[Dixielandjazz] Singer Audra McDonald

[Don Ingle]

Yes -- she made her mark in the stage version of Doctorow's "Ragtime." Has
been in several shows since, and appeared on Boston Pops specials as well.
Fine voice, good warmth and phrasing, and can do just about anything in the
way of material. Like Leno, she is also a beauty.
Don Ingle
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Barbone" <barbonestreet@earthlink.net>
To: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 11:18 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Singer Audra McDonald


> Is anyone familiar with this singer?
>
> Cheers,
> Steve barbone
>
>
> November 5, 2002 - New York Times
>
> Audra McDonald Casts Her Spell on Sadness
>
> By STEPHEN HOLDEN
>
>       For any singer to occupy the rarefied territory where art song,
> Broadway and jazz happily coexist involves the most elaborate diplomacy
> this side of the Balkans. Each faction has its unilateral demands. The
> highbrow element requires a recital-like decorum and refined technical
> mastery that pull against the Broadway faction's need for a raucous lack
> of inhibition, while the jazz side insists on a steady undertow of
> swing.
>
> In her Carnegie Hall debut concert on Saturday evening, Audra McDonald
> negotiated as satisfying a settlement as one could to hope to hear. Like
> Lena Horne, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand before her, Ms. McDonald
> has settled on Harold Arlen's song book as the musical touchstone for
> her stylistic diplomacy, and the program featured five Arlen songs.
>
> The concert focused on Ms. McDonald's third solo album, "Happy Songs"
> (Nonesuch), a collection of material written mostly between the two
> world wars and arranged in a style that treats swing and jazz as a kind
> of blues-inflected chamber music. Dance-hall music that aspires to the
> elegance of a salon, it might be called "le jazz hot."
>
> The small orchestra, conducted by Ted Sperling, that accompanied the
> singer was weighted toward brass and included only one violin. Many of
> the arrangements evoked the Cotton Club of Duke Ellington and were
> discreetly punctuated with the wah-wah growl of a muted trumpet.
>
> Because "Happy Songs" includes some blues-flavored laments, its title
> should not be taken too literally. As the singer explained from the
> stage, the underlying mood of even the sadder music from the interwar
> years was irrepressibly buoyant. And in song after song, Ms. McDonald,
> maintained an emotional balance that quickened even the most heartbroken
> wail with a current of resilience.
>
> Ms. McDonald, who comes from the theater, admitted that she has had
> little experience singing with a band, and in the numbers that used the
> full orchestra, her rhythmic drive remained demure even as her voice
> rose to a powerful bluesy wail. But in the smaller-scale arrangements,
> especially in a version of "I Must Have That Man" for voice, guitar and
> bass, a sly sense of swing took over her singing, making it sexy as well
> as beautiful.
>
> The concert's high points ("Bill" from "Show Boat" and "He Loves and She
> Loves," from "Funny Face") were those moments that found Ms. McDonald
> least encumbered by the band and permitted to soar in her delicately
> soulful way. Exquisitely varying the timbre and dynamics of her lustrous
> lyric soprano she retold these familiar stories with an involvement and
> depth of understanding that made you hang on every syllable.
>
>
>
>
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