Word: up-tempo
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...than the craft of show biz s the art of the popular song. Over the years, she has learned the arcane alchemy through which a tune can be transformed by its treatment. When her warm, smoky voice curls languidly around a lyric or teases it along with up-tempo jazz phrasing, familiar material reveals unsuspected meanings and yields new freshets of feeling. "There are always deeper layers to discover in a song," she says. "That's why I'm never bored." Neither are her listeners...
Creativity & Brandy. The Lion still qualifies. Last week, during a duo-piano date with Jack Teagarden Alumnus Don Ewell at Manhattan's Village Gate, he rippled off rocking arpeggios and lacy melodies in such original com positions as Echoes of Spring and Passionette; then, in up-tempo drivers like I Found a New Baby and Sweet Georgia Brown, he unleashed his juggernaut left hand to stride and stomp around the lower half of the keyboard while his right hand danced up high in finger-blurring filigrees or punched out syncopated chords. A resplendent showman in his red vest, derby...
More than just live Muzak, the best of the cocktail pianists "play the room," alternating from up-tempo numbers to dreamy lullabies to suit the mood of the audience. Requests are encouraged (current favorite: Lara's Theme from the film score of Doctor Zhivago), but in many instances the cocktail pianist is more prized for his fellowship than his musicianship. Table hopping between sets is essential, and any pianist worth his arpeggio greets the entrance of old customers by sliding into their favorite numbers...
...Chicago's Mon Petit, is a singer in the tradition of Mabel Mercer-quiet, cool, reassuring. In the '40s, he wrote songs for Edith Piaf; later he tried his hand at musicals in New York before migrating to Chicago, where he leavens a Continental repertory with up-tempo show tunes and a few Beatle ballads. The social set and young marrieds think he's keen. Says one fan: "His French songs give me the feeling of not being in Chicago, which many of us find very gratifying...
...heard only on 78s or reissues. Not so Benny Carter who, as a Chocolate Dandy in 1929, was one of the pioneers of the alto saxophone. Busy with Hollywood-arranging assignments, Carter seldom plays today; but this new recording finds him as fluent as ever, brightening his own up-tempo compositions (Doozy, Come on Back) with four other ebullient saxophonists at his side...