New appreciations

Simply Sondheim offers songs from 22 Sondheim works spanning 50 years

REVIEW BY ANDREW MILNER

here's no shortage of Stephen Sondheimthenied albums available for a listener in 2007, from CDs of revues and one-nightonly special events to repackaged compilations of existing cast albums. It's to producer James Brewer's credit that Simply Sondheim: A 75th Birthday Salute (Kritzerland), recorded live in December 2005 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall, finds new appreciations of Sondheim's work. The album lives up to its title, as a mere three-piece combo and a cast of 12 offers polished performances of songs from no fewer than 22 Sondheim works spanning more than 50 years. Simply Sondheim is bracketed by intelligently selected ensemble numbers. The double album begins with the up-tempo "Make the Most of "four Music" from the 1987 London revival of Follies. The song is / relatively unknown in the States, but the musical allusions throughout the lyric make it an ideal opening number. The set concludes with the poignant "No More" matched with the defiant "Everybody's Got the Right" from Assassins, ending with the spoken "I wish ..." from the finale of Into the Woods. The assembled east is an excellent cross-section of Bay Area performers. Steve Rhyne does a convincing "Love, I Hear" (from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and forceful "Everybody Says Don't" (Anyone Can Whistle). Kelly Ground manages t sound genuinely blase in "\h. But LTndcrneath" (1987 Follies revival) and genuinely innocent in "The Glamorous Life" (the version from the 1977 film oiA Little Night Music, not the stage production as indicated in the liner notes). She pairs "Children Will Listen" (Into the Woods) \\ith Kim Larsen's vulnerable "Not While I'm Around" (Sweeney Todd). Brewer eompellingly sings "Good Thing Going"/"Xot a Day Goes By" from Merrily We Roll Along. Special guest Lisa Vroman, who starred as Johanna in the PBS concert staging of Sweeney Todd that featured George Hearn and Patti LuPone, offers a sultry rendition of Sondheim's underperformed 1956 song "The Girls of Summer." Guy Haines, the stage persona of Kritzerland founder Bruce Kimmel (who while with Varese Sarabande oversaw the 1993 Unsung Sondheim compilation), contributes a cameo with "A Parade in Town" from Anyone Can Whistle. He sings it well, although the number gets a curious "Bolero''-like accompaniment, and (if the live audience response is an indication) there must

have been visual gags that simply didn't translate onto CD. The most memorable performances are by two of the evening's younger singers. Judy Butterfield delivers a winsome version of "I'm in Love with a Boy," a 1951 song Sondheim wrote for the unproduced Climb High. The lyric anticipates the \x of the brassy interpretation of "Good Thing Going" in Merrily We Roll Along ("He's only a boy ..."), and it's a surprisingly sophisticated song tor a 21-year-old Sondheim to have penned. It's equally surprising to discover that Butterfield i> just a teenager. Hannah Rose Kornfcld, all of 11 years old oo this evening, confidently sang two songs as Little Red Ridinghood from Into the Woods, and then stopped the show with her singing and tap dancing for "Back in Business." This song iron Dick Tracy has been frequently covered, but it's never sounded better. Butterfield and Komfeld join forces for "If Momma Was Married" (Gypsy; as part of a four-song "Marriage Medley." The evening is bound together by three medleys. The nine-song "Love Medley" includes the lyric-only Sondheim songs "Do I Hear a \Valtzr~ and "Tonight," and a rousing "You Could Drh a Person Crazy" by Ground, Stephanie Rhoads a Shay Oglesby-Smith. There's also a spirited Saturday Night medley beginning the second dfec. followed by Rhoads' "What More Do I Needr" Later on the second CD, Larsen and Rhyric sin the title song from Bounce (as the Mizner brrc ers, presumably in heaven), then make interjections during the following number. "Ha. the 2004 production of The Progs). The idea< characters from one Sondheim show comraenciat on material from another show is an interesting conceit. Unfortunately, it isn't followed throaf^out the rest of the production. The one premiere recording of a Sondheia song on this album is "Farewell," from the 1' revival of Forum, originally written for Nancy Walker. Oglesby-Smith as Domina delivers a ful interpretation (though she flubs "country] as "county life"). "Farewell" is both musical lyrically superior to Domina's remaining >ot Forum ("That Dirty Old Man") and allows fc certain amount of shtick why hasn't it bee* incorporated into subsequent revivals of the show? With smart reintcrpretations of proven sea dards, Simply Sondheim is the best Sondheni cert album of the decade and a harbinger <-ipm ectsyet to come from the talent on h:-::J "Si
ANDREW MILNER reviews books and CDs for * Philadelphia City Paper.

44 The Sondheim Review