Winter 2000
Judy Garland: Judy Duets / Judy at the Palace
BCD/Wiley Entertainment, US, 1999
Reviewed by Ted Naron; Chicago
With any live Judy Garland recording, the first question is: Will this be the Garland who cries out her own state of emotional disrepair with blown lines, poor breathing, and a host of other symptoms for her fans lovingly to make allowances for? Or will this be Garland in control, using the unparalleled power of her glorious voice and a lifetime’s craft to evoke the listener’s emotional response rather than make a spectacle of her own?
In this two-CD set, disc one consists of duets culled from the CBS weekly musical series The Judy Garland Show from 1963 and 1964. It features Garland the pro, standing up in the spotlight with some of the most powerful figures in American music history. Disc two, a hitherto "lost" recording of the final night of her long engagement at New York’s Palace Theater in February, 1952, gives us the other Garland, and your affection for it will depend entirely on your tolerance for histrionics.
The provenance of the masters for both these discs is the "found in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall’s porch" miracle tale that is becoming more and more common, but yes, the mono sound is stunningly clear and fresh, and we can be grateful that Garland’s third husband Sid Luft turned up the tapes and gave them to us in this well-produced package.
Judy Garland 1922-1969. Does anybody who has read this far need more biography than that? Probably not. But what may not be as well-known is that once upon a time there were clever people who (along with plying various other musical trades) crafted special musical material and medleys for movies and television. People like Kay Thompson and Hugh Martin at MGM; Sammy Cahn for his patron Frank Sinatra; Billy Barnes; Dick Williams (a former Kay Thompson singer) for Steve and Eydie; Ken and Mitzi Welch for Carol Burnett, etc.
These writers and others of their ilk had a knack for the clever juxtaposition, the particularly apposite song sequence, the ingenious counterpointing of tunes, the crafting of new words and music to provide an organizing principle or connective tissue around a bunch of disparate songs.
The late Mel Torme, working behind the scenes for once, penned much of the "special material" on The Judy Garland Show found on disc one, and Kay Thompson served as "creative consutant." Hugh Martin is a notable presence on disc two’s Palace recording, both as accompanist and arranger.
(The extent to which vocal arranging is a lost art can be measured on the two Frank Sinatra Duets albums of the early 1990s, on which every duet but one feels shabbily and almost shockingly ill-conceived. The lone exception is his number with Steve and Eydie, which happens to have a vocal arrangement by Dick Williams.)
Surprisingly, one of the very best moments on the Garland Duets disc – and one of the best moments in American popular music history, period – was conceptualized not by Torme or Thompson, but by Garland herself. This is the pairing of Garland with Barbra Streisand singing, in counterpoint, Get Happy and Happy Days are Here Again. The former was one of Garland’s signature tunes; the latter, Streisand’s first hit. Pairing the songs was Garland’s idea, according to the fine liner notes by Coyne Steven Sanders, and it was an inspired one. Both the concept and the execution raise goosebumps.
This disc holds one pleasure after another, as Garland sings with a succession of American music legends and up-and-comers. The duet with Torme on The Trolley Song, on which Torme sings a self-penned counterpoint which is both hip and funny, makes you miss the recently departed singer all the more. (At the end of this, Garland belts and holds a high note perfectly for over 30 seconds!) Garland and Ethel Merman, doing a medley of Merman hits, blast you to the back of your living room.
Young Jack Jones is a pleasure to hear in a medley with Garland of movie operetta tunes; Vic Damone and Garland are gorgeous together on a West Side Story medley; Garland and Bobby Darin have fun with a travel medley; Garland and Peggy Lee miraculously weave their completely opposite voices in a swinging blend. But I should stop here, because each and every track is one object lesson after another in the joy and mastery of great duet singing for singers and listeners alike.
One more observation, though: The duet with Tony Bennett reveals the amazing extent to which Bennett’s voice is the male equivalent of Garland’s. The sound of his vibrato, the way he ends a note – hearing him next to Garland makes you realize she had to have been his single greatest influence.
The engineering on this disc by Doug Schwartz is not only excellent, it’s intelligent; the lead-out applause from one number cross-fades into the lead-in applause from the next, creating a seamless listening experience. The booklet features lots of well-reproduced photographs, and the liner notes, as mentioned, are expert. (There are some track list discrepancies here and there, probably because the notes were put together before the final master was prepared; for instance, the Garland-Bennett duet lists a series of tunes, but only I Left My Heart in San Francisco is actually heard.) All in all, a first-class package on which care has obviously been lavished.
As for disc two, recorded on the last night of Garland’s Palace Theater engagement a little more than ten years earlier, it too is full of "special material," much of it probably by songwriter Hugh Martin, who accompanies Garland on piano along with an orchestra. Unfortunately, this performance is full of annoying self-indulgences: an out-of-breath Garland protesting that she’s "too old for this;" forgetting the lyrics but acting as if that’s somehow proof of her marvelous spontaneity; giggling protractedly at jokes that exist only in her own head, leaving the listener merely to speculate whether she's "on" something, and if so, where he can get some. Many fans may be of the "Hey, it’s a miracle she could perform at all after just being fired by MGM" school. I’m more of the "unless you’re charging half-price for the tickets, you owe the audience a professional performance" school. In fairness, the audience in attendance seems to feel anything but short-changed. And in the plus column for me, there is a powerful rendition of Gershwin’s Liza, along with some other good moments. In comparison to disc one, though, there’s no comparison.
Note to DVD fanciers: the Judy Garland Show episodes featuring Liza Minnelli and Mickey Rooney (both represented on disc one of this set) are coming out soon.
Disc One: Judy Duets (66:21)
1. The Count Basie Orchestra: I Hear Music / The Sweetest Sounds / Strike
Up the Band
2. Mickey Rooney: You’re So Right for Me
3. Barbra Streisand: Get Happy / Happy Days Are Here Again / Hooray for
Love / After You’ve Gone / By Myself / ‘S Wonderful / How About You? /
Lover, Come Back to Me / You and the Night and the Music / It All Depends
on You
4. Bobby Darin: Sentimental Journey / Goin’ Home Train / Chattanooga Choo-Choo
/ On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe / River, Stay Away from My
Door / Some of These Days / Bye, Bye Blackbird / Toot, Toot, Tootsie /
Beyond the Blue Horizon / I Know That You Know / I’ve Been Working on
the Railroad / Lonesome Road
5. Mel Torme: The Trolley Song
6. Jack Jones: San Francisco / Will You Remember? / Rosalie / I’ll See
You Again / Lover, Come Back to Me / The Donkey Serenade
7. Ethel Merman: Friendship / Let’s Be Buddies / You’re the Top / You’re
Just in Love / It’s De-Lovely / Together
8. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin: You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You
/ Let There Be Love
9. Tony Bennett: I Left My Heart in San Francisco
10. Lena Horne: Day In, Day Out
11. Peggy Lee: I Like Men / You Make Me Feel So Young / Tess’s Torch Song
/ Fever / It’s So Nice to Have a Man Around the House / I’m Just Wild
About Harry / Charlie, My Boy / Oh, Johnny / Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William
Now) / Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?
12. Vic Damone: Maria / Something’s Coming / Somewhere / Tonight
13. Liza Minnelli: We Could Make Such Beautiful Music Together / The Best
Is Yet to Come / Together
Recorded for CBS television, 1963-64.
Disc Two: Judy at the Palace (58:31)
1. Chorus Intro
2. Call the Press
3. "Judy at the Palace" Medley
4. Rockabye Your Baby
5. Judy’s Olio
6. Get Happy
7. A Couple of Swells
8. Love
9. A Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow
10. Liza
11. Auld Lang Syne
12. After You’ve Gone
13. Over the Rainbow
Tracks 1-11 recorded at the Palace Theater, New York, February 24, 1952.
