a mellifluous, easy listening quality to his voice and is basically established within the very broad framework of jazz. Certainly one of the guests, Joe Lane, is a dedicated modern jazz or bebop singer and also quite an amusing character. There is a short 45 second monologue from Joe on this CD (track four), where he relates the story of his meeting the ghost of Charlie Parker.

The CD contains a mix of originals by Mode and established standards including a beautiful rendition of the great ballad Darn That Dream, Nature Boy, Street of Dreams and Sign 'O' the Times by Prince.

Mode's own compositions are all excellent listening. Cool nightclub, late evening jazz with truly excellent backing from the eleven outstanding musicians (including Mode at the piano). Style ranges from elegant ballads, through funky tracks, slow bossa and swing.

Another good one from the increasingly vast array of great Australian talent.

First published in Restaurant and Catering Magazine, April 2003