LETTERS FROM 'NAM

July 2 to July 15,
rehearsals/workshop
prior to World Premier at
North Shore Music Theatre
Beverly, MA
September 4 - September 23

JAZZ REVIEW

'Sondheim and Jazz': Sidemen by Sidemen by Sondheim

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

When you consider the music of Stephen Sondheim with its melodic elegance and harmonic bravery, it's astonishing that so few jazz musicians have integrated it into their repertories the way they have the songs of Gershwin, Rodgers, Berlin and Porter. Among jazz vocalists, Sarah Vaughan's extravagantly lush embellishment of "Send in the Clowns," which she elevated into a late- career showstopper, stands as a singular and dazzling exception. But why should that be?

Some reasons were suggested by "Sondheim and Jazz: Side by Side," a demure, often anemic concert potpourri of the composer's music presented by the JVC Jazz Festival on Monday evening at Carnegie Hall. For one thing, Mr. Sondheim, unlike his forerunners, grew up one generation removed from swing. As much as his songs may incorporate rhythmic experimentation, most don't obviously lend themselves to a jazz-ready, four-on-the-floor back beat. Many of Mr. Sondheim's greatest songs are waltzes, which unfairly or not, lend them a quaint European tinge in the minds of many American jazz musicians.

Mr. Sondheim's lyrics are also problematic for jazz singers. With their psychological density and tricky internal rhymes, they have the integrity of finished poems and leave less space than simpler lyrics might for freewheeling personal interpretation. . . .

The vast majority of the performances hovered closer to the pop end of the pop-jazz spectrum, while others brought out the composer's classical affinities. For creamy vocal beauty, Nnenna Freelon's carefully wrought renditions of "I Remember" and "Children Will Listen" and Maureen McGovern's pristine "Anyone Can Whistle" (a duet with the clarinetist Ken Peplowski) stood out. Kurt Elling's "Sunday," expanded with modernist harmonies (by his pianist and arranger Laurence Hobgood), coolly examined this impressionistic hymn to color as though turning it under a jeweler's
lamp. . . .

Read review at : New York Times

THE 36 CITY CAMI TOUR - FEBRUARY 22 - APRIL 8, 2001

Featured music from the Great American Song Book and MORE...

The McGovern/Pizzarelli tour visited 36 cities and presented 38 concerts.
The Tour Bus traveled~ 9027 Miles and was on the road 170+ hours
That's 24/7 days on the bus...
Whew!

MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO MADE THIS TOUR SUCH A SUCCESS!

April 6, 2001
Jazz: Performers sing it and swing it in style

BY GEORGE KANZLER
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

Morristown - For Maureen McGovern, the John Pizzarelli Trio and the members of the big band touring with them, it was No. 35 of a whirlwind 39-show bus tour.

But as show No. 1 of two in New Jersey (the second is Saturday at the Union County Arts Center in Rahway) it was very special to Pizzarelli, who grew up in Paterson and Saddle River.

Making it even more special was the presence of the guitarist-singer's father and mother, as well as assorted cousins, aunts and uncles, in the audience at the Community Theater in Morristown on Wednesday night. And since John just happened to have an extra seven-string guitar (the kind both he and his dad play) on stage, Bucky Pizzarelli graciously accepted an invitation to join his son on stage for two guitar duets.

McGovern, the Broadway/cabaret singer with affinities for jazz, came with her own big band, but at the end of the show she also did three duets with John Pizzarelli, and they were the climactic highlights of a very entertaining and musical show.

Teaming McGovern, with her multi-octave range and virtuoso, high-octane voice, with Pizzarelli's more mellow, laid-back vocal style could have been problematic, to say the least. But the two found common ground in a jazzy camaraderie exemplified by their opening duet, "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," accompanied by Pizzarelli Trio members Ray Kennedy, piano, and Martin Pizzarelli (John's brother), bass. The two singers traded the easy-going verses (long associated with Bing Crosby and a host of duet partners), with just the right amount of casual flair.

McGovern was at her personal, intimate best singing "You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me" in a minimal duet with Pizzarelli's accompanying, caressing guitar. And for a finale, the two were joined by the big band for a retooling of "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It," famously known as "Mr. Paganini" when it was a tour-de-force vehicle for Ella Fitzgerald. For this tour, it became "Mr. Pizzarelli," as McGovern and Pizzarelli sang, scatted and played can-you-top-this? in a funny, good-natured version of a jazz cutting contest.

It wasn't the only time memories of Ella Fitzgerald were evoked during the concert, nor was Ella the only legendary jazz diva remembered. McGovern was at her swingingest in a surprisingly effective update of Fitzgerald's first hit (with Chick Webb's big band in 1938), "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," the singer scatting along with the band as well as swinging the lyric. In a completely different vein, McGovern turned into a husky-toned vamp to do Peggy Lee's signature song, "Fever."

McGovern also unlimbered her jazz technique on "I'm Late," taken at a ferocious clip, scatting along with the big band passages as well as bouncing the lyrics, with perfect diction, across the whirlwind beat. She was just as effective as a jazz/cabaret romantic, doing bittersweet Rodgers and Hart gems like "This Can't Be Love," "It's Got To Be Love," "I Wish I Were In Love Again" and "It Never Entered My Mind."

A singer who may be a bit too proud of her stylistic breadth, McGovern also ranged through some of the more operetta-like Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers like "My Favorite Things" and "How Are Things in Glockamora," the latter done a cappella, sans microphone, at the lip of the stage.

The Pizzarelli Trio's opening set featured the group's deft, smoothly intricate small-group swing versions of standards, many of them associated with the similarly constituted (instrumentally), Swing Era Nat "King" Cole Trio, as well as an affecting new love song penned by Pizzarelli and his wife, Jessica Molasky, "DaVinci's Eyes."

And as in any John Pizzarelli appearance in the Garden State, there was also that unofficial, and gently satiric, state anthem, "I Like Jersey Best," done in the extended version that includes hilarious parodies of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Lou Rawls, the Beach Boys and others doing the song. Pizzarelli's talents as a comic singer-impersonator were also on display with McGovern, when she asked him to do his Dylan doing "Always" during their duets, as well as his dead-on takes on Tony Bennett and Harry Connick Jr., the latter replete with wicked snores.

The Star-Ledger

Thursday, April 5, 2001
McGovern, Pizzarelli jazz it up at

By Peter Landsdowne
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE REVIEWER

WORCESTER-- Singer Maureen McGovern and singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli put the finishing touches on the sixth annual Mass. Jazz Festival Tuesday night in Mechanics Hall with an inspired duet on “Mr. Paganini,” which drew the second standing ovation of the evening from an appreciative crowd of more than a thousand jazz fans.

Pizzarelli garnered the first standing ovation of the night at the end of his superb opening set with his own trio. Best known for her pop hit “The Morning After,” Ms. McGovern is not generally regarded as a jazz singer. But that perception could change if she continues to move in the direction that she established Tuesday night. Backed by the five brass, four saxophones and rhythm section of the Big Band Swing Orchestra, the singer showed a familiarity with several classics from the American songbook, and the ability to perform challenging material from the jazz realm.

Her opener, “I'm Late,” was just such a piece. The song comes from the White Rabbit's histrionics in “Alice in Wonderland,” but in Ms. McGovern's bold and brassy interpretation, the novelty tune became a jazzy anthem that displayed her uncanny ability to sing in unison an octave above the lead trumpet. Elsewhere in her well-received set, she revealed an in-depth understanding of the music of Rodgers and Hart, especially during a superbly sung medley of “This Can't be Love,” “It's Only Love” and a swinging “I Wish I Were in Love Again.” Ms. McGovern was also in fine fettle on a sultry “Fever” that had her belting out the lyrics to the Peggy Lee hit, and she invested Harold Arlen's “Blues in the Night” with the same steamy heat. Her unaccompanied version of “How Are Things in Glocca Morra” drew applause, but really didn't have the emotional impact of the latter two songs. Additionally, Ms. McGovern's rendition of the obligatory “The Morning After” seemed out of place in a jazz set. The singer redeemed herself on a lilting jazz waltz version of “My Favorite Things” and a burning “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead” from “The Wizard of Oz.” . . .

Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Sunday, April 1, 2001

McGovern pays homage to masters
by Robert Nesti
Boston Herald

Maureen McGovern and John Pizzarelli, Symphony Hall, Friday night.

Mention Maureen McGovern and many people think you're speaking of the subject for a segment of VH1's ``Where Are They Now?'' Yet this '70s pop star, best known for introducing ballads from movies (``The Morning After'' from ``The Poseidon Adventure'' was her biggest hit), segued to a career as a superb song stylist equally at home in the theater, cabaret and the concert stage.

But it was her jazzier side that she emphasized at Symphony Hall Friday night where she performed with guitarist/singer John Pizzarelli and a 15-piece swing band in a concert sponsored by the FleetBoston Celebrity Series.

She opened with homages to two female jazz greats: Peggy Lee (``Fever'') and Ella Fitzgerald (``A Tisket, a Tasket''). Later, she scat-sang her way through a delightful take of Harold Arlen's ``Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead,'' as well as trumpeting through another Arlen standard, ``Blues in the Night.''

Her success rests on how perfectly she balances her considerable vocal instrument, which at age 51 shows little sign of wear, and her interpretative skills as an actress.

Nowhere was this better realized than in a segment devoted to the music of Richard Rodgers, whose centenary is to be celebrated next year. Noting that Rodgers worked with lyricists more diverse than Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein, she demonstrated their differences with a medley of Hart's tart observations on the foibles of romance, followed by a swinging version of Hammerstein's sentimental ``My Favorite Things.''

The first half of the concert featured Pizzarelli, a genial, talented jazz guitarist who offered a set of familiar standards and lesser-known tunes.

Pizzarelli, the son of jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, was joined by his brother Martin on bass, and jazz pianist Ray Kennedy

Boston Herald

By ANDREW McGINN
News-Sun Staff Writer

Somebody tell K-Tel it has some competition. Maureen McGovern and John Pizzarelli are walking, talking, scatting compilation albums.

During the first of a two-night stand Friday at the Clark State Performing Arts Center, the two showcased 70 years of vintage pop in just over two hours.

From Gershwin to Rodgers, “Songs You Never Get Sick Of” was the night’s theme.

Performing separately — Pizzarelli first, then McGovern with a big band — they each provoked the same thought: Where have all the good songwriters gone?

Ain’t nobody scribing tunes like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” these days. Period.

Thankfully, we have these two to keep the great American songbook from dying.

. . .McGovern, in her third appearance here, picked things up with the big band.

Dig that jazzy rendition of “Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead” from “The Wizard of Oz” — it would have made any right-minded munchkin want to boogie.

It was another “Oz” selection, though, that made the entire show — “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” performed without the band and without a mike.

P e r f e c t i o n.

Friday, March 23, 2001 - The Ann Arbor News

McGovern better after 'Morning After'
By CHRISTOPHER POTTER
News Arts Writer

. . .how does one compete with McGovern, one of the greatest living scat singers and one of the world's greatest living slow-drawl torch singers? How does one share a program with an artist whose vocal chords can span three octaves with the sleek power of a Porsche accelerating from zero to eighty?

Backed by Kennedy's Big Band Swing Orchestra, McGovern - whose cozy audience repartee is second to none - was sultry as can be on Peggy Lee's "Fever," then ravishing on a Rodgers-and-Hart medley that included a sudden octave leap that was sheer vocal gymnastics on "It's Got to be Love."

Like any great singer, McGovern gives great songs their emotional due. Both singer and actor on "It Never Entered My Mind," she looked from the inside-out to give Hart's lyrics ("I wish that you were there again/To get into my hair again") a profound pathos.

She launched into Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Hello, Young Lovers" a capella at such an intimidatingly high key that one held one's breath wondering whether she would make it to the final, mountain-top note. She did, of course, sans so much as a quaver. . . .

This puckish Ohioan loves to spring surprises, as when she sang the lead-in to "Over the Rainbow" with full orchestra, then suddenly lowered her microphone and sang the song without instrumentalists or augmentation - and drew the biggest ovation of the evening. . . .

Michigan Live - Ann Arbor Edition

Music Review: Maureen McGovern
By ROBERT EISELE - Special to The Star
Date: 03/17/01

From the syncopated scat of a radical reinterpretation of "Alice In Wonderland's" "I'm Late" to a sweetly sublime a capella of Broadway's "How Are Things In Glocca Mora," singer Maureen McGovern was the master of all she surveyed Friday night at the Carlsen Center's Yardley Hall.

Though she burst onto the national consciousness nearly 30 years ago with her back-to-back Oscar-nominated songs from a pair of vintage disaster movies, the singer's richly melodic voice has matured as she graduated from self-described "disaster theme queen" to show tunes and jazz.

Backed by a 15-piece band under the sure hand of musical director Ray Kennedy, McGovern moved from the distinctive jazz influences of Ella Fitzgerald in "A Tisket, A Tasket" to the more melodic strains of composer Richard Rodgers.

Noting the disparity in temperament of Rodgers' writing partners, the singer segued from the brittle sophistication of the songs written with Larry Hart ("This Can't Be Love," "Wish I Were In Love Again") to the cockeyed optimism of his legendary pairing with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein.

"They couldn't have been more dissimilar," McGovern noted of the hard-drinking Hart and the gentle family man Hammerstein. "For Larry, the glass was always half-empty, both literally and figuratively. But for Oscar, it was always half-full."

The singer thoughtfully book-ended Rodgers and Hammerstein's scathing indictment of racial intolerance "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" from the score of "South Pacific" with truncated phrases from Stephen Sondheim's cautionary "Children Will Listen" from "Into The Woods." It was an inspired juxtaposition that worked both musically and thematically.

The musical theater tunes flowed on, with a glowing "Hello, Young Lovers" and an up-tempo, jazz-inflected "My Favorite Things," both demonstrating McGovern's ability to breathe new life into old material.

A register-hopping version of "Ding-Dong, The Witch Is Dead" offered a new slant on the Munchkin victory march from "The Wizard of Oz," followed by a supremely visceral "Blues in the Night" -- both from the versatile hand of composer Harold Arlen.

Guitarist John Pizzarelli, whose trio offered up a solid opening set of jazz tunes, returned at evening's end to join the headliner for "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" and "Getting To Be A Habit With Me," providing a satisfying coda to an eminently enjoyable, stylistically diverse sojourn through some of the treasures to be rediscovered in the American songbook.

The Kansas City Star

Mar. 15, 2001
Evening of jazz a treat at Emens
By Bradford Meyerdierks
The Star Press

MUNCIE - Entering Emens Auditorium on Tuesday evening, you could sense a special jazz ambiance as the lighting showed a dimly lighted blue stage with a deep purple tinge on the curtains.

The John Pizzarelli Trio ‹ Pizzarelli (guitar); Ray Kennedy (piano), and Martin Pizzarelli (bass) entertained fantastically, featuring songs by Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Irving Berlin.

The guitarist continually acknowledged his audience throughout the performance. Pizzarelli joked, smiled and played as the rest of the trio's fingers flowed with flurry.

...After intermission, Maureen McGovern entered with plenty of energy. Most of her vocal numbers were either sexy and sultry or just plain fun. She sure could spit out those scat-improvised sections scattered throughout the scale. The youthful, versatile (all-male) Big Band Swing Orchestra complemented her well. ...

Mar. 11, 2001
Jazz singers McGovern, Pizzarelli fill evening with magic, high jinks

By Paul Hyde
STAFF WRITER
Greenville News

Fine jazz singers are such a rarity these days that it was a sheer delight to hear two of the best Saturday evening at Greenville's Peace Center.

Maureen McGovern and John Pizzarelli presented a concert of torch songs, Broadway tunes, smoky ballads and other old standards — all delivered with style and aplomb.

Backed by a 12-piece band, McGovern moved effortlessly from pop tunes to scat singing to mellow standards, emphasizing especially the songs of Richard Rodgers (with both Hart and Hammerstein) and Harold Arlen.

She opened the show with a lively "I'm Late" from "Alice in Wonderland." Then came a sultry "Fever," with echoes of Peggy Lee.

McGovern also offered a silvery "Hello Young Lovers" from "The King and I" and a poignant "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" from "South Pacific."

Throughout the show, McGovern displayed tremendous vocal and emotional range. Torch songs and ballads were balanced with some musical high jinks — as when McGovern and Pizzarelli engaged in a lively "scat duel" on the Ella Fitzgerald hit "Mr. Paganni."

There was also at least one moment of pure vocal magic: Setting aside her microphone and with all lights dimmed, except for a spotlight, McGovern offered a heartfelt, a cappella rendition of "Over the Rainbow."

McGovern also was an engaging conversationalist, noting her nickname of "Disaster Theme Queen." She earned the moniker as a result of her popular recordings of "The Morning After" (from "The Poseidon Adventure") and "We May Never Love Like This Again" (from the "Towering Inferno.")

She sang a soaring "The Morning After," noting that its theme of hope seems even more relevant today than 33 years ago when it first jumped to the top of the pop charts.

The Greenville News.

Review
Goody, Goody ... glory hallelujah' and tons of thanks to the Charleston Concert Association for bringing Maureen McGovern and her Big Band Swing Orchestra and John Pizzarelli and his Trio to The Charleston Music Hall
Friday night.

Pizzarelli, tall, dark and youngish opened the evening with electrifying, jazzy guitar playing and a voice perfectly suited to songs from the popular American songbook such as Gershwin's 'I've Got Rhythm' (with Scat Singing not heard since the late Mel Torme), I'm in the Mood for Love' and one of his own songs, 'Da Vinci's Eyes,' that made you want
to hear the rest of the songs.

His brother, Martin, and an exceptional Jazz pianist, Ray Kennedy, completed the Trio. John Pizzarelli is one cool cat and chats with the audience as easily and with as much skill as he plays his guitar.

Maureen McGovern is in her prime. She can sing a sexy love song and make anyone young, or young at heart, wish everyone would just go away. When she sang 'My Mamma Done Told Me,' heads nodded and you just knew she
was telling you the way it really was.

McGovern and Pizzarelli came back for a great jam session to end this show of showy shows.

March 9, 2001

Maureen McGovern enthralls Sumter crowd
By Ivy Moore
The Item, Sumter, SC

Maureen McGovern is a vegetarian who travels with Spirutein and Soy Silk to sustain her energy — and she’s not afraid to talk about how the soy products prevent her hot flashes. In fact, she admits to being in “the last six months of my 51st year,” though her appearance and high-energy stage performance in Sumter Thursday night belie her having hit the half-century mark.

"...McGovern definitely reached the Patriot Hall audience with her a capella rendition of Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.” Sung without a microphone, as well, the wistful ballad held the audience rapt — not even a cough disturbed the moment.. . .

. . .McGovern obviously enjoys performing with jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli. “He’s a great musician and a lot of fun on the long bus rides. He’s a great guitarist and singer,” she said.

Pizzarelli opened Thursday’s concert with his trio, exhibiting an incredible talent and a pleasing voice and style reminiscent of Mose Allison and Michael Franks, with a little Sinatra thrown in. Either headliner could have brought down the house, but to see Pizzarelli and McGovern together was a treat unequalled for Sumter. Their closing duets — a scat challenge — were simply some of the best jazz around. . . .

. . .Those of us who were there will never forget the evening. To paraphrase one of McGovern’s own Gold Records, “We may never love (a performance) like this again.”

Thursday, March 08, 2001
McGovern's concert offers variety, spice
By Bill Egan
News-Journal Correspondent

PALM COAST -- An enthusiastic audience at Flagler Auditorium heard everything from a jazz trio to orchestrated movie themes on Tuesday night.

The highlight of the evening however, came when Maureen McGovern set aside the microphone and the orchestra their instruments. She moved to the apron of the stage for a stirring version of "Over the Rainbow." The audience was mesmerized as she projected her subtle shadings throughout the vast auditorium.

...The second half of the program began with Maureen McGovern singing a jazzy "I'm Late" from "Alice in Wonderland." This was a madcap version never imagined by the film's Mad Hatter.

She was backed by the 12-piece Big Band Swing Orchestra, led by Kennedy of the Pizzarelli Trio. Her set was filled with great nostalgia and featured a number of songs by Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Harold Arlen.

McGovern's program covered a wide variety of styles from the sultry "Fever" and a torchy "Blues in the Night" to an a cappella "Hello Young Lovers" and a poignant "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" -- the latter interspersed with a few phrases from Stephen Sondheim's "Children Will Listen."

Her anecdotes between songs were interesting as she related memories of her reign as "Disaster Theme Queen." She first came to the attention of the public when she sang "The Morning After," the theme song from the disaster film, "The Poseidon Adventure."

Following her solo set, McGovern teamed up with Pizzarelli for a smooth rendition of "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," and "You're Getting to be a Habit With Me." Next they treated the audience to a "scat-duel" with the Ella Fitzgerald hit, "Mr. Paganini." In this case it became "Mr. Pizzarelli."

March 4, 2001

McGovern show softened Civic Center’s ambience a bit
By Anthony Westbury
Editors Notebook

"...Ms. McGovern was a delight, too. With a crystal-clear voice that might shatter glass given an opportunity, she has a stunningly accurate feel for scat singing. Her a capella rendition of "Over the Rainbow," without even a microphone, was breathtaking.

But I hope the people up at the back heard her. As close as I was, the sound was the best I’ve ever heard at the Civic Center. No boomy stuff, no painfully shrill treble notes clashing against the black-painted girders up above. Even the softest notes rang true. My congratulations, gentlemen, for some great sound."

Celebrity Songsters Belt Out Their Support for L.A. Music Center Social Circuits
By PATT DIROLL, Special to The Times

Two of the Music Center of Los Angeles County's leading support groups, the Fraternity of Friends and the Blue Ribbon, packed the Mark Taper Forum for "The Writer, the Singer, the Song," a gala tribute to American songwriters. The event, conceived by Academy Award-winning lyricist Hal David and his wife, Eunice, a longtime Blue Ribbon member, coincided with a meeting of the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in L.A.

" 'Rainy Days and Mondays' never get me down" said Paul Williams, who emceed the show Feb. 12, a rainy Monday. Works by Williams, Hal David, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, Cy Coleman, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and Jimmy Webb were featured.

Each songsmith shared his spin on the creative process that takes place. "I'd throw a dart at a map of the United States and wherever it landed, I'd write a song about it," said Jimmy Webb ("By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Galveston," "Wichita Lineman"). Cy Coleman ("The Best Is Yet to Come") began by answering the perennial question "What comes first, the words or the music?" with a quote from the late Sammy Cahn: "It's the phone call," he said.

When Bergman had a momentary lapse in his convoluted lyrics to "The Windmills of Your Mind" (written with wife Marilyn), he noted: "That's what happens when you write every other word." Hal David crooned his lilting "I'll Never Fall in Love Again."

And Mike Stoller of the team Leiber & Stoller ("Hound Dog") brought down the house with one love ballad titled "Humphrey Bogart."

Performers included Rosemary Clooney, Larry Gatlin, Sally Kellerman, Maureen McGovern, Helen Reddy and Dionne Warwick.

Following a standing ovation, out came the umbrellas for a dash across the plaza to a supper in the Grand Hall of Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Eunice David was co-chair along with Patty Wilson; Walter Grauman directed the event, which was sponsored by Sherry Barrat of Northern Trust and produced by Ronald Rosen and Karen Sherry."

February 9, 2001

Pop Singer, Comedian Are Offering a Valentine to Rodgers
By ROSEMARY CLANDOS, Special to The Times

Singer Maureen McGovern will join comedian Kaye Ballard Sunday at Cal State Northridge for a Valentine's Day tribute to the music of Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame.

McGovern's vocals will highlight Rodgers' compositions, and Ballard will supply the laughs and also play the flute in the afternoon and evening concerts.

"Richard Rodgers gave us some of the most enduring romantic songs," said McGovern, who has recorded 25 albums. "He was one of the greatest songwriters and melody writers we ever had. His music is timeless."

McGovern, whose career spans 28 years in concerts, theater, film and TV, will take audiences on a musical journey through two chapters of Rodgers' musical life.

"Some composers write for the feet and not the heart," McGovern said. "I look for songs that are for the heart."

McGovern calls "The Morning After," her top-selling hit of nearly 28 years ago, "the generic hope song." She still receives letters from listeners grateful for the song's positive message.

She plans to release an album in the spring concentrated on the power of music to promote healing.

"Sometimes the [lyrics] of a great song are specific enough, but generic enough, so people will read into them what they need in their lives," she said.

On the other hand, Ballard said some of the best healing comes from laughter.

"You have to have humor to get through life," Ballard said. "If you don't, it's very difficult."

January 22, 2001

McGovern shows her octaves
Unleashed: Singer performs Big Band era
Jen Graves; The News Tribune

Many singers refer to the thing in their own throats as "the voice," rather than "my voice." It's the Royal V.

Maureen McGovern doesn't, and it's almost blasphemy.

What an instrument!

She packed it into a scarf and carried it on the plane with her to perform with the Tacoma Symphony to a sold-out crowd at the Pantages Theater Saturday night.

And "Sing, Sing, Sing" is just what she did. She unleashed - though I could have taken more scat, more outrageously high notes, more showoff - her 41/2-octave coloratura soprano on the Big Band-era composers of the 1930s and '40s, including Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen and Ella Fitzgerald.

McGovern brought her own trio. But she was plainly the main event, and her jazzy voice masterfully, almost athletically, matched a blaring trumpet and a golden-burbling saxophone note for note, or beat for beat in harmony. You've heard a sax do a jazz solo, right? She sounds just like that - just as precise, just as controlled.

Richard Termine for The New York Times

Something to Remember Arthur Schwartz by: A Tribute by His Sons

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

. . .Maureen McGovern applied her perfect fluting high tones to "By Myself," "Make the Man Love Me" and "Dancing in the Dark,". . .

Read the complete review in the NY TIMES Click here

The Los Angeles Times Holiday Gift Guide has listed among the year's best family video and audio entertainment gift giving, DreamWorks' very fine biblical epic, Joseph: King of Dreams (with Maureen playing the role of Rachel, Joseph's mother) and "THE FANTASTICKS IN JAZZ" The Trotter Trio, - (with "Soon It's Gonna Rain" featuring Maureen on Vocal).

Thanks to everyone who has written and left guestbook entries!

Always for Da Diva,

Brian (Buddy) Daher

For previous news about Maureen, please click on Previous Latest News

Update12/2001