Twinkly
but unblinking
Lorraine
Feather sings
one of her
wickedly
interesting
numbers at
Catalina's in
January, 2002.
It
would be quite enough
if Lorraine
Feather stuck to writing,
like her late father, the
jazz critic for the Los
Angeles Times. Her stuff
glitters and gleams and
makes you think of Dorothy
Parker or Nora Ephron.
And even those two might
have trouble writing a hip
little ditty such as the one
she dedicated to the painter
Paul Cezanne and set to the
Fats Waller number,
"Smashing Thirds."
You did
suffer
But got
tougher
An old
duffer, brave in your gloom
Like
the poster in the dining
room.
Nice word choices, there,
and a most unusual subject.
Now try singing the thing,
at 90 miles an hour, with a
trio behind you that allows
no rest or deviation. Let
your audience hear and
understand every word,
follow every phrase, even
though Shelly Berg is
pounding out stride piano
and Greg Field is
whip-stroking the snare drum
and bass player Chuck
Berghoffer is making it
never stop moving.
Feather dealt with all
this without flinching,
making every note sing, and
keeping her voice sweet as
Doris Day and hip as Ella
Fitzgerald.
But
she deployed more than craft
and
chops. She brought to bear
her little girl charm, an
unforced intimacy that kept
the audience in the palm of
her musicianly hand. And
that wasn't easy because the
house was full.
But the material she's
written was hard to resist,
no matter how civilized its
bearing in the rock stained
heart of Hollywood.
Lines like this one from
the song "Too Good
Lookin' " ring loud in
Tinsel Town
Now
that you've risen to
glory
on your
camera-friendly cheekbones
You
don't get into makeup for
less than 20 G's.
Or these, from
"Timeless Rag"
She
walked in wearing a timeless
rag
The
band was playing the Viper's
Drag
I
looked at her and she looked
through me...
Or
these, from "New York
City Drag," about
a departed lover
New
York is strange
A
little unkinder
It wore
your smile back then
Put that kind of
wide-worldly stuff together
with a roaring trio, a
do-anything voice, and a
twinkly but unblinking soul,
and you've got a combination
that might even be a big pop
success at a moment like
this when the vocalists are
getting sharper than ever.
A
bit of deviltry shows more
often than once.
