# CD review: Dick Hyman & Ken Peplowski – Counterpoint 2019: Video, Photo, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/12/19/cd-review-dick-hyman-ken-peplowski-counterpoint-2019-video-photo-cd-cover/
- Published: 2019-12-19T19:46:39+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**In the 1950s, everyone knew Lerner and Loewe’s music: songs such as “On the Street
Where You Live_,” “_Gigi_,” “_The Rain in Spain,” and “They Call the Wind Maria_.”_**

The tunes were instantly memorable, and they seemed to be everywhere, on the screen
as well as on original cast LPs, reaching homes where little other music penetrated.
Many of us will remember the film _Gigi_, where Maurice Chevalier — via his regionally
indistinct French accent and with a twinkle in his eye — sang “Thank Heaven for 
Little Girls_.” _(The girl in this case was the beautiful French actress Leslie 
Caron, who didn’t look little to my preteen eyes.) And some will remember the shock
when Julie Andrews was not chosen for the movie version of the part she made famous
onstage in _My Fair Lady._

Several of Lerner and Loewe’s musicals, _Gigi_ as well as _My Fair Lady_, have an
international flavor. No wonder. Frederick Loewe was born in Austria in 1901: his
father was a renowned tenor, who originated the role of Count Danilo in _The Merry
Widow_. Viennese operetta had a considerable effect on American musical theater.
As a counterweight to Loewe’s cosmopolitanism, Alan Jay Lerner was born in New York
City 17 years later. Together, of course, they famously wrote _Brigadoon,_ _Paint
Your Wagon_, _Gigi_, and _My Fair Lady_. Their partnership foundered in the ’60s
while they were writing _Camelot_, yet that hit show gave the name to the age: John
F. Kennedy’s brief period as our president.

_My Fair Lady_ became an unlikely jazz vehicle thanks to West Coast drummer Shelley
Manne who, with Andre Previn at the piano, featured its score on an August 1956 
album. They did so fast on the heels of the show’s opening. It was a remarkable 
stunt, one is tempted to say, but also remarkable musically. It was also a surprising
commercial hit that spawned a series of such jazz recordings. In January and February
of 1957, pianist Billy Taylor teamed up with arranger Quincy Jones to create a subdued,
cool jazz version of the musical which they called _My Fair Lady Loves Jazz_. In
March of that year it was the hard bop drummer Art Blakey’s turn: with Bill Hardman
on trumpet and Johnny Griffin on tenor, Blakey played the Loewe melodies, but quickly
forgot them, turning the music into unlikely hard bop romps. Blakey’s recording 
was as rough around the edges as Quincy Jones’s was smooth: pianist Sam Dockery 
seems to lose himself temporarily on _On the Street Where You Live _and one or two
of the endings are haphazard. In January 1958, trumpeter Shorty Rogers made his 
record, _Gigi in Jazz,_ four months before Andre Previn recorded _Gigi_. Oscar Peterson’s
_My Fair Lady_ came in 1958, followed by _Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and
Loewe_, a delightfully sensitive and lyrical take on various Loewe compositions.

Perhaps most of these musicians were chasing after the success of Manne’s _My Fair
Lady_, but taken together they form a neat little corpus of jazz recordings. The
trouble was, according to Emily Altman, president of the Frederick Loewe Foundation,
which sponsored the two new Arbors discs featuring Loewe songs, the buck stopped
there, in the late ’50s. (OK — Nat King Cole sang _My Fair Lady_ in 1963.) Several
of the team’s songs have since become jazz standards: I have around 30 versions 
of “Almost Like Being in Love” in my collection, including recordings by Charlie
Parker, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, Nancy Wilson, and much more recently, Brad 
Mehldau. Rollins, Stan Getz, Bobby Hutcherson and many others have recorded the 
team’s other standard, “If Ever I Would Leave You_.” _Much of the rest of Lerner
and Loewe has been neglected by jazz players. One is infinitely more likely to hear
a Gershwin or Arlen tune in a local club than anything by the creators of _My Fair
Lady_. Perhaps the problem was that the songs were so finely tuned to the dramatic
situation of the plots. Perhaps it’s also the lingering sentimentality in scores
like _Brigadoon_, in which a guy falls in love with a girl and a town that only 
appears every hundred years or so. Yet somehow the lovers get together in a sublime
example of long-distance dating.

The new Arbors discs are intended to bring Lerner and Loewe back into the jazz mainstream.
We will see what happens. But what wonderful music these two groups have produced!
Adrian Cunningham is a saxophonist and clarinetist who spent months studying the
Lerner and Loewe corpus before deciding on his sequence of tunes. He is accompanied
by one of the most celebrated groups in contemporary jazz: the Fred Hersch trio 
with John Hébert and Eric McPherson. On two numbers, Cunningham and trio are joined
by trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, with Randy Brecker contributing to a couple of tracks
as well. (Maybe Cunningham is a revivalist at heart: his earlier record, also with
Wycliffe Gordon, was _Ain’t That Right: The Music of Neal Hefti_ for Arbors.)

![](https://i0.wp.com/artsfuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Yousuf-Karsh-Alan-
Jay-Lerner-and-Frederick-Loewe-1959-1897x1960.jpg?resize=600%2C503)

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Photo: Yousuf Karsh.

Cunningham’s opening number on his Lerner and Loewe project is a hushed, intimate
version of “Say a Prayer for Me,” from _Gigi_, which he plays with sweet expressiveness,
accented by the occasional leaping flurry of notes, on clarinet. (The original lyrics
are partially humorous: the suppliant sings, “On to your Waterloo, whispers my heart./
Pray I’ll be Wellington, not Bonaparte.”) The delights of the Cunningham rendition,
indeed of the whole recording, include the solos — and even the beautifully nuanced
introductions — by Fred Hersch. Cunningham begins a bouncy “I Could Have Danced 
All Night” by himself over drummer McPherson. Then Gordon plays the second A section
on trombone, with a bit of a flourish. They go on together, with Cunningham yipping
in a momentary stop time, and then playing fluently, and Gordon growling and muttering
humorously in the background. Hersch’s ensuing solo is a lyrical marvel.

Cunningham is equally accomplished on tenor, clarinet, and flute, and he changes
the sound of each instrument to fit his ideas about the songs. One of Julie Andrew’s
celebrated numbers, “Just You Wait,” is played on flute. At first a little threatening,
the song begins with a stop-and-go rhythmic pattern by bass and brushes, with Hersch
eventually entering stealthily behind them, like a sly cat. It’s an appealing arrangement.
Randy Brecker joins the band on a delightful “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”_: _he
takes the first solo in a swinging 4/4. Brecker is also on “They Call the Wind Maria_,”
_which they play swiftly, as if to forestall the sentimentality with which this 
song is usually performed. Somehow, with Wycliffe Gordon aboard, they transform “
I Was Born Under a Wandering Star” into a funk number. It’s one of many small surprises
on a beautifully accomplished album.

The duet album, _Counterpoint: Lerner/Loewe_**, **by veteran pianist Dick Hyman 
and clarinetist Ken Peplowski, is altogether a wilder affair. To some extent, it
was planned by Hyman, who said, “I prepared our project by arranging chorus-or-so
versions of the Loewe melodies, which we could use as basic concepts to launching
our improvs.” Those improvs are remarkable. The two  play, for instance, a jaunty
first chorus of “I Could Have Danced All Night_,” _followed by a chorus or so of
Peplowski’s clarinet, followed by the two engaging in a variety of accompanying 
techniques, including a walking bass.

That’s just the beginning.  Soon—and this happens repeatedly on this disc—they are
engaged in a bout of exquisitely nuanced parallel play, both improvising in joyous
sympathy with each other’s lines. At one point, Peplowski stops, to take a breath
perhaps, and Hyman plays a little figure that the clarinetist immediately imitates.
It’s like someone suggested a new subject for a conversation. Peplowski states the
melody of “Show Me” soberly, although he interjects a few bird-like high notes where
we wouldn’t expect them. “Follow Me” is another remarkable duo improvisation: midway
through, the performance almost stops on its previously gay path, and suddenly seems
to wander quietly. These two practiced musicians are inventing bravely throughout,
while reintroducing us to lesser known songs such as “I Talk to the Trees” and “
A Jug of Wine_.”_

01. Waitin’ for My Dearie (from Brigadoon)
 02. I Could Have Danced All Night (from
My Fair Lady) 03. They Call the Wind Maria (from Paint Your Wagon) 04. Gigi – Tenor
Sax (from Gigi) 05. Gigi – Piano (from Gigi) 06. I Talk to the Trees (from Paint
Your Wagon) 07. Almost Like Being in Love (from Brigadoon) 08. Follow Me (from Camelot)
09. On the Street Where You Live (from My Fair Lady) 10. You Haven’t Changed at 
All (from The Day Before Spring) 11. Show Me (from My Fair Lady) 12. If Ever I Would
Leave You (from Camelot) 13. A Jug of Wine (from The Day Before Spring) 14. Thank
Heaven for Little Girls (from Gigi)

**Arranged By – Dick Hyman**
 **Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone – Ken Peplowski** **Piano–
Dick Hyman** **Written-By – Lerner & Loewe**

![Image result for Dick Hyman & Ken Peplowski - Counterpoint"](https://i0.wp.com/
images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/717KpuMNN2L._SL1400_.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

### _Related_