Happily,
there are a number of artists keeping the Great American Songbook alive, but
parts of those standards are falling into disuse. We still get to hear those hummable,
catchy choruses, but many verses have all but disappeared from regular
performance. Molly Lyons tried to reverse the trend with her 1964 debut LP, Verses Only that was exactly what it
sounds like. It was quite pleasant, but not surprisingly, she is mostly
remembered today as the wife of guitarist Joe Puma. Jennifer Sheehan does not
go that far, but she includes many verses you might not be familiar with in her
Songbook concert launching the premiere season of 66th & Broadway this Friday night on New York’s
Thirteen, recorded live overlooking Lincoln Center traffic on Manhattan’s fashionable
Upper Westside.
Sheehan’s
set opener “All the Things You Are” is a perfect example of how the initial
verses can help a performer make a tune their own. This is a tune many of us
know so well from Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie, but initially we can’t
place “Time and again I’ve longed for adventure.” Sheehan takes it at a slower
tempo, but it is a lovely interpretation.
Tracing
the development of the American Songbook, Sheehan proceeds to rewind back to
what many scholars consider the first canonical American popular song, the
Sophie Tucker hit, “Some of These Days.” Again, the opening verses might throw
some listeners, but Sheehan attacks the chorus with appealing sassiness.
In
appropriate cabaret-style, Sheehan often incorporates her life story into the
show, explaining each standard’s personal meaning to her. “How Long has This
Been Going On?” made quite an impression on her when she heard Andrea
Marcovicci perform it at an early age. Similarly, she first encountered Cole
Porter when performed with a youth ensemble. After a somewhat perfunctory
melody, she segues into the serious Porter business with an achingly slow and
sensitive rendition of “In the Still of the Night.”
She
sings “I’ll be Seeing You” as a showstopper in a similar vein, explaining its
transformative effect when she performed it for the Alzheimer’s ward of a
nursing home. Indeed, Sheehan shows a remarkable grasp of each tune’s dramatic
possibilities. Although nearly half her set was penned about one hundred years
ago, she widens her focus to include contemporary songwriter Susan Werner’s
jazzy “I Can’t Be New,” which is a nice change-up in her program.