Songbook, September 2014 (9/29/14)

As a reminder, Songbook is a series of performances of music written by up and coming Broadway/theater composers and lyricists. Monday evening was the opening concert of its 24th season. I’ve only been aware of it for the last five or six years; it is a series that I try to keep my eye on, however.

The songs of Douglas Lyons and Ethan Pakchar were on display here. Compositionally, I liked what I heard, with a few caveats. The musical ideas I found very appealing. Not so much the vocal writing/performing style. It was heavily jazz/rock/R&B tinged which, to me, leads to a lot of distortion of the texts. And if the texts aren’t coming through loud and clear, the message is not making it. Some of this could just be me, as the audience ate up the entire concert.

Mr. Lyons, a musical actor, is currently in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical; Mr. Pakchar is, I believe, currently a pit musician (guitar), but I’m not sure of which show. Mr. Lyons writes both music and lyrics while Mr. Pakchar crafts the music and orchestrations, though I’d bet there’s more teamwork than those brief descriptions let on.

Monday night we heard songs from their debut CD #Love (Live), Unexpected Bliss (a musical currently being worked on), and Five Points (also a musical currently being worked on).

I started by taking notes on each song but then just gave over to listening. Not Meant to Be in Love, from Unexpected Bliss, had a Latin rhythm and was almost patter song–like in style. There were a lot of words crammed in there. Also from Unexpected Bliss, Gold seemed totally original to me, beginning as a slow tempo jazz ballad and then building.

Two songs from #Love (Live) were next, with Let Go having, according to my notes, really good music. The Sexy Song reminded me of a coffee house cum jazz lounge feel and included real backup harmonies.

Favorite Song, from Five Points, purposely had a Billie Holiday/Eartha Kitt style. Beginning with the sixth song I was beginning to lose more and more lyrics, and that seemed to hold true throughout the rest of the show. One more song from Five Points had “the Bordellas” as a Greek chorus behind a Madame from a bordello—a cute idea that worked well. And that’s really the extent of my note taking.

The duo rounded up a great deal of talent for the performances of their songs, including Lillias White, Christine Dwyer, Ashley Blanchet, and others currently on the boards, or recently involved in other theater projects. There was a lot of talent—writing, playing, singing—I just wish I could have heard, understood, and, well, ‘gotten’ more of it.

But as I said, the audience thoroughly enjoyed it, especially because of the powerhouse performances. You’ll be hearing more about Songbook from me in the new season.

ConcertMeister