I think I've got "That Holiday Feeling" now!

     I've never understood the demise of the Bing Crosby/Perry Como/Andy Williams-type of Christmas special.  They were special (the only time all year you'd see them); they were cost-effective (a few wintry sets with fake snow and lots of candles), and they were straightforward (a hour of singing songs of the season).  They always happened in December (no matter how early Thanksgiving came!), they manged to evoke Christmas memories from kids from one to 92 (whether they had memories to evoke or not), and, most importantly of all, they signaled that Christmas was indeed coming.
      Well, just that signal has been sent by Playhouse on Park with their cabaret That Holiday Feeling that closed this afternoon.  Directed and choreographed by Darlene Zoller, with musical direction by Colin Britt, the show intentionally and successfully brought back a flood of memories of my own watching Bing and Perry and Andy with my parents in the 60s and 70s.  (Confession: I always wanted to be Nathaniel Crosby).
     Singing a wonderful collection of familiar and not-so familiar songs, the talented cast of nine performers manged to be sentimental and funny and lyrical and sweet without ever becoming saccharine (or succumbing to the times' seemingly inescapable need for irony).
          Highlights:
               Kevin Barlowski's funny "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
               Dante Jeanfelix's energized "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"
               Jenna Levitt's "River" (a song new to me, and, while not a new favorite, sung wonderfully)  
               Rick Fountain's mousy performance of "Rockin' Around the Christmas 'Cheese'" (despite not being able to sing most of his other numbers due to laryngitis)
               the male quartet of Kevin, Dante, Rick and Colin on the very witty pseudo-union-protest song "Elf's Lament"
and my personal favorite of the afternoon
          Becky LaBombard's "Christmas Stays the Same" (another song new to me but one that captured the show's ethos so perfectly and delivered with such warm sincerity that I wanted it to be reprised at program's end instead of the title song).
     These favorites should in no way suggest that remaining cast members (Carolyn Bell, Carolyn Cumming, Hillary Ekwall, and Victoria Thornsbury) somehow didn't deliver on such winning tunes as "Santa Baby," "Man Wanted," "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, and "I'll be Home for Christmas, respectively, but, if every number's a highlight, then none is, of course.
     In sum: from start to finish, my younger daughter and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously and wished, as we were leaving the theater, that it had been snowing.  Bing, after all, would have wanted it that way.
     Here's one vote in favor of a Playhouse on Park cabaret becomes a holiday tradition.      

Sinatra: No (X-)mas! No (X-)mas!

On Tuesday, 23 December, I did my annual WFCS Christmas radio show on "Frank, Gil, and Friends," during which I played a good chunk of Sinatra's official Christmas albums from Capitol and Reprise Records.

While I'm a huge Sinatra fan (why else would I have hosted a Sinatra program for the past 15 years and published two books?), I've never warmed to his post-Columbia Christmas recordings.

To put it bluntly, they ain't Bing (or even Andy Williams, for that matter). Only yesterday's show brought out the "why" to me. Unlike almost everything else he recorded (and, most certainly, unlike his very best songs), I don't believe a word he's singing.

If, as is commonly believed (and, to my mind, as is correct), Sinatra's remarkable strength as an interpretative performer comes from telling stories through his songs, and if, in doing so, he makes his audience believe he's telling those stories to each of them alone, then way too much of A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, arranged by Gordon Jenkins (1957), Twelve Songs of Christmas (with Bing Crosby and Fred Waring) (1964), and The Sinatra Family Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas (1968), sounds as if he's reading a phonebook into a megaphone on Main Street. Almost none of the recordings, and certainly none of the traditional hymns or carols he recorded in the '50s and '60s, is subtle, sincere, or intimate...which may be a tall order for any singer, but he IS Frank Sinatra, so it should NOT be too tall an order for him.

Aside from "Mistletoe and Holly" and "The Christmas Waltz," both written specifically for him, the songs come off stiff and stagy: too somber to be enjoyed (much less joyous), not heartfelt enough to be heartwarming, or too kitschy to ring true. The frequent choral arrangements don't help the intimacy, but, even alone, he never actually convinces me that it matters whether "All ye Faithful" actually come or whether "It" indeed "Came Upon the Midnight Clear."

His recording for Columbia Records in the '40s fare far better, perhaps due to his more angelic voice and swell Axel Stordahl arrangements, but Sinatra seems equally comfortable balladeering -- e.g., "Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)" -- and swinging -- e.g., "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

Most importantly, however, the proof that they work is plain: I believe.