Let's Face the Music: The Songs of Irving Berlin

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Susannah McCorkle does not have a big, overpowering voice; she has built her reputation as a jazz and cabaret singer on the sheer sensuality of her purr. In other words, she's a musical descendant of Billie Holiday, not Ella Fitzgerald. When she understates material to give it a romantic intimacy, she's as pleasurable a vocalist as her field knows. When she tries to reach for a brassy climax to a show-stopper Broadway tune, she inevitably falls short. Fortunately, there's more understatement than overstatement on Let's Face the Music: The Songs of Irving Berlin. Many of the album's 14 Berlin compositions are associated with Fred Astaire, and McCorkle displays a rhythmic dexterity reminiscent of the old hoofer--who also compensated for a lack of vocal power with a seductive timbre. McCorkle is backed by solo piano, solo guitar, piano trio, saxophone quintet, and jazz octet, and the different settings give the project a welcome variety. The musicians are top-notch; Phil Woods bassist Steve Gilmore provides the supple pulse, and saxophonists Jerry Dodgion and Chris Potter supply solos as arresting as the vocals. McCorkle shows her imagination in reworking "Cheek to Cheek" as a bossa nova, and her good sense in resisting the temptation to belt out "Let's Face the Music and Dance;" instead she turns it into an invitation to a slower, sexier turn on the dance floor. --Geoffrey Himes

Tracks:

I'd Rather Lead A Band
Let's Face The Music And Dance
Isn't This A Lovely Day (To Be Caught In The Rain)
Heat Wave
How Deep Is The Ocean
Everybody Knew But Me/When You Walked Out Someone Else Walked Right In
There's No Business Like Show Business
Cheek To Cheek
Love And The Weather
Supper Time
Medley: You're Easy To Dance With/It Only Happens When I Dance With You
Better Luck Next Time
Let Yourself Go
Waiting At The End Of The Road

Amazon.com

Susannah McCorkle does not have a big, overpowering voice; she has built her reputation as a jazz and cabaret singer on the sheer sensuality of her purr. In other words, she's a musical descendant of Billie Holiday, not Ella Fitzgerald. When she understates material to give it a romantic intimacy, she's as pleasurable a vocalist as her field knows. When she tries to reach for a brassy climax to a show-stopper Broadway tune, she inevitably falls short. Fortunately, there's more understatement than overstatement on Let's Face the Music: The Songs of Irving Berlin. Many of the album's 14 Berlin compositions are associated with Fred Astaire, and McCorkle displays a rhythmic dexterity reminiscent of the old hoofer--who also compensated for a lack of vocal power with a seductive timbre. McCorkle is backed by solo piano, solo guitar, piano trio, saxophone quintet, and jazz octet, and the different settings give the project a welcome variety. The musicians are top-notch; Phil Woods bassist Steve Gilmore provides the supple pulse, and saxophonists Jerry Dodgion and Chris Potter supply solos as arresting as the vocals. McCorkle shows her imagination in reworking "Cheek to Cheek" as a bossa nova, and her good sense in resisting the temptation to belt out "Let's Face the Music and Dance;" instead she turns it into an invitation to a slower, sexier turn on the dance floor. --Geoffrey Himes

Customer Reviews:

Susannah Did It Again!.......2005-09-24

Susannah McCorkle always seemed to come up with a unique treatment of her songs. Listen to "There's No Business Like Show Business"...still a world class performer, world class musicians and arrangements.

Perhaps the best interpreter of the select Berlin.......2004-10-21

I first became fascinated with "standards"-the songs,primarily, of the older generation of musical theater composers who could still write a solid melody-as a young audio buff building his own speakers and vacuum tube amplifiers on a hobby basis. At a listening session I brought a then-current disc of Cole Porter songs by current pop and rock acts,which featured a track by a couple of "punk pioneers" turned Frank and Bing emulators. I was (and for that matter still am) particularly enamored of one of the performers and championed her as a good singer who could have been successful 'back in the day'. The host got up and retrieved an album by Susannah McCorkle, who was nearly the same age-actually slightly younger-than the punk princess in question, and I had to admit that for all the other girl's talents she just wasn't (and, for all her remarkable efforts, still isn't) in the same league as McCorkle at this business of singing standards.

McCorkle was-she ended her life in 2001 by jumping out of a sixteenth story window with an uncontestedly holographic suicide note in her pocket-probably the best female standards singer in the world at the time of her sad but understandable death. She was not an operatic vocalist by any measure: hers was a microphone voice pure and simple. She used it to its full potential in a way that "serious singers" rarely if ever can when approaching this material:but she brought to the table the determined mastery, the musicianship,the timing that rock, country, and R&B singers simply usually lack completely and very occasionally, approach by sheer blind instinct (as with Willie Nelson's Stardust and the Riddle Ronstadt trilogy).Although she was a native speaker of American English, her extensive European language studies gave her an ability to approach her native language with the sort of studied use characteristic of singing in languages not one's own.

Although McCorkle was not stuffy or pedantic about her music, she did not do anything to expand her base of listenership beyond the people who, mostly, already knew about-and usually knew for themselves-the music and were seeking it actively. She had no real interest in self-promotion and had no desire to "cross over" into any mainstream pop market, being content to live in the fishbowl of New York cabaret performance. However, when record sales prompted Concord Jazz not to record another album of her in 2001 and her usual venue did not renew her performance contract, the resulting income and visibility loss likely prompted the last of many bouts of depression which the long-suffering McCorkle endured, and 'unable to fight (her) biochemistry' any longer McCorkle concluded her affairs in orderly fashion and committed suicide via defenestration in early 2001.

As with other talents whose life ended prematurely, one is left with all sorts of "what if's"; what if she had duetted with or guested with this or that aritst, sang this or that song, tried her hand at a cinematic appearance (few vocalists do not aspire to film: a great many have excelled and even those who flopped artistically at least generated box office and publicized their singing) or any of a hundred other unrealized possibilities. But Susannah McCorkle left her mark doing what she did best, and what she did best was to interpret the songs of intelligent, stylish, witty, and disciplined songwriters with taste but often in directions not before taken in all the decades these songs had been in existence.

This album features McCorkle at her prime, singing a small selection of the great Berlin catalog which she frequently looks at from an entirely new perspective. Many of us know, for example, "Let's Face The Music And Dance" largely from Frank Sinatra's classic renditions (indeed, many of us know most if not all the standards we do from Frank, at least those suitable for male vocalists), but Susannah turns what for Frank was usually a ringer-dinger into a slow and basically sad but still sexy song. "Cheek to Cheek" is the other Berlin song usually known from its Frankification (at least now), and here her version is much closer to the Sinatra canonical approach.

"Heat Wave" and "There's No Business Like Show Business" are usually associated with the Merman/Monroe film musical of the latter name. Again, her "Heat Wave" is much closer to what's on the film, albeit with probably-carefully-researched alternate lead-in lyrics. "Business" she turns into a sad lament of showbiz heartbreak, one fully realizing its significance to McCorkle herself only from the viewpoint of the listener knowing of her demise.

All of the songs on this album are first rate, and all are first rate interpretations of them that bring out the full value from each piece. My only reservation is that the musicians on several tracks-particularly "Heat Wave", which would have benefitted immensely from a little bite and funk from a guest funk bassist or a Latin-rythm-competent rock guitarist-are just a little too clean and precise, lacking just that little edge that the LA Wrecking Crew might have added to a mid-60s Sinatra track. They are very good jazz musicians who play a lot, but not backing people up like Motown's storied Funk Brothers or the aforementioned LA crew with Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye and Tommy Tedesco. However, that's in the realm of woulda, coulda, shoulda. With Susannah, as with the long list of all the greats who have passed on, what we have is what we have. And it's great and we should probably just enjoy it as it is.

Along with this album, Susannah recorded ones featuring other great songwriters including Leo Robin, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer, Gershwin and Porter. Clearly she was going for a Songbook series of her own, and she got it. Her set is, only possibly excepting Ella Fitzgerald's (and I say with no shame that I _often_ prefer McCorkle's versions to Ella's, so mine is not a majority opinion),the finest to date of any female vocalist.

I can't imagine any standards fan not regarding this album-and indeed most of McCorkle's recorded legacy-as excellent.

MEW JAZZ ARTIST TOO ME.......2003-06-22

LAST WEEK FROM MY LOCAL LIBRARY I GOT THIS CD OUT I HAD NEVER HEARD OF THE JAZZ ARTIST BEFORE I GOT THE CD OUT ON THE TITTLES OF THE SONGS ALONE
I WAS VERY SAD TO LEARN OF UNTIMELY DEATH AT THE AGE OF 52 OF MS.McCORKLE MY MOST LISTENED TO TRACKS MORE THEN ONCE ARE IN THIS ORDER

1-I'D RATHER LEAD A BAND
2-LOVE AND THE WEATHER
4-HEAT WAVE
7-THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS
13-LET YOURSELF GO
8-CHEEK TO CHEEK
THE ENTIRE CD IS GREAT BUT THESE ARE BY FAR MY FAVORITES
YOU ALSO NEED TO GET OTHER CD's MY SUSANNAH

Susannah sings Irving Berlin - her way........2002-09-01

If you are looking for an album full of carbon copies of classic songs, look elsewhere. On this album, Susannah sings a selection of songs written by Irving Berlin, some famous, some obscure, in her own unique style, sometimes putting a completely different interpretation on the song.

This is never more apparent than on Let's face the music and dance. Instead of doing it as a joyful upbeat song, Susannah does it slow and sexy, and it suits her bluesy voice well.

It's a lovely day is also slowed down in a similar fahion, but Heat wave is much more bright and breezy.

Susannah gives There's no business like show business a whole new perspective. Of course, everybody knows that Hollywood is a place where dreams are broken more often than they come true, but Susannah's version makes this obvious without changing the words, only the arrangement - a masterpiece.

Regardless of whatever music of Irving Berlin's you have heard before, this is different and generally more downbeat than the song titles suggest, but it's well up to the quality I expect of a Susannah album.

Irving Berlin fans Will Be Happy.......2001-10-10

Susannah McCorkle was always known as an artist who gave proper tribute to the great composers. She has a wonderful catalog of tribute CDs to composers of all types and this is one of the best.

Diana Krall fans will immediately recognize two songs - "How Deep is the Ocean", and "Let's Face the Music and Dance". You will hear a more heartfelt treatment of these songs on this CD. "Cheek to Cheek" and "Heat Wave" are two other standards.

One of McCorkle's strengths has always been to takle the seldom heard tunes and to make them very accessible. She is not content to sticking with the standards but forays into lesser known territory. With Berlin, she handles tunes such as "Love and the Weather", "Everybidy Knew But Me", amnd "When You Walked Out".

But the show stopper is "There's No Business Like Show Business". Those who are used to the uptempo Ethel Merman version which is more a celebration of the joys of show business will be shocked when they hear Susannah's slow, and almost sad rendition. Rather than being a celebration, Susannah sings it as expousing the pain, agony, and heartbreak of show business, which is something she undoubtedly expereinced in her latter days prior to her death.

Tracks:

Pennies from Heaven
But Where Are You? [Let's Face the Music]
For Sentimental Reasons
June Is Bustin' Out All Over [From Carousel]
Careless Rhapsody [By Jupiter]
Jupiter Forbid [By Jupiter]
Nobody's Heart [From by Jupiter]
Ev'rything I've Got [By Jupiter]
Saga of Jenny, Pt. 1 [Lady in the Dark]
Saga of Jenny, Pt. 2 [Lady in the Dark]
This Is New [Lady in the Dark]
Girl of the Moment [Lady in the Dark]
My Ship [Lady in the Dark]
One Life to Live [Lady in the Dark]
Ace in the Hole [Let's Face It]
I Said No [Sweater Girl]
My Cousin in Milwaukee
Someday I'll Find You [Private Lives]
Dance Little Lady [This Year of Grace]
Zigeuner [Bitter Sweet]
I'll See You Again [From Bitter Sweet]
Room With a View [This Year of Grace]
I Cling to You [Ziegfeld Follies of 1933]
What Is There to Say? [Ziegfeld Follies of 1933]

The Songs of Irving Berlin: Let's Face the Music and Dance

Average customer rating:

The Songs of Irving Berlin: Let's Face the Music and Dance
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Parade
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Traditional Vocal Pop | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music

Traditional Pop | Oldies | Pop | Styles | Music

Vintage Dance Bands | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000581DI
Release Date: 1991-01-01

Tracks:

Alexander's Ragtime Band - The Boswell Sisters
Marie - Al Bowlly,
Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody - Denny Dennis, Roy Fox and His Band
Let's Face the Music and Dance - Harry Roy
Tell Me With a Melody - Paul Whiteman Orchestra
Let Yourself Go - Al Bowlly, Ray Noble
This Year's Kisses - Carroll Gibbons, Hildegarde
Top Hat, White Tie and Tails - Al Bowlly, ,
We Saw the Sea - Harry Roy,
Lazy - Al Jolson, Isham Jones & His Orchestra
I Used to Be Color Blind - Fred Astaire, Ray Noble and His Orchestra
It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow
Piccolino - Harry Roy
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Carroll Gibbons, George Melachrino
Cheek to Cheek - Sam Browne, Lew Stone
Change Partners - Fred Astaire,
He Ain't Got Rhythm - Nat Gonella, Nat Gonella
Slumming on Park Avenue - Al Bowlly, Ray Noble
I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket - George Barclay, Charlie Kunz
Medley: Remember/How Deep Is the Ocean/White Christmas - Sally Douglas, Geraldo & His Orchestra, Archie Lewis

Average customer rating:

The Songs of Irving Berlin. Let's Face the Music and Dance.
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Point Productions
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000K9HLZI

Average customer rating:

The Songs of Irving Berlin. Let's Face the Music and Dance.
Various Artists
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000K9J3Y0

Music:

Music

Music