To Their Maker, Impeccably Shaved

From the Music Vault Dept.: I noted last week that I seize upon anniversaries as excuses for these postings, and today is no exception. Twenty-five years ago, my review of a then-new recording of “Sweeney Todd” graced the pages of Metroland Magazine, the Albany-area alternative newsweekly at which I held a far-too-long sinecure. But I got away with writing things I never would have sold as easily anywhere else.

                                                                           

WITH MANY OF THE MAJOR ORCHESTRAS cut loose from their decades-old contracts with recording companies, there’s a scramble to achieve a presence in the CD stores. Self-publishing is an option being mined successfully by a few, chief among them the New York Philharmonic. Their latest release skirts the over-recorded symphonic repertory to present a fresh look at Stephen Sondheim’s almost-operatic masterpiece “Sweeney Todd,” giving a depth and perspective to the piece that wasn’t achieved by the otherwise admirable original cast recording.

It’s a project that might have been perfect had baritone Bryn Terfel not been sidelined from the recording; as it was, George Hearn, in good voice and well-versed in the role, stepped into the title role and did well by the part, although he tends to resort to yelling when the going gets exciting. Although Angela Lansbury left an indelible stamp on the role of Mrs. Lovett, here Patti LuPone does an exquisite job with the bloodthirsty part. 

In fact, it’s a triumph all around, the handpicked cast working together splendidly. Met Opera bass Paul Plishka is a standout as Judge Turpin, but that puts him only slightly ahead of the rest. If you’ve only heard the original cast recording, you’re in for another treat: That set was the victim of the LP’s limits; the two CDs of this set contain practically the whole show, dialogue and incidental music included. Even material that was cut from the original Broadway run.

Fifteen Years

I’M SHOCKED TO REALIZE that I’ve been maintaining this blog for fifteen years (not to the day, but close). Its original purpose was to help me get work, because I allowed me to point editors (or whomever) to stuff I’d written in order to back up my claims of being able to write fairly well.

Although I began ambitiously posting a piece per day, taking Saturdays off, so to speak, by posting photos of mine, that ambition slackened over time. I cut down to two posts per week and now, one. It feels as if I’ve mined everything in my files worth exhuming, although I know that there’s much, much more. Restaurant reviews alone seem endless, although they’re of lessening value as prices rise and eateries close. I dashed off any number of concert and theater advances – pieces to promote an upcoming event – which means that, unless there’s a compelling interview attached, those too have grown obsolete.

Looking over those early postings, which I dread, I see that it took a while to find my footing in this realm. I had thought of concentrating on food, given the thirty years I spent reviewing restaurants and my own phagomaniacal leanings, but I was dismayed to discover a plethora of food bloggers, each mirroring the last, each with a grinning self-portrait and chirrupy bio, each forcing you to slog through a megillah of adjective-laden crooning larded with photos of ingredients, procedures (don’t those sauté pans glisten?), and wondrous finished products before finally dropping you onto the recipe itself. I can’t compete with that level of self-promotion.

The Fable of the Visitor Who Got a Lot for Three Dollars

George Ade Dept.: I’ve heard no reports of an uptick in sales of George Ade’s Fables in Slang despite my promotion of those wonderful works in this column. Of course, you can download an e-book from Gutenberg or get a print-on-demand copy through that online behemoth – but I’m happy to keep supplying you. Newspaperman Ade hit pay dirt when he dreamed up these fables, and once his first collection of them was published, he was able to take a lot of that pay dirt to the bank. llustrations by Clyde J. Newman

                                                                          

THE LEARNED PHRENOLOGIST sat in his Office surrounded by his Whiskers.

Now and then he put a Forefinger to his Brow and glanced at the Mirror to make sure that he still resembled William Cullen Bryant.

Near him, on a Table, was a Pallid Head made of Plaster-of-Paris and stickily ornamented with small Labels. On the wall was a Chart showing that the Orangoutang does not have Daniel Webster's facial angle.

“Is the Graft played out?” asked the Learned Phrenologist, as he waited. “Is Science up against it or What?”

Then he heard the fall of Heavy Feet and resumed his Imitation. The Door opened and there came into the Room a tall, rangy Person with a Head in the shape of a Rocky Ford Cantaloupe.

Aroused from his Meditation, the Learned Phrenologist looked up at the Stranger as through a Glass, darkly, and pointed to a Red Plush Chair.

The Easy Mark collapsed into the Boarding-House Chair and the Man with more Whiskers than Darwin ever saw stood behind Him and ran his Fingers over his Head, Tarantula-Wise.

Moscow on the Mohawk, or Hooked on Russia

From the Food Vault Dept.: This review, which I'd wanted to share much earlier, turned out to be hiding in a computer directory where it shouldn’t have been, another example of glasnost gone wrong. The night of this visit was more memorable than the piece suggests. True, we eschewed dancing to the loud, bad disco music played by two loud instruments and a rhythm box, but the party of twenty that filled up the room became increasingly boisterous, insisting that we join their table (we didn’t) or at least join them in a vodka toast – which we did, but only because they convinced us that their friends in the kitchen were not going to send out our food until we did so. Not surprisingly, the restaurant closed not long after this review appeared, but that closure surely was in the works already.

                                                                                            

LATER, TRYING TO RECONSTRUCT THE EVENING, my wife and I had trouble ascertaining just what it was that pushed it all over the top. The big birthday party, to be sure, and the Russian disco band. The mini-skirted, satin-bloused waitresses added an entertaining touch (and the worry that Schenectady’s fleshaphobic mayor might try to close down this place). Then there was the formidable menu, sporting such unusual items as schti, which our waitress wouldn’t describe because the kitchen was out of it, so why bother?

The current occupant at this address.

Troika – the name refers to the team of three horses that pulls a traditional Russian carriage – occupies a building that went through a few incarnations as Indian restaurants, interrupted by a stint serving Korean food. To put a Russian restaurant there is a delightful idea. The location does seem to be a kiss of death, though.

So my first question would have been about that location. Unfortunately, my follow-up phone calls to manager Ella were unsuccessful. She was too busy with customers to talk one day, which is a good sign; but she couldn’t honor our phone appointment the next day, however, because “she’s having some trouble with the boss,” the phone-answerer whispered, explaining, “I’m just a friend who stopped by to visit today.”

The Old Song and Dance

From the Theater Vault Dept.: Despite my lifelong Lloyd Webber antipathy, I felt inclined to like this show just on the basis of its unusual concept. And I’m a great fan of good dance. But this one turned out to be yet another Lloyd Webber show, and reading my review of it again after all these years (the piece dates back to 1987), I now understand the root of that antipathy. It was a high-school trip to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Broadway. I was a senior, and at last had a girlfriend – or so I thought. We sat together on the bus heading into Manhattan, and were adjacent in the theater. But I was by then picking up this-ain’t-gonna-last vibes, and, sure enough, it didn’t. I couldn’t blame it on her – I loved her, with what must have been terrifying first-relationship fervor. I was too self-centered at that point to blame myself, so I had to blame someone. I blamed Lloyd Webber.

                                                                                                 

Melissa Manchester

“SONG AND DANCE,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that began a week’s run at Proctor’s Theatre Tuesday night, presents us with a dilemma that is all too characteristic of the contemporary musical-theater stage: Bimbo comes to the city, is too stupid to maintain a successful social relationship, gets mean, regrets it, and acts stupid again. Curtain.

The two acts are divided according to the title: the first is sung; the second, danced. Emma is a Brit who comes to New York to make a success as a hat designer. But, until she gets her green card, she makes time with a succession of mercurial men, culminating in a short-lived affair with a married man from Westport who wants to leave his wife and kids for her. So she dumps him.

Cooking with the Beekman Boys

From the Library Dept.: Here’s a ten-year-old book review of mine that I never thought then to post on this blog – so here it is, still, I hope, timely, as the recipes and cooking tips in the book described below aren’t likely to go out of date. The piece originally ran on the now-defunct website knowwhereyourfoodcomesfrom.com. 

                                                                                   

IT’S NOT SURPRISING that a cookbook from the Beekman Boys would be a classy, useful tome: everything they present they present with commendable style. The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook collects over a hundred recipes, nicely described and beautifully photographed (by Paulette Tavormina), arranged by season and encouraging you to make the most of what’s available nearby.

Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell fled (more or less) the wilds of Manhattan to live in the wilds of rural Sharon Springs, NY, on a two-centuries-old farm where they quickly began raising goats and tomatoes, an effort chronicled in a television series that helped establish their renown. Kilmer-Purcell has written best-selling memoirs; husband Ridge is a physician who spent a few years as Vice President for Healthy Living for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. It’s no surprise that their Beekman 1802 brand has become synonymous with good taste. And the food products taste good. Quite good.

Can you achieve a similar result with their recipes? The book, co-written with Sandy Gluck (former food editor for Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine), is quartered into seasons, with each season further divided into courses. Spring’s starters, for example, include a dandelion salad and asparagus torte, with a main dish of lamb burgers with cucumber-yogurt sauce. There’s a starter of a cucumber cooler for summer, whose main dishes include stuffed peppers with fresh corn and a grilled summer squash pizza. And jumble berry pie (with blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries) for dessert.

Sitting on the Dock of the Boggs

 From the Recordings Vault Dept.: Every so often, while browsing through my files, I find a piece that I wrote on spec, or possible, as I suspect is the case with this one, for Metroland. That publication liked to stockpile a cluster of CD reviews and run them some weeks later. If this one ever ran, I have no idea. But the recording it describes is a foundational set for a collection of true American roots music.

                                                                           

EVERY NOW AND THEN a small, seminal stream of music bubbles up amidst the roar of the pop machinery. Thanks to a recent Smithsonian-Folkways re-release, we can again hear the voice and banjo of Virginia-born Dock Boggs, who recorded a series of LPs for Folkways in the mid-60s after working in obscurity in Kentucky coal mines for 44 years.

His repertory comprised songs learned from relatives and recordings, typically old songs that already had transformed in the re-singing, transformed again by Boggs during his early years of playing and singing, and changed once more when he prepared them for these recordings. Old songs like “John Henry,” “Pretty Polly” and even “Turkey in the Straw,” along with many tunes that Boggs assembled from bits of verse and music.

They’re played in a deceptively simple style – typically, Boggs accompanies himself by playing the melody against a style called up-picking, only rarely using the more boisterous clawhammer style. And his singing voice is reedy and strident, wailing with nasal intensity through one mournful ballad after another.