Release : Audra McDonald - Happy Songs
Artist : Audra McDonald
Album : Happy Songs
Genre : Jazz
Source : CDDA
Label : Nonesuch Records
URL : http://audra.spaceyplum.com
Date : 09-17-2002
Encoder : LAME 3.97 / -V2 --vbr-new
Quality : 159kbps 44100 kHz Joint Stereo
Tracks : 14
Time : 43:55 min
Size : 50.10 MB
1 Ain't It De Truth? 3:16
2 Tess's Torch Song 3:58
3 I Must Have That Man! 3:32
4 Bambalele 1:28
5 I Wish I Were In Love Again 3:02
6 Supper Time 2:51
7 Ill Wind 5:04
8 Beat My Dog 2:18
9 On A Turquoise Cloud 3:24
10 More Than You Know 3:34
11 See What I Wanna See 2:13
12 He Loves and She Loves 3:44
13 I Double Dare You 2:24
14 Lose That Long Face 3:07
Audra McDonald's third album may be called Happy Songs, but the cover -- on
which she is depicted in sepia tone, inserted into a photograph from the 1940s,
dolled up in period getup, and looking like she's waiting for a train --
suggests that the title is intended ironically, a suggestion further documented
by a perusal of the songs on the back cover, which include Irving Berlin's
anti-lynching ballad "Supper Time" and Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's "Ill Wind
(You're Blowin' Me No Good)." The former song is associated with Ethel Waters
and the latter with Aida Ward, while the leadoff track, "Ain't It de Truth?,"
was introduced by Lena Horne, and "I Must Have That Man!" was first sung by
Adelaide Hall, all predecessors of McDonald as a black female musical theater
star. By singing their songs, she embraces that heritage, and by singing so
well, she demonstrates that she is their equal. But she also addresses the work
of white female stars like Dinah Shore, who introduced "Tess' Torch Song," and
Judy Garland, whose arrangement of Rodgers & Hart's "I Wish I Were in Love
Again" is updated here, and she holds her own with them, too. Happy Songs is an
affectionate look back at a more extravagant era of entertainment when women's
emotions (as written for them by men) were expressed powerfully, and these songs
explore the range of those feelings. The choices are sometimes daring, such as
the wonderful, but long-forgotten Freddy Martin hit "I Double Dare You" from
1937, which McDonald handles with frenetic energy, and, stepping out of the
long-ago past into the recent days of nightclub novelty, Jay Leonhart's song of
comic romantic complaint, "Beat My Dog." Such numbers demonstrate that these can
be "happy songs," even when the sentiments are less so.