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The living, breathing sound of swing
Peggy Lee and "Fever' at the Prince
Steve Cohen
Fever, recently touring at the Prince Music Theater, was a smart pairing of a tribute to the late Peggy Lee and a career retrospective for the 82-year-old jazz pianist/singer Buddy Greco. A bonus surprise was the singing of Greco's wife, Lezley Anders, who has mastered the Lee songbook and copied her wardrobe. Another pleasant surprise was the presence on stage of a 13-piece swing band, larger than one gets at Broadway shows these days.
The production's two aspects were deftly interwoven, and the result was more entertaining than most musical tributes. It helps that Greco and Lee were friends, and that both launched their careers with the Benny Goodman band. (Greco was pianist and vocalist with Goodman during the band's final three years as a touring dance band, ending in 1951.) Firsthand personal reminiscences about Lee add warmth to the show.
Greco and Anders alternated in singing tunes associated with Lee's career, and Greco added songs that he popularized during his decades as a recording artist and club performer. An especially effective transition came when Anders did a Lee composition from the Disney film, The Lady and the Tramp. Then Greco announced that he, too, had a tramp song, and he played and sang his up-tempo arrangement of Rodgers & Hart's The Lady is a Tramp.
Other shows trade in nostalgia, but this one possesses a rare authenticity. (I use the present tense because the production will continue to tour.) Not only are all the songs from an earlier era, but so are Greco's arrangements.
His career blossomed in 1947 with his first hit, Ooh, looka there, ain't she pretty. Contemporaneously, fellow musicians like Charley Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and the Billy Eckstine band introduced progressive jazz and be-bop, with unexpected, dissonant riffs. But Greco refrained from joining that school. Even in 1947 he was retro, and in this show every run on the piano and every chord by the orchestra sounds as if it was written before that date. Which is fine with me. What you hear from Greco is the living and breathing sound of swing and jazz as it existed in a golden age.
Greco hasn't been back to his native Philadelphia in a long time. Normally he can be seen entertaining at a 60-seat nightclub bearing his name near Palm Springs, California, but he's booked to return to the Prince Theater next season.
The production's two aspects were deftly interwoven, and the result was more entertaining than most musical tributes. It helps that Greco and Lee were friends, and that both launched their careers with the Benny Goodman band. (Greco was pianist and vocalist with Goodman during the band's final three years as a touring dance band, ending in 1951.) Firsthand personal reminiscences about Lee add warmth to the show.
Greco and Anders alternated in singing tunes associated with Lee's career, and Greco added songs that he popularized during his decades as a recording artist and club performer. An especially effective transition came when Anders did a Lee composition from the Disney film, The Lady and the Tramp. Then Greco announced that he, too, had a tramp song, and he played and sang his up-tempo arrangement of Rodgers & Hart's The Lady is a Tramp.
Other shows trade in nostalgia, but this one possesses a rare authenticity. (I use the present tense because the production will continue to tour.) Not only are all the songs from an earlier era, but so are Greco's arrangements.
His career blossomed in 1947 with his first hit, Ooh, looka there, ain't she pretty. Contemporaneously, fellow musicians like Charley Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and the Billy Eckstine band introduced progressive jazz and be-bop, with unexpected, dissonant riffs. But Greco refrained from joining that school. Even in 1947 he was retro, and in this show every run on the piano and every chord by the orchestra sounds as if it was written before that date. Which is fine with me. What you hear from Greco is the living and breathing sound of swing and jazz as it existed in a golden age.
Greco hasn't been back to his native Philadelphia in a long time. Normally he can be seen entertaining at a 60-seat nightclub bearing his name near Palm Springs, California, but he's booked to return to the Prince Theater next season.
What, When, Where
Fever! The Music of Miss Peggy Lee. January 15-18, 2009 at Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. (215) 569-9700 or www.fevertribute.com.
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