ON THE RECORD: Sheik and Sater's Spring Awakening , Plus a New Arlen Collection
By Steven Suskin
Barbara Fasano: Written in the Stars [Human Child Records HCR-825]Harold Arlen and His Songs [DRG 19078] (which was recorded 50 years ago and finally released on CD earlier this year). The good news today is that we now have another Arlen collection that can be played alongside Harold's.
Barbara Fasano is a jazz singer with solid credits in cabaret and nightclub circles (although hitherto unknown to me). In 2003, she put together an act called "I Had a Love Once: Arlen Songs." This earned her a slot in the Arlen Centennial Concert last year at Carnegie Hall; her performance there seems to have led to this new recording, "Written in the Stars."
A jazz singer, as opposed to a theatre singer, yes; but Arlen might be described as a composer who partially found his fortune by bringing jazz into the theatre. Fasano gives us 15 tracks, and not just all the old hits; no "Over the Rainbow," "Stormy Weather" or "Blues in the Night" here. (The interlude to the last is woven into the introduction of Fasano's fine version of "I Wonder What Became of Me," but "my momma don' tol' me" is absent.)
In place of those biggest of hits, Fasano brings us Arlen treasures both familiar and non. "When the Sun Comes Out," for example, a non-production song written in 1940 with Arlen's early collaborator Ted Koehler. Koehler (best known for "Stormy Weather") comes off very well in Fasano's hands, actually, with three other titles of his — "Let's Fall in Love," "As Long As I Live" (which Fasano sings with her husband, Eric Comstock) and "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" — joining "When the Sun Comes Out" as major highlights. They are joined by "I Had a Love Once" (with a lyric by Arlen himself); Harburg's "Last Night When We Were Young"; and — from Mercer — "This Time the Dream's on Me" and the aforementioned "I Wonder What Became of Me."
Advertisement
Let it be said that a few of the tracks are given rhythmic treatments so free as to interfere with Arlen's melodies, in my opinion at least, but this is a minor complaint that doesn't detract from the strengths of the CD. Fasano is greatly abetted by pianist-arranger John di Martino. The seven-piece band matches the singer with accomplished and delightful playing; I suppose it is unfair to single out Joel Frahm on sax, Tim Ouimette on trumpet/flugelhorn and Sean Smith on bass, so let's just praise the band, and the singer, and thank them for a bluesy, jazzy, swinging album of Arlen.
(Steven Suskin is author of "Second Act Trouble," "A Must See! Brilliant Broadway Artwork," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. Prior On the Record columns can be accessed in the Features section on Playbill.com's front page. Suskin can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)
