The Songbirds Archives

Rosemary Clooney:
Clap Hands! Here Comes Rosie!
BMG (BVCJ-7470), Japan, 1998

Reviewed by Ted Naron, Chicago Illinois

Rosemary Clooney has recorded over a longer time than almost any other singer - from the forties to the present. With some luck she might continue recording into the next century. But this 1960 RCA Victor disc dates from her very best period, the mid-fifties to mid-sixties. Unlike before, her voice had matured into its full individuality; unlike after, she could do anything she wanted with it.

The magic of Rosemary Clooney is the way the very sound of her voice simultaneously encompasses joy and melancholy. Even in her happiest rendition there is a slight catch in the throat that portends sadness; even at her saddest there is almost always a sprightly sound way at the edge of her voice that bespeaks a humor that will get her through. Other singers might give you both sides of the coin, but not at the same time; some, like Doris Day, might bring a sunniness to just about everything (delightfully so in her case). Rosie at her best gives you light and shade, and a 3-dimensional sense of life, all at once.

This disc finds her paired with a big band plus about a dozen voices, male and female, arranged and conducted by Bob Thompson. What could have been only a gimmick actually works well, because of the strength of Thompson's conception. The instrumental writing is airy and spare; in fact, while there are saxophones on the date, the saxes don't play as an ensemble at any point in the thirteen tunes. The trombones and trumpets do, but usually in smallish combinations, quite often with mutes. All this creates lots of space for the larger-than-usual rhythm section (including the great Jimmy Rowles on piano) to peek through. It also allows the vocal chorus to be used quite intelligently, singing sustained wordless notes that fill a harmonic and rhythmic function that might have ordinarily been given to saxes or strings.

Thankfully, despite the title of the disc, the chorus actually hand-claps only on what were the side-openers of the program when in its original LP format (tracks 1 and 7 here).

A startling example of the happy/sad Clooney duality occurs no later than track 2, Rube Bloom's Give Me the Simple Life. The cut begins, unconventionally, with Rosie singing the bridge of the tune: "a cottage small is all I'm after," etc. In this most upbeat of all songs, Rosie actually manages to invest that line with near-complete hopelessness! You can just about hear her saying, "Yes, doesn't sound like much to ask, does it? Yet even this tiny shred of happiness will elude me all my life." Soon enough, when the "A" section of the tune kicks in with the rhythm section, hope breaks through the clouds. Each emotion is made richer by the presence of its opposite. In a subtle and almost indescribable way Rosie gives you that duality inside every note she sings.

The more familiar tunes on the album avoid sounding tired here (thanks in part to the freshness and frequent humor of Thompson's arrangements) and there are a number of seldom-heard ones that are refreshing, the great Burke-Van Heusen song Aren't You Glad You're You among them. (Van Heusen wrote a surprising modulation in the second eight of the "A" section - one that for all its unexpectedness feels inevitable. Clooney of course handles the key change with aplomb, getting maximum value out of the emotional lift it supplies.)

Some great West Coast jazz players back up Clooney on this date, several of whom solo in spots. Throughout, the presence of the aforementioned Rowles is felt importantly, and especially on Hooray for Love on which he plays some delicious obbligatos behind the vocal.

Incidentally, for you history buffs, Thompson put out a record under his own name the same year as this one also featuring the voices-as-instrumental-choir concept. It's called Mmm, Nice and sports a "classic" cheesecake cover.

1. Clap Hands! Here Comes Rosie! (Rose-MacDonald-Mayer) / Everything's Coming
Up Roses (Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim)
2. Give Me the Simple Life (Rube Bloom)
3. Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon-Henderson)
4. Aren't You Glad You're You (Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Heusen)
5. You Got (Bernard)
6. Too Marvelous for Words (Richard Whiting-Johnny Mercer)
7. Something's Gotta Give (Johnny Mercer)
8. Hooray for Love (Leo Robin-Harold Arlen)
9. Mean to Me (Turk-Ahlert)
10. Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' (Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein)
11. It Could Happen to You (Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Heusen)
12. Makin' Whoopee (Gus Kahn-Walter Donaldson)

For more information on Rosemary Clooney, visit the Unofficial Rosemary Clooney Fan Page