Sondheim Meets Jazz in a Standoff

Expert performers at UCLA refresh occasionally overrated material
by Tony Gieske

"We wanted to send you out at intermission with a twinkle in your eye and with your toes tapping," the master of ceremonies slyly told the audience after guiding them through the emotionally unpredictable first half of a program called "Sondheim & Jazz: Side by Side."

Many laughed at the incongruity. "Right," said Charles Kimbrough, the "Murphy Brown" guy who served as MC. "This is Stephen Sondheim, right? So this is the best we could do." With that, Jackie Cain and Dianne Reeves launched into "Every Day a Little Death," a dour number from "A Little Night Music."

It was a reasonably lighthearted version of this formally intricate song, a song that exhibited one of the difficulties of the otherwise exemplary evening. "Death" has a promising sophisticated topic, about the terrible cost a love affair exacts on the female self, but like much of Sondheim, it's just not as good as it sets out to be.

The contrary was true of the night's singers: Cain is still light and silvery, wielding the kind of sound Joan Baez could never quite get, and Reeves cuts just as fine but with a steelier blade.

She was nice to Cain and did not try to destroy her with her crusher chops, the chops that had already made mincemeat of "I Remember" from "Evening Primrose" and would later serve up "Liaisons" on a silver platter in the post-interval doings.

And Reeves was not the only performer whose sleeve bulged with technique. The estimable Maureen McGovern whacked 'em pretty good with "Sooner or Later," which would have been a showstopper in "Dick Tracy" had that show ever gotten moving, and brought a standing ovation in this one.

Tossing her signature blonde pageboy, Cain and her dapper partner Roy Kral, 50 years of mutual toil under their belts, contributed a dashing "Not a Day Goes By," interweaving their feathery counterpoint as of old. The muscular Kurt Elling was pitch perfect on "Not While I'm Around" and leisurely turned over those double whole-note vowels like he was roasting birds on a spit.

Vocalist and vice president Gary LeMel more than held up his end during an emotional "Somewhere," and top-ranking instrumentalists such as saxophonist Jeff Clayton, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and clarinetist Eddie Daniels delved with great success into the purely melodic aspects of the Sondheim repertoire, sometimes soloing, sometimes comping.

After intermission, pianist Billy Childs, who has few peers as an accompanist, treated the melody of "I Have a Love" with fatherly understanding in a solo turn, growing it into a mighty leafy oak in the time allotted. But a succession of less-accomplished instrumentals allowed enthusiasm to wane. And the latest Broadway sensation Lea DeLaria proved sensational but crude as she scatted naively on "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd."

The cast returned to the stage en masse to close this fascinating show with the title track, an asymmetrical version of "Side by Side" led by Cain and Kral, who were to this manner born. The fascinating thing was how the weaknesses of the material, so derivative of Brecht and Weill, were exposed and then overcome by these splendid musicians.