|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
If two smile buttons were to meet and fall in love, their ideal wedding music might be the ebullient pre-swing jazz churned out by the singer and pianist Daryl Sherman with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks (a band frequently heard on Woody Allen soundtracks). "The Park Avenue Whirl," their collaboration at Feinstein's at the Regency, resurrects a pop-jazz style synonymous with simplicity and joy. Performed in an authentic period style, the propulsive sounds of 1920's and 30's jazz are among the happiest effusions of American music.
It would take a book to answer the question "why?" As the Great Depression was deepening, why was the music so joyful? Was it merely a means of collective escape? Or did it express an underlying awareness that even in hard times the foundation of modern American pop was being laid?
Those are large questions, but the fact remains that this exuberant early jazz is idyllic in a way that seems poignant in light of today's shameless pop bellyaching and self-promotion. This is a style synonymous with group cooperation, self-restraint and tightly reined instrumental virtuosity.
Ms. Sherman and Mr. Giordano's band show that the songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington and lesser-known composers sound fine stripped of psychological subtext and harmonic depth and turned into peppy foxtrots, with their lyrics' good humor heavily emphasized.
Ms. Sherman, who suggests a reincarnation of Mildred Bailey, never met a song she couldn't infuse with a swinging optimism. Neither a probing interpreter nor a sophisticated vocal technician, she is a believer in the simple pleasures. And good clean fun is what "The Park Avenue Whirl" provides in abundance.