Word: tuned
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Jeff Melvoin's staging is imaginative and carefully judged. There are a few slips, such as the pointless added scenes of Gar awkwardly playing a tune on a recorder, but the careful pacing and the attention to detail is on a level above that of most theater at Harvard. So the decision to perform in the round stands out as particularly deplorable. With the audience on all four sides of the set it's impossible to avoid featuring the backs of too many heads for too long. A few fluid scenes benefit from the extra freedom of movement a lack...
...good cheer. The title cut kicks things off with air-raid sirens sounding, bombs exploding, and machine guns firing mixed over a breakfast conversation between husband and wife. Anderson on alto sax joins pianist John Evan to lend a madrigal-like impression to the opening few measures. The tune progresses as it deals with war's romantic side, a romanticism evoked musically by the coupling of a flowing melody (played by the strings) and a series of ascending and descending runs (banged out an Evan's piano...
...This tune reflects the stylistic homogeneity of Benefit, the album which established the band's musical identity...
...felt ballad of fallen women whose flute and guitar lines immediately call to mind "Sossity: You're a Woman," the final song of the Benefit sessions. The chorus is also reminiscent of the Sossity refrain and is polyphonically mixed to give a dreamy portrayal of the ladies' allure. The tune closes with an upbeat rhythm phrase bolstered by the orchestra's solid horn section...
...judge, jury, defendants and spectators alike were transported by tape recording into former President Richard Nixon's Oval Office. They heard Nixon curse and connive with his top aides to conceal the truth of Watergate from all others, including his own Justice Department. Reproduced publicly for the first tune, the ghostly voices, disembodied but all too real, conveyed the intent to deceive with far more impact than any previously printed transcripts...