David Reiser
This was the penultimate Songbook for this season. David Reiser’s music (composer and lyricist) has an awful lot of energy. Many of the performers on Monday evening rocked back and forth, stomped their feet, and were very, very energetic. Maybe a bit too much, as it made the lyrics difficult to hear and understand.
Two of the fifteen songs presented were from Any Other Way, two were from Abey Baby, five were from Joni, one was from Dude, and two were from Static Electro. The other three were stand-alone songs.
Hey Rebecca (Any Other Way) had an interesting twist in that it was a duet by the same character at different ages in her life, and they were able to converse with each other. Kacie Sheik and Alison Luff did a good job with just the right amount of country twang.
I Got a Son (Abey Baby) was a cute, very high energy number performed by
Mr. Reiser. (As corrected from the stage, his name is pronounced “Reezer” and not “Riser”—I just thought you should know.)
Different (Joni) was performed by Karen Mason and may have been my favorite of the evening. In it, she’s providing advice to her son about how to provide advice to her granddaughter. Part of the reason I liked it is that it used piano only, instead of the guitars/electric guitars/drums that provided so much energy to the other songs. This one was the most straightforward at getting the message through, and Ms. Mason’s performance also played a very strong part of that. Along the same line, The Way We’ve Always Been (Joni) was a very nice father/daughter duet performed by Laura Dreyfuss and Dana Haynes (who was also the excellent pianist for the entire evening) that had some pleasant harmonies.
A stand-alone song followed. You Are Everything (Mom and Dad’s Song) was an unabashed love fest from Mr. Reiser to his parents, who were in attendance. Bobby Cronin gave a heartfelt performance.
Both songs from Static Electro, a techno musical that was far too techno for my taste, were once again so energetic that the songs themselves got lost, as far as I was concerned. And that pretty much sums up my feeling about most of the evening. Mr. Reiser is talented, but maybe with a little more fine tuning, the message will get across better.
On another note, I was joined for the concert by a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen for a very long time. I’m not sure that I made a Songbook convert out of him, but it was good to see him and then get a bite to eat afterwards. I’ll definitely attend the closing Songbook later this May.
ConcertMeister
No comments:
Post a Comment