Hoagy Carmichael, Indiana-born, referred to himself as someone with “Wabash fog and sycamore twigs in my throat,” and described his typical movie role as a “hound-dog-faced old musical philosopher noodling on the honky-tonk piano.” Much of his song output had a laid-back, easy-going quality—numbers such as “Skylark” (lyric by Johnny Mercer), “Lazy River” (music, except the verse, by Sidney Arodin), “Ole Buttermilk Sky” (lyric written with Jack Brooks) “Georgia on My Mind” (lyric by Stuart Gorrell) and his most enduring piece, “Stardust” (lyric by Mitchell Parish). It was that “Hoagy style”—warm-hearted and relaxed—that wove itself through the 92^nd Street Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists finale for this season, featuring Carmichael’s prodigious output.

With Ted Sperling, Broadway Music Director and conductor, as host and narrator, the show featured four top-flight performers: Laura Marie Duncan (South Pacific), the robust Capathia Jenkins (Caroline, or Change), Clarke Thorell (Hairspray), all Broadway veterans, and the young tap dancer/singer, Kendrick Jones. While all were in consistently fine form, Thorell displayed a delightful versatility, whistling through one song and, on another, accompanying himself on the banjo. The arrangements by Jeffrey Klitz, who served as pianist and conductor, were happily true to Hoagy’s folk/jazz spirit.

Sperling, as narrator, was informative, literate and amusing. As a singer, he fared reasonably well when his voice was buried within group numbers but, in slow, solo selections, tended to wobble off pitch. A high spot of the show was Carmichael himself, on film, performing his “Hong Kong Blues” from To Have and Have Not.

An era is about to end. L&L’s artistic director, Deborah Grace Winer, announced that next season, after 40 years of focusing on individual lyricists, Lyrics & Lyricists will enlarge its canvas and present varied works from the Great American Songbook.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
June 6, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org