[Dixielandjazz] [Fwd: Quasthoff crosses the tracks]

[Fr M J (Mike) Logsdon]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Quasthoff crosses the tracks
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 05:12:22 -0800
To: CLASSM-L at listserv.brown.edu

Thomas Quasthoff
Watch What Happens
The Jazz Album

* Gershwin: There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York
* Blake: Watch What Happens
* Fain: Secret Love
* Wonder: You and I
* Arlen: Ac-cen-tchu-ate the Positive
* Loewe: I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face
* Swift (attr. Cunningham): Can't We be Friends?
* Chaplin: Smile
* Gershwin: They All Laughed
* Rodgers: My Funny Valentine
* Legrand: What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?
* Ellington: In My Solitude

Thomas Quasthoff (baritone), various musicians.
DG B0006239-02 Total time: 49:44

Summary for the Busy Executive: Who's got rhythm?

I have no idea why great Lieder and opera singers get bitten with the 
yen to sing classic pop. After all, most of them have not really studied 
it or, even better, gone through the fire of making their living with 
it, and the style and repertoire require as much study and effort as 
Lieder does. You cannot just step in and let fly. One of the great camp 
recordings of all time -- Lauritz Melchior singing "Please Don't Say 
'No,' Say 'Maybe,'" complete with high C -- often gets dragged out at 
parties, and even the great Heldentenor's fans have the good sense that 
shows love doesn't mean blind. Renee Fleming's "Over the Rainbow" is a 
road accident of laughably bad taste, something you would never accuse 
her of in her home style.

Quasthoff does better than most. He has the standard conversational 
style down pretty well. He has made an effort to master colloquial 
English and has gotten to the point where he sounds as if he lives in an 
ethnic enclave of Milwaukee. The Midwestern final "r" in particular gets 
hit pretty hard, and here and there a vowel heads back across the 
Atlantic. However, overall Quasthoff almost passes. He does better in 
slow numbers than in fast. The two best tracks are "I've Grown 
Accustomed to Her Face" and "In My Solitude." It's obvious that he loves 
each and every song on the program, although he gives you something 
personal only in these. He also communicates as a great Lieder singer 
should, removing the curse from such turkeys as "Secret Love" and "What 
Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life." And, of course, the voice is 
beautiful.

Nevertheless, the title of the CD, The Jazz Album, amounts to nothing 
more than false advertising. The problems, predictably, come down to 
rhythm and improvisational freedom. In the opening number, Gershwin's 
rousing "There's a boat," you have only to compare Quasthoff with the 
great Cab Calloway to know what's missing in both departments. It's not 
that Quasthoff does a terrible job. It's that he doesn't come up to the 
level of Robert Goulet as a jazz singer. Quasthoff is a jazz singer only 
if you're willing to loosen the definition. Furthermore, when you think 
of the singers in his weight class -- Johnny Hartman, Billy Eckstine, 
Nat Cole, Frank Sinatra, even Steve Lawrence -- you have to admit that, 
sadly, this album really comes down to an indulgence. In the words of 
the Ellington song, "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing," 
and Quasthoff swings fitfully, rather than easily. Furthermore, if you 
don't improvise on a regular basis, you
  either don't do it well or you fall into imitating your betters. There 
are times when I get the feeling that Quasthoff tries to impersonate 
Sinatra, phrase by phrase -- and not the good Sinatra, either; the one 
who tried to get by on iconic status. As a musical-comedy star who began 
as a band clarinetist once remarked: "If you don't keep it up, you solo 
and suddenly it's 1957."

The arrangements, mostly by pianist Alan Broadbent and film composer Nan 
Schwartz (no relation) are quite good. Schwartz takes up the orchestral 
charts and Broadbent the ones for small combo. The worst arrangement 
(and the worst track on the disc) goes to Steve Gray's ricky-tick 
setting of the Arlen and Mercer classic "Ac-cen-tchu-ate the Positive." 
It's as if neither Gray nor Quasthoff has heard of syncopation, let 
along swing. Fortunately, Gray confines himself to that one arrangement. 
The thing is, why did Quasthoff let it through? He would have done 
better to trust himself to Broadbent and a string bass. I think it 
indicates yet again his lack of experience with jazz.

Die-hard Quasthoff fans won't care, of course. The curious, I think, 
will be disappointed, though they might give credit for Quasthoff's 
sincere effort. Fans of jazz and pop should probably stay away.

One small note. "Can't We be Friends?" was written not by Eric Stephen 
Cunningham and Christopher Paul Lang (whoever they may be), as stated in 
the liner notes, but by Kay Swift and Paul James for the 1930 show Fine 
and Dandy. This mistake, thanks to Deutsche Grammophon, has spread all 
over the Internet.

Steve Schwartz