If there was anything to be learned from this Sunday's concert (aside from the importance of rehearsals) is that Berklee has no business doing Broadway. The Great American Songbook has been the one show I really look forward to during the year. It was the best that Berklee had to offer, a real classy affair. All tuxedos and evening gowns, a full orchestra; it is like no other show that the school puts on. It is a night when Berklee shimmer's with the magic of good music, and Hollywood glamour.
For those who are interested in a bit of history, The Great American Songbook is a term given to a particular era of popular music beginning around the 1920's and tapering out in the 1960's. Interrelating the music from Broadway, Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley. For the first few years of Berklee's American Songbook it held to this tradition with shows dedicated to the music of Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Duke Ellington. Last year's show deviated from the others by performing the music of Stevie Wonder. And while I love Stevie Wonder's music and enjoyed the show, I felt it had lost some of it's class. The music just didn't seem fitting with the atmosphere of the big band orchestra. Tuxedos and evening gowns were inappropriate, the orchestra seemed excessive, and the show lost some of that glamorous shimmer. So this year's Broadway show should have been a return to what it once was right? Unfortunately it was not.
To be fair the show was terribly unrehearsed, some music hadn't even been handed out until that day. On top of that, the band had all been there since one o'clock in the afternoon with just one break for dinner before the show. So by the time the show started the band had been there for seven hours rehearsing. But aside from that I also thought the song selection was lacking in cohesion, the arrangements were corny, the transitions were sloppy and badly thought out, and the vocal performances were mediocre. Some of the composers weren't even American (but that's just being knit-picky). The concert wasn't bad, but it was hardly something to write home about. I walked away saying "well... they got through it." and wondering what happened to this show. I can't understand why they didn't choose just one composer. It would have added some cohesion to the songs, they wouldn't have needed so many different vocalist, and they wouldn't have needed such a big band. (Not that they ever needed such a big band to begin with.) What they did need was a little organization; they needed to realize that Berklee has no business attempting Broadway. Berklee does jazz and does it extremely well, I'm not saying they shouldn't have used Broadway songs, but arrange them in the jazz style. Have a little fun with it. The concert was so all over the place I wasn't really sure what to think. The end result was that I thought the jazz numbers were excellent and that everything else was weak in comparison.
The one saving grace in the night was Donna Mc Elroy. Originally she was the only vocalist in the show. Songbook was her show, she is who people came to see; she made it special. This year she was the crutch that kept the show from being a complete disaster. I cringed listening to the singer add R&B runs to "Music of the Night"; I sat nervously hoping no one's voice cracked or they didn't run out of breath or forget the words. At least Donna owned the un-preparedness, attempted to excuse it, but that did little to appease the awkwardness surrounding the evening. It felt as if the entire ensemble was holding it's breath waiting for the whole thing to fall apart. Resulting in a show that just couldn't let lose and get into the music. I still have faith in songbook though, and hope that next years will be all of the things that made me love this show in the first place.
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